This week, WordCamp Europe Organizer, Partner at Human Made, and global nomad, Noel Tock, took over ManageWP AMA. Tock works remotely and has been nomadic for three years, but his proximity to the WordPress community remains close. He is working on a WordPress mobile app called Vienna, and is also the founder of Happytables, Nomadbase, Project Reality, and Game Artist.
Tock’s experience creating online products is extensive. He has a lot of expertise in not just the CMS, WordPress, but creating products and connecting communities through WordPress. Commenters asked a variety of questions about his prowess in the WordPress arena, as well as his travels, and WordCamp experience.
Here are the five takeaways:
Will WordPress’ make its way into the enterprise market?
Tock was asked how WordPress can overcome its bad rep. However, he said the enterprise space WordPress is trying to conquer isn’t hindered by its bad reputation, but the fact that the conversations within the enterprise market are brand new.
“There’s still a lot of work to be done for enterprise. It’d be nice if the consumer-success translated to board rooms, but there’s a lot more ground work to be done there as individual companies and as a professional community (sales, marketing, white papers, associations, etc.),” he said.
He’s still seeking the right home for WP Remote.
Back in November 2015, Human Made created a sort of ad to sell its WordPress management web app, WP Remote, due to its lack of attention.
“We’re still seeking the right home for WP Remote. What that means in practical terms is that WP Remote isn’t sold for parts (i.e. someone who just wants the domain/brand/etc.) but is instead acquired by a group who wishes to continue/enhance/build on it. The sale of ManageWP to GoDaddy highlights the need for aggregation and a single place of administering your portfolio of sites,” Tock said. “We’ll continue to run the WP Remote servers for the foreseeable future or till we find the right buyer.”
If you love something give it away.
Tock has built a lot of things over the course of his career. From creating his first website in 1995, to his part in building and selling WP Remote he learned the most important lesson, “If you love something give it away.”
“We built it as an internal need. We had a lot of websites to manage and wanted a better way of doing it. We’ve grown as an agency, so we don’t host the majority of our clients anymore (enterprise host themselves oftentimes), but where we do, the setup has become a lot more complex to the point that we likely wouldn’t trigger 1-click updates or other shortcuts,” Tock said. “Everything goes through staging/QA. If WP Remote is the consumer tool, we’ve built our own enterprise one once again (but it’s growing and still trying to figure out exactly what it wants to be when it grows up 🙂 ).”
Stay flexible to be on top of innovation.
Some questions were centered around Human Made’s growth and how it is measured within the company.
“From my perspective, growth has mostly been about extending/acquiring/developing talent (people with skill on a mission, whatever that mission is, they simply care deeply). Beyond that we’ve really been seeking bigger/more challenging clients and projects to pursue,” Tock said. “Many see us as a WordPress company, but we consider ourselves a technology company, staying flexible enough to stay on top of innovation.”
Tock has seen a lot of the world.
The self-proclaimed digital nomad couldn’t get away without answering some questions about his travel experience. The longest he has stayed in one place is a month, and if he had to be in one location for longer he would go with Japan, Southeast Asia, or Australia.
And when asked what helps him stay organized and focused while working and traveling, he simply said:
“Learn to work offline. You can either let poor wifi bother you, or turn off wifi, save some battery and get to work without wasting any time.”
The new season of ManageWP AMA’s is set to go through the end of the year.
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