ManageWP AMA’s are back for a new season and here to kick it off is editor of Post Status, Brian Krogsgard. Krogsgard has been covering WordPress news and trends full time since 2014, and in that time has created an entire community.
People asked about Krogsgard’s journey to WordPress journalism, the future of Post Status, his work/life balance, and more. Here are five takeaways.
Post Status Has Big Things In Store.
Krogsgard’s website has grown significantly since he devoted himself full time to it, but there is always room for growth. This last year, the site surpassed 700 members, he has nurtured a strong Slack community, produced a weekly podcast, and made the newsletter more consistent. However, he has big plans for next year.
Krogsgard is looking at adding a job board, publishing one public post a week on top of the newsletter, and start looking for contractors to add different points of view. It will be exciting to see where the website goes in the coming years.
The WordPress Ecosystem Is Growing Up.
In the last five years, WordPress has grown a lot, especially for businesses. More and more people are getting involved to start some kind of business. This makes for a more sustainable system.
“Almost every ad agency and dev firm in the world relies on WordPress far more than they give it credit for. I think they need to realize that and realize that there are so many ways for them to give back and get involved,” Krogsgard said. “WordPress is hugely influential in helping companies and organizations everywhere have significant web presences that go well beyond a “digital business card” as my old boss used to call it.”
Make Sure You End Your Day.
For many in the WordPress community, it can be hard to maintain a “normal” schedule. If you work primarily from home or often content people from different countries, it can be hard to turn off your work brain. Krogsgard points to setting an official stop time for the day to make sure he gets enough family time. After the birth of his son, finding specific work hours got more complicated. Krogsgard found himself up early with the baby, and awake late at night finishing work.
“I’m trying to stick to pretty strict work hours: 7:30-4:30 or so, with maybe 30 mins or an hour later in the night, but certainly not the long ‘in the zone’ sessions late at night that I used to be able to do. Now if I need to make up time I try to squeeze it into the quieter times of the weekend,” he said.
That said, there is no perfect way to manage a work/life balance, but you do have to separate your work day from your home or social day.
Create Content That Adds Value.
Krogsgard admitted he doesn’t have much of a writing process, but the one thing he considers before publishing anything is “Will this add value?”
“The number of words doesn’t matter. If it takes me 5 words to add the maximum value that content can add, I do not want to write 6 words. If it takes me 10,000 words, I want to write 10,000,” he said. “The only key component is that some percentage of my audience will see that article, read it, click the links within, digest the analysis, and be glad they did.”
Status Can Be Pronounced However You Want.
There has apparently been some dispute over how to pronounce the word status. Lucky for users everywhere, Krogsgard doesn’t care how you say it.
“Well, the American way is Post Status like Stat-us, but Joe and other proper English speakers say State-us, and it’s honestly much more pleasant. But I would be laughed out of the state of Alabama if I called my website Post State-us,” he said.
The new season of ManageWP AMA’s is set to go through the end of the year. Tune in next week for CEO and WordPress Architect at DerivX, Mario Peshev.
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