Jobs Change, Membership Doesn’t

This is my last post as the editor at Post Status. I’m moving on to a new opportunity at StellarWP. Of course, this doesn’t seem like moving much at all. One of the great things about the distributed work culture of WordPress is that it’s all here every day — online, on Twitter, and in Post Status Slack — wherever we are in the world.

When Brian Krogsgard started Post Status, I was an enthusiastic supporter. His weekly roundups made keeping up with WordPress so much easier. When he advertised for an editor and I signed up, I found out how hard it is to follow all the news and corral it into a weekly summary. The daily flow of information and my understanding of the WordPress ecosystem has grown enormously since then.

Working with David Bisset while he did the news curation was a mind-expanding experience. Olivia Bisset has been a great help with her audio and video editing skills. She’s not only our post-production assistant, Olivia also produces the posts for our videos and podcasts. Other co-workers past and present — Talisha Lewallen, Karen Johnson, Jonathan Wold, and Adam Weeks — all changed how I think and work for the better too.

When Cory and Lindsey Miller took over the reins at Post Status, our writing, podcasts, and video publishing got turned up to eleven. In the early days of Post Status and WordPress in general, I wasn’t very active in Slack or social media. It was a largely male and developer-oriented culture. Post Status has always aimed for diversity and inclusion, but over time we’ve seen this truly start to be the reality. Cory and Lindsey have been central to that growth.

The mixing of people from many different walks of life and areas of expertise generates something like a permanent hallway track in Post Status Slack. It’s a place where we can all learn together in a beautifully informal way. Chance meetings of people and ideas generate creative opportunities. This is energizing to be around to facilitate, join in, or just watch.

This year it’s been a great experience to host guests on podcasts and work with writers who represent what the WordPress community is capable of at its best. I’ve been privileged to think deeply about the business and culture of WordPress with terrific people like Lesley Sim, Nyasha Green, Blake Bertuccelli-Booth, Piccia Neri, Robert Windisch, Barış Ünver, Till Krüss, Eric Karkovack, Vikas Singhal, Kim Lipari, Maddy Osman, Tom Willmot, Kevin Ohashi, Nev Harris, and Miriam Schwab. So many memorable conversations! Michelle Frechette, Bob Dunn, Courtney Robertson, Steve Burge, and Ny Green have been wonderful mentors and colleagues that I have been lucky to have.

In particular, Ny, Michelle, and Piccia have done an outstanding job of telling us how we can be better as a community. Amplifying their voices is the work I’m most proud of doing. Without them, we would not have been able to platform important issues central to tech and business but often pushed to the margins. Pay transparency. Diversity, equity, and inclusion. Disability. How we all help each other find our places together. In general, amplifying the good work others are doing and being a connector for them is Post Status at its best.

Partnerships and fruitful cooperation between Post Status members have been a common theme in stories we’ve told. This theme is also about the magic of people finding their places together in WordPress and on the Open Web. Much of the world is moving hard in the other direction — against openness, against cooperation, and in favor of hard borders. Kindness and generosity are always the most fragile and needed common resources we have. Post Status has been a haven for them, but it’s thanks to our members, readers, listeners, colleagues, friends, and sponsors that the work we do together and the fun we have is good, meaningful, and regenerative for our community.

Thank you all for making Post Status and WordPress possible.