In the span of seven days, I went from presenting design concepts to a room of Managuans to talking about distributed teams to a room of Winnipeggers. In my younger days I often wondered where my career would take me, but it was generally in metaphorical terms. Design, code and WordPress literally took me 3700 miles across the globe in a short week.

WordCamp Winnipeg kicked off Friday night at an Argentinian pizza joint. In the spirit of globe trotting, I was delighted to have Argentinian pizza in Canada. The food and beer were fantastic, but the company was really what made the evening special. Matt Wiebe, one of our near and dear former Triberians who is now an Automattician, was there as one of the hosts and organizers. In the early days of my freelancing career, Matt and I worked on many projects together – he often tasked with fixing my bad code and managing to make my designs coime to life somewhere near budget. In addition to Matt, Joey Kudish another favorite former Triberian cum Automattician had made the trip from his home in Vancouver. You know you’re in the right place when work trips = meeting old friends for beer.

WordCamp Winnipeg kicked off with a delightfully friendly introduction from organizer Don Betts. Traditionally, WordCamps have tended to focus on implementation strategies – whether they’re design, dev or business focused – they’ve generally got a how-to or a best-practices bent to them. WordCamp Winnipeg definitely continued that vibe with Peter’s Profiling WordPress Talk, Joey Kudish rocking Plugins 101, and Matt W’s Themeing 101 – but most interesting to me were the talks that differed from that model. Ian Stewart, someone whom I’ve always admired, opened the day with a personal story recounting his journey getting into web design and development. He hit on a mantra that is very near and dear to me, “Work Really Hard.” He spent all his free time reading, studying, and trying things. He shared all his work, and from that found more success. It was a wonderful way to open a conference, full of hope, optimism, and promise.

This was the second opportunity for me to see Peter’s Profiling WordPress talk, and I gotta say it gets better every time. The crowd was cracking up as he managed to find a way to talk about cacheing that not only kept me awake, but got laugh after laugh. If you haven’t seen it, it’s full of tips for improving the performance of your site and it’s got stuff for all skill levels.

Andrea Tetrault of Winnipeg Cycle Chick, and Tetro Design gave a fantastic talk on WordPress from the publishers point of view. She highlighted the impetus of,  growth, and opportunities that have sprung from writing her personal biking blog. It’s easy to lose site of the publisher’s role in this ecosystem as we focus on technology, interface, and business models. The value of writing, and the role of blogging were well represented here in Winnipeg, echoing themes that were well presented by Chris Ames and John Saddington at WordCamp Atlanta earlier this year (Chris’ talk in particular is one of my favorite conference talks of all time – Watch It).

Dave Pensato closed the day with a talk about where he sees the future of blogging. He asked incredibly big questions, and followed with some unique and interesting proposals. He also came back to this examination of the value of blogging. His ideas about how to approach social media, how to own your content, and how to build a true home on the web are really fascinating and I’m totally jazzed to see where he pushes them. This is a smart guy that I am going to be paying attention to.

All in all, a successful event. To future WordCamp organizers, the bookends – injecting some personal stories, and some bigger philosophical questions makes for a well rounded event. Love to see more of that.

It’s the night before our return departure from a weeklong business retreat in Nicaragua. I am excited to go home. I always am at the close of these trips – not because they’re not wonderful, but I’m a sucker for missing my wife, son, and stinky pooch.

This trip differed from many previous. We do this every quarter, and they’re generally pretty consistent. Where we usually drown in the minutia of spreadsheets, and ponder possible futures; this trip saw 22 hour code sessions, stress filled squables, and a strange and somewhat wonderous 2 days spent with Managuan developers at their inaugural WordCamp.

Retreats are often about clarity. It’s a chance to step back from our business and take stock of how it is impacting our lives, and what our intentions are for it. The drive from Managua to Rivas very clearly illuminated that clarity would not be on the agenda.

Nicaragua is beautiful. Surprisngly, it didn’t actually take long to escape the city. We dodged the hustle and bustle that comes with driving in a country that has less than strigent traffic laws, and quickly settled into our 2 hour road trip to Tola. We were delighted by the rambuctious rickshaws, and the aimless foals that wandered the sides of the streets. Steel sided shacks, and aged plaster buildings, once painted brightly, speckled the rural landscape, broken up on occaision by a small town defined only by an increase in density of the steelshacks and a fast food chicken place. I quickly fixated on a meme of documenting the many chicken joints that we would pass – Tip Tops, Narcy’s, Pollos Frit. A fun distraction.

We stopped for groceries in the city of Rivas. Visiting grocery stores in foreign countries is one of my favorite things. Pali, the Nicaraguan variety, was the smallest and simplest I’ve visited lacking in many of the packaged products that we had found in Liberia, Costa Rica last year. We grabbed some fruit, plaintains, sugared kids cereals, and a twelve pack of Tona – the local version of Budweiser. We didn’t stay long, and found the paved roads quickly gave way to gravel as we headed towards Tola and our beach destination.

It was this stretch of road where the level of poverty became hardest to miss. The rough roads often slowing us down, the lack of development highlighting the broken down homes that somehow managed to still stand – and be inhabited. Chickens, and pigs are all about. There are horses everywhere that stroll the streets casually, and cattle wandering where ever they please.

Everywhere, there are children.

They are always smiling, running, and playing. But often through trash lined gulleys, and homes that couldn’t possibly hold a bed for all that lived inside. I catch a glimpse of a naked boy, likely only a few months older than my own son. He’s playing in the dirt next to a small cot which is probably his bed.

The dusty roads, and sun soaked landscape, partched from the long dry season, give way to an ocean view. An ocean view that replaces the poverty view. Buena Onda – Good Vibes. Our home for the next week.

We work incredibly hard for the next seven days. The first day is 22 solid hours scouring many thousand lines of code. I am not an apologist for our businesses success. We acknowledge and appreciate the hand we were dealt, and strive to justify that headstart by doing good work in a respectful way. But I can’t shake the poverty out, it sits in the back of my head and makes it hard to focus on the task at hand.

We bicker and squabble. This is not uncommon for us. We’re opinionated and passionate people who trust each other enough to get snippy on occaision. We’re all more stressed than usual. Six months of overwork is starting to catch up with each of us. The tension is palpable, but it is broken and deflated with trips to the beach to surf.

The beaches are the things of Bruce Brown videos. A ‘crowded’ beach has a handful of people for every half mile of rich and sumptious black marble sand. Everyone seems tanned and toned, as waves at Popoyo draw dedicated surfers. Being neither taned, toned, nor a proper surfer adds to the out of body experience of it all. I successfully catch 2 waves the first outing. Earning each one by paddleing over, and often through the powerful white wash. Don’t picture me as Patrick Swayze – I’m barely to my feet on each one. But it is thrilling. Watching those who’ve dedicated their life to it from shore, surfing is graceful and even peaceful. It is very different from inside the wave. It roars around you. There is a single quiet moment. Right as the wave catches you. You are weightless. And then the roaring.

I’m able to video chat with Darice and Huck everyday. Seeing them, even choppy and pixelated, is wonderful. We’re not far enough into the technology for me to take it for granted. Huck overwhelms me with smiles when Facetime kicks in. He kisses the screen, and plays with the window that reflects back his own face. I’m not sure if he recognizes the face smiling at him as Papa or if it’s enough that I’m a goofy smiling face, but I choose to believe that he’s excited to see me. It’s Apple marketing at it’s finest.

We eat in a thatch covered dining room. The same two Nicaraguan women are at the counter and kitchen every day. It takes three days of my clumsy spanglish to get a smile. We get a mix of Nicaraguan food and typical American fair. One day I dine on a ham and american cheese sandwhich made on one of those triangular sandwhich presses I had in college, amazed that that piece of technology made it this far. The accents around us come from Europe, Australia, and Brazil – and of course there are more Californians beyond the two I brought with me.

I fall victim to the stomach issues that all travelers dread. My delicate American consititution not up for something that I took in. If Darcie had been with us, she certainly would have the hippie clay pills I poke fun at but so desperately need. The 24 flu actually serves as a nice break. It aligns with a random power outage through the whole area. The forced downtime gives us a chance to stop ‘doing’. The break from doing gives a chance to get past the stress bickering and we come out the other side productive and happy.

Our stay at the beach ends, punctuated by the first of the rainy season downpours. We make the drive back to Managua. Back to the city, back to work and WordPress and code and pixels. I’m not looking forward to it, spooked by a warning about the violence in Managua, and seeing our visit there as a distraction from peaceful focus on work that we found on the beach. We’re in Managua to participate in their inaugural WordCamp. This is one of many that I will attend and speak at this year: Atlanta; Minneapolis; Winnipeg; and Chicago.

Norman and his wife Doris pick us up at the hotel to bring us to dinner, but they need to stop off at home first. They are warm and inviting, and offer us a drink made of water, cocoa and cinnamon. Doris disappears to the back of the home seemingly to dress for dinner, and Norman wanders off leaving us to sit in their living room and take in our surroundings. It’s a modest home. It is at once open and airy, but also locked off from the rest of the city. There are a handful of mis-matched love seats, and small tchotchkes about. Norman is a sys admin, and sys admins are the same the world over. Laptops, cables, and drives cover a small desk. When contrasted with our own current search for a new home, where we debate over whether or not we need 2,000 square feet of space for three people, it leaves me feeling both lucky and wasteful.

We leave Norman’s for an asado – a traditional bbq. There we meet the rest of the organizers, and Karen Arnold the other American who has come to speak at the event. The anxiety of the day dissapates quickly. The people are friendly and warm. My lack of Spanish doesn’t seem to bother anyone. The food is delicious; a plate of grilled meats, rice and beans, and sweet plantains – one of my favorite foods. We all drink Tona, the beer of Nicaragua, and it is delicious and refreshing on the muggy night. Only 1-2 of the people there are WordPressers, which seems odd. They are all Debian folks, but each one references being involved with free software which is cool to hear. We bond over Drupal jokes, and tease the sys admins – the same things that happen at all WordCamps. Shane, always working, askes about needs and freelancing, while Peter just entertains with his big smile and goofy ways – stabbing two chunks of beef and dancing them across the table.

I’m speaking at the WordCamp. I hadn’t inteded or requested the opportunity, and my anxiety about not speaking the language kept me from being excited the morning of the event. Slowly but surely, a small crowd trickles in finally numbering about 60. I can follow enough of the presentations to know that they are detailed and smart. I make an internal commitment to giving my talk the same as I would in front of an english speaking crowd, but a short minute before I am to present, Karen sits down and tells me the organizer has asked her to translate for me. What would have been a 40 minute talk became a 17 minute stilted synopsis. It’s more of a Laurel and Hardy routine with Karen and I, but the concept gets across and I think that we come off as funny. I was able to include some screens that I knew were created by people who would be in attendence which prompts laughs and high fives.

There are handful of people in the audience who are obviously well versed in WordPress and if in the States would likely run or work at agencies we consider peers. Overwhelmingly though, it seems to be young people who are just curious. There is a father who saw an interview with Karen on TV and had brought his son – maybe 8 years old. The son fidgets with a phone, but is quiet and respectful for the entire afternoon. Shane runs through a heady presentation on using WordPress as a business in full Spanish. I know the content of the talk, even if I can’t follow along, and know that the message it contains is every bit as valuable here as at home.

After the event, we end up going out for Salvadorean pupusas and beer. Like any other conference, everyone seems relieved when it’s complete, excited to hang out and enjoy each other’s company without the anxiety of performance and organization hanging overhead. Being perfect hosts, they invite us for drinks and dancing after dinner but the three of us are done by that point. Cooked by a week of sun, socializing, work, and WordCamp, we find our way to the mall and grab tickets for the new Star Trek sequel. We close the week laughing to the “hablas klingon?” subtitles, suddenly finding the whole thing very funny.

All of our plugins are sold with a one-year license. That means that for one year from the date of purchase, you have access to plugin downloads, new version releases, and our premium support. You can sort of think of it as like a magazine subscription. After the year is up, you need to renew again to keep that same level of service.

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Developer. Front End Dev. Designer. User Interface Designer. Javascripterino. We all have a place in the WordPress ecosystem. We contribute to core, the plugin/theme repos, help out on forums and attend WordCamps. There’s a new kid at the pool, and he’s ready to mix it up a bit. The Amalgamator.

Making things easy… too easy?

WordPress lowers the bar for creating digital work. It began by lowering the bar for content publishing, and has grown to enable users with relatively low technical skill sets to create remarkably powerful websites. This is one of the key reasons it succeeds as a platform. This ability to take mere mortals and make them website creating superfreaks is its most promising attribute. They can buy hosting, and one click install. They can hit up Themeforest and grab one of a million themes. They can peruse the plugin repo and configure the crap out of a settings panel. They can crop a logo in Photoshop, and set hex colors for links. They bootstrap stuff together using whatever combination of plugins, snippets and duct tape that they can find.

They don’t know what they don’t know

Amalgamators don’t know PHP. They could browse the codex but not know what the crap it means. They certainly don’t know how to properly enqueue a javascript file. They know copy. They know paste. When something goes wrong, they come looking for your email, support forum, and twitter feed.

You and I may scoff at this skill set. If you’re in the deep end of the pool, these amalgamators seem like needy, whiny jerks with no sense of appreciation for your hard work. Think for a moment about how their friends, family, and clients see them. Remember the average person doesn’t know what an .htaccess file is and couldn’t give two shits about it. WordPress has enabled these Amalgamators to create incredibly powerful, beautiful, and feature rich web sites. “You’ve got an idea for a terribly doomed to fail Pinterest clone? Great, let me show you my dear friend BuddyPress and 15 different plugins and this $45 theme. You dream the dream, and I can make it happen.”

The Gall!

We may see that as hubris. But frankly, that’s besides the point. When we nerd out about WordPress taking over the internet, it’s these Amalgamators that are making it happen. They’re the ones supporting the premium theme marketplace, and the burgeoning plugin marketplace. When a corporate middle manager sees his grandmother rocking a WordPress blog, and he needs to pick a cms for that big budget upcoming gig, do you think he’s going to favor Drupal?

We can look down on these Amalgamators, and dismiss them as annoying noobs. But I see myself in them. I see people that have drunk the kool-aid. They want to build wonderful things, just like we do. They want to help their clients achieve their dreams, just like we do. They want to do good work, just like we do. Maybe they’re over reaching, but I respect that. We do it all the time too.

I am trying to find a way to embrace these folks. Our own success is tied to theirs. We may not be able to help every one that posts on our forums, but we can respect all of them. I can give them props for dreaming the dream.

Amalgamators. We salute you. Welcome to the pool.