Welcome to Community & Code,
the podcast about the human
beings behind the commits.
I'm here today with Tammy Lister,
who is the co-founder of Guildenberg,
who's a longtime WordPress
core contributor,
has done other sort of producty stuff.
Welcome to the show, Tammy,
and tell us about yourself.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So I guess the best role to
summarize what I do or the
one that's most fitting is
a product engineer.
I like to do most or touch
most things with product
and I do lots of different things.
So I generally like to work
with people with products.
So in Guildenberg, what we do is we do.
we call it product
consultancy but we do all
the way across from have
you got an idea that's
awesome we can help you
through to you have an idea
how do you do partnerships
how do you kind of get that
idea out how do you scale
it and how do you if you
are someone who's looking for
products as well so if
you're a host or if you are
a looking to collaborate so
lots of different work
there that I do and also my
core work I like to do a
range of different things
including operations as
well so as long as it's
product I'm super happy to
get involved in it.
Yeah talk about Guildenberg
a little bit what's a
what's a Guildenberg and
how did that come to be?
So it's not a Pokemon,
which is kind of what I
thought it should be.
So it started out, Jonathan Wald,
he started doing it.
It's an interesting thing of,
it's a project that has had
other co-founders and it's
kind of evolved.
So currently it is Jonathan Wald,
Luke Harbus and myself.
And Luke,
he works kind of a combination of,
he also works doing projects
plug-in reviews as well and
I also work on core so we
had that kind of hybrid
working with core as well
insights and what it is is
that we work with people
who are anywhere on their
product journey or anywhere
who are trying to work with
products and we cooperate with them and
Either give them advice on
that space or we try and
match them with different
products as well.
So it's a whole different range.
There's so many different
things that we try and do.
It could be I might be doing
a product review.
I might be trying to match a product.
I might be trying to find
out how two products can
work together or product
and host can work together.
Lots of different things.
Yeah.
And so we, I say we meaning Pantheon,
this isn't the Pantheon podcast,
but I happen to work in Pantheon.
We've been talking to y'all
in that context for a while.
And I personally am well
aware that you have a lot
of connections with a lot
of sort of products in the
WordPress space and even a
little bit abroad from that.
But it's the sort of thing that for me as,
I don't know,
maybe a skeptical engineer
dev brain that,
it feels like like why would
I want to talk to people to
tell me what like what is
what what would I gain but
obviously you've you've had
that relationship with a
lot of different people so
what do what do people what
do companies um typically
come to gildenberg looking for
Yeah,
so I think it depends on where you
are in your journey.
If you are,
you generally are at a growth
point in your journey when
you need someone else to
collaborate with.
So that can be that you've
been on your own,
rocking it with a plugin.
And now you're like, oh,
What if?
What could be my next stage?
How do I grow this?
And rather than you could
suddenly go out and employ
lots of people and you
could suddenly make that leap.
But you probably don't want
to do that straight off.
You probably want to see
whether you could do some partnership,
whether you could
collaborate with some people fractionally,
whether you could do that kind of work.
So that's something that we step into.
We never act as an employee.
That's not something that we
kind of want to do.
Or we act with people where
they're just really trying
to do massive growth.
That's one thing.
So we've done that with
hosting companies as well.
And often...
You can have a hundred and one ideas,
but working out which of
those ideas you should be
doing is often hard if you
are within the company.
And it's a lot easier if
you're outside to run
workshops and give you that perspective.
Similar, if you have a product,
you probably can think
there are forty hundred
things that are really
important that you should do.
But outside perspective can
actually tell you what the one thing is.
is going to get you that
partnership that's going to
get you to that next level
because you can prove that
that partnership is going
to get you to that next
level and have that conversation.
So it's always at that kind of,
I don't like crisis,
it's always at the stress point, right?
But stress is a good thing
from a business perspective
because stress can mean
that it's a good stress because it's a,
if we get through this,
it's gonna be really productive for us.
But it's a stress test of, can we grow?
Can we do this?
So yeah,
those are the kind of conversations.
I've also had it where someone's like,
can this plugin even survive anymore?
Should this plugin survive in this space?
What does it do?
How does it pivot in the
changing WordPress?
So there's lots of different
kind of conversations.
We've worked with BigCommerce.
We've worked with a range of
different people in that.
So yeah, it doesn't vary.
And it started out just
being less than part-time.
It's now kind of part-time work.
And it's really interesting
what we do across those.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's really cool.
Well,
tell us about your sort of journey
into WordPress and or tech.
I mean,
this isn't necessarily a WordPress
specific podcast.
It's more broadly,
people who do techie things in general.
What brought you to the the
nerdy Cody side of things?
So
I think by my generation.
So I'm a nineteen seventy five.
So I think I was like born
at the time that tech formed around me.
So I think most people who
like I had my fiftieth a few weeks, well,
a month or so ago now.
But I think anyone who is that age,
all the major tech things
kind of happened.
So
We are of that, right?
Like it was there.
Computers happened,
the first computer at like primary school,
which is like the first
school that you go to in England,
happened to me, right?
Like the first computer labs
at second happened to me.
So I've always been really curious,
and this is maybe my mindset,
taking things apart, right?
So I was the kid that would
try and break things, take things apart.
So computers to me were just
another way of extending that.
I was kind of surrounded by technology.
I was quite lucky that I was
enabled to kind of have that.
And very early on,
the only problem I had was,
and I'll be quite honest about it,
was my gender.
And very early on, it was, oh,
you're a bit arty.
Well, you're also a woman.
Therefore, you must go and study art.
we don't quite do now, which is better.
But then again,
I was always doing technical art.
So it was photography and
painting were my art form.
So I was always trying to do
something technical.
I was always trying to do like early,
trying to do early video,
which is also hilarious to
think of how we used to do it.
And then I went and after trying to do art,
and this is a long story
because technology is long.
So I had always been like,
trying to have technology,
trying to use it in
whatever way that I could.
Even though like I was on that path,
I now know it was maybe the wrong path,
but you know,
things were maybe more
locked in those days from a
gender perspective.
And also really like
the web wasn't a thing then.
And I think we have to kind
of have a reality snap
about what was around.
The web was Linux, you know, the like,
sorry, links, the browser,
like that was it, right?
And it wasn't even,
formed, it was those kind of things.
And I remember being at
university and MUDS was kind of the thing,
like that would be how you
would interact.
We didn't have graphical...
I sound super archaic saying this, but...
But that was the thing.
And then when I did art,
I graduated and I thought I like eating.
So I'm going to be training
computers because there's
this new thing called web.
And I hear you can like combine images.
And you remember those
rotating gifts that like
the globes and things.
So I learned that and
haven't kind of learned.
look back since then,
I learned about the new
language called PHP at that stage.
Again, I am super dating myself.
But my first ever computer,
and this really will date me,
was an Acorn Electron.
And I don't know who would even know that.
I don't even know what that is.
So in England we had BBC
computers and the Acorn
Electron was even a rarer
version of the BBC computer.
And it was BBC Basic.
And it was like the...
Yeah, it's like, it's not a language,
but it's very Python-esque
is the best way I would describe it.
That was my first language that I learned.
Again, you know,
turning down the cassette
because the sound was too
loud and all those things.
So yeah, that's a long-winded one.
But yeah,
that was how I kind of fell into
it and then fell into Linux.
And slowly,
all the technologies happened around me.
So I've been very lucky that it's formed.
So I've got to learn at the pace.
I've got to be able to adopt
it at that rate because I've been in it.
I...
I remember... So I didn't
get my first computer until
I was in high school.
So I was using, like,
computer labs and other things.
The first computer I used was probably,
like, an Apple IIe at, like, you know,
a tiny little closet that
was refactored into a school, like,
computer lab.
And you played, like,
Math Blaster and whatever.
And... But I remember...
I remember when the web was a thing,
like a new thing and going
to the library and getting
on their computer that had
internet access and like
just sitting in front of a
Yahoo screen and spending two hours, uh,
Just clicking on links and
like cross links and like, you know,
like they're used web rings was a thing.
Yeah.
But when I finally did get
my computer and I figured
out how to get it on the Internet,
the choice that I made and
I did make a choice at a
certain point to pay money for access.
But I decided that the thing
that I wanted to do was I
was more interested in
connecting to BBSs.
Um,
then I was getting access to the
internet because I think at
the time I either hadn't
figured out that you could,
or it was not easy to get
onto the BBSs and talk to human beings.
Um, as it was to, uh,
like they were two separate things.
And I think I,
I eventually figured out
later that you could use like, I don't,
can't remember what the stupid.
windows program at the time
was like uh but to like you
could telnet into the uh
into the bbs but for a long
time it was like you had to
actually dial a phone
number to access the bbs
and so I was paying
so yeah I mean I think we we
sort of came up in the same
sort of era where the web
and a lot of that there
wasn't available in England
which is kind of the
interesting thing so
England has even like less
stuff like that available
and I remember like reading
on forums about like what
America had available
wanting to have things and
then suddenly things like
you'd be able to like pour
in and do so you you had to
get very hyper terminal
hyper terminal was the yeah
you had to get very
technically so the thing
was if you were into these
things and you were in
certain countries you had
to get very curious and you
had to get very good at
getting around different
things because also like
that we we weren't
traveling we weren't
getting on planes and going
into it we were kids right like
You weren't doing stuff like that.
And there wasn't internet to
tell you how to do things.
Like you couldn't just do it.
And there weren't mobile phones,
which is also a really interesting thing.
Right.
And this was the thing I had
the reflection the other day.
It's like,
I used to build every computer
that I had and I used to
take such pride in, you know,
ground yourself when you put your memory,
like that was such,
I don't know whether that was worth it.
I'm sorry.
I didn't know that you were supposed to.
So I didn't, if that means anything.
The thing with me is
culturally and also me,
you tell me a rule,
I'm going to follow it.
So yeah, you're meant to, I think,
so I did hardware.
I did like a course in it
and you're meant to let
this thing around your
wrist and then ground yourself.
So I think that was my problem.
I got told.
Yeah.
But I also probably was
doing it on a super dusty
floor at the time.
So I was negating anything
that was going on.
But I was grounding.
We took such pride in that.
And then you would paint or
you would mark the outside
casing because it was your
only thing that you could.
Or your keyboard or your
mouse was your only thing.
And then on your massive,
which is probably why I
have such bad eyesight,
your massive monitors,
you'd put like little
creatures and stuff and story.
And it was always this thing
of like personalization.
And I think you can kind of
maybe tell someone that's
going up from that with the
stickers we still have on
our laptops or the fact
we're still trying to like
have that personalization.
But being able to grow and
have technology around that,
the interface,
I think it has helped us be able to,
like...
I had a reflection every day.
If you turned up and you're a kid now,
I don't know where you start.
I think my head would
explode with having to know everything.
So at least I got to be
onboarded with all of this
when my brain was a little
bit more flexible.
Yeah.
yeah so my first computer
was an nec which also
doesn't exist so bbc
computers don't exist and
nec is obviously nintendo
entertainment corporation
because there was a period
of time where they made
computers uh not a very
long period of time um and
then after that I did sort
of graduate to building my own computer
because I was reading
computer magazines a lot at the time.
And so I was hearing all
this stuff and looking at
ads and figuring out.
I priced out my computer for
months and months and
months and figured out how
much I needed to save to get a computer.
And also because I was
reading computer magazines,
I was reading about things like Linux.
I think I had a copy of a
couple different Linux
distributions on CD.
I think they were on CD.
I don't think I had any
floppy disks or anything.
Yeah, well,
you generally are on those you
would have.
So that's how I got into, I mean,
Windows would have been in
like this just about,
it would have been DOS, I guess,
just about.
And then Windows,
but then Linux was really
my first kind of operating
systems because I couldn't
afford anything else.
So it was like,
and you would get the free
versions on those CDs.
And a lot of those CDs were
in secondhand shops.
So you would pick them up in
secondhand stores and then
you'd get the programs.
They were like super out of date.
Yep.
But you were fine to use
them and you could get like,
so that was the thing.
Like you could,
or you traded them with
people and people gave them to you.
Right.
Um, and it, weird trading going on.
But distros are passing
around for people and it
would always be Linux, uh,
distribution it was just a
different time I think so I
think one of the the first
kind of art programs I
learned was through Linux
rather than through
anything else and then
eventually learning okay
there there's other stuff
and other applications and
slowly doing it but having
to learn it for for work
roles and then having to
like hyper speed myself
onto those kind of platforms but
I think that that kind of
got me the foundation of like access,
being able to give it.
And I've kind of kept that going,
hopefully.
Well, yeah, I mean,
we met in person a few
months ago at PressConf.
And one of the things that I
remember being really
impressed by in your talk,
besides obviously the
substance was awesome.
was that all of your slides
you had hand illustrated.
Talk about your artistic
journey and possibly how it, I mean,
we've talked a little bit
about how it relates to technology,
but like, yeah,
what does that interplay
kind of look like for you?
Yeah,
so originally I kind of gave up on it.
And I think I gave up on it
because if you're really,
really lucky as an artist,
you get to not starve.
And I'm not bad at art,
but I'm not one of the note, point, note,
point, note, note, note,
not whatever that leave art
school and end up in him to
make a career of it.
And that's okay.
It's totally fine.
Um, uh,
so I left and starving artist is
not a look that I wanted to go for.
Um, uh, and,
I actually was lucky enough
that I could retrain.
I actually, in hindsight,
I now know I've been kind
of combining it all the way through.
I also had studied psychology.
So I've had like probably
three careers by the time I
was quite young.
And then I just stuck to one for a while.
And the way that I think I'm
doing is now as I'm getting older,
I'm kind of rediscovering
those careers and getting back to them.
It's a weird kind of mind shift,
but I think a lot of people do that.
I don't think that's abnormal.
I think you kind of find the
bits of you that you've left behind,
not left, but you didn't,
couldn't do because you had
to go into certain, you needed money,
right?
Because life.
So I was quite lucky because
the web happened.
I could do that.
And
The thing initially with the
web is I was always trying to find a way,
so from flash to different things,
because I understood the
way things should form.
And bear in mind,
when I first started kind
of making websites,
user experience wasn't really known about,
like put a button on it.
Right.
No one was talking about user journeys.
No one was knowing about the
benefits of AI sparkles or not.
No one was talking about
what was the correct flow
or what was right or wrong
about navigation.
No one knew what was good or
bad about accessibility or
a tag or anything because
Like they were just about
doing a spinning globe.
So I could do that.
And in fact,
a lot of what I was trying to
do was not visual.
A lot of it was content
management and just trying
to get navigation through,
but I always could work
those paths through and I
could always like work out
content because I had that
understanding and because
of my art kind of background.
So it always stood me in
good stead along with this
kind of psychology background.
And then over time,
I've kind of rekindled that
art through technology.
I think that's the best way.
Photography has always been a thing,
although I resisted for a
very long time getting into
digital photography.
I hated it.
A lot of people are the same, I think.
I used to think it was just
me and I was weird.
But in fact, no, it's not.
Now I love it and I'm trying
to get the smaller and smaller camera.
But I think it's a real,
it took me a long time to
be okay about not hand processing.
I'm okay now.
Now though,
what I really like doing and
kind of skipping forward is
I love taking a photograph,
giving it to AI.
letting AI do something with
it and then me painting that.
That's one of the things I really enjoy.
I also love just doing like
processing art and doing
like that kind of
generative art is one of
the things that I don't get
enough time to do that,
but I really enjoy it.
And kind of tangent to that,
I even love doing things
and I kind of still form it as art,
like yarn.
Like I love knitting and
that's kind of like,
physical art with maths
right yeah I still things
like that I still uh do I
don't get enough time for a
lot I'm trying as I kind of
get older I try and make
more time for those and I
hope eventually I will get
part-time for those but I
think that's what we all do
like as we kind of get
older we get part-time to
rediscover those things right yeah
And you also spent a long
time working on the very
early version of the block
editor in WordPress.
Talk about that process.
That was a period of time
that was very... There's a
lot of heated debate about
the block editor.
I remember myself feeling like,
is this a thing that we really need?
and it doesn't matter if we
need it or not because we're getting it.
I feel like at least for
some curmudgeonly old
WordPressers like me,
it was like there's a
little bit of a resentment
towards this new thing just
because it was a thing that
we didn't know,
and now we have to learn
JavaScript and React,
and I'm a PHP developer,
and I can't possibly learn new things.
Talk about what your
experience of being
involved in that project was like.
So I think the interesting
thing was that at one point,
the people who were,
like me and some other people,
it's like you couldn't see our faces.
I think that's the best way
to describe it because...
I'd been in the project.
It was just this thing that was happening.
Yeah.
Like we, I'd been in the project.
I was PHP.
Like that was,
I already shared like the new language.
I was like one of the first
languages I really kind of,
the web that I dove into.
In fact,
I remember writing an essay on
this new language called
PHP and why it was going to
change the web.
Like I learned JavaScript as part,
very roughly, as part of the editor.
So I was on that journey myself as well.
And I think a lot of people
kind of forgot that we were themers.
We were people who had the
best intent of WordPress.
I didn't wake up one morning,
disconnect myself,
get a bonk on my head and
decided I wanted the worst for WordPress,
right?
Like that's been very
flippant in English about it,
but that's not what happened to me,
right?
Yeah.
And I think it's very easy
to not see the humans,
not see the people and not
see what they're trying to
do on both sides.
And I think when you're making something,
it's very easy to not see...
anyone else because it's
super exciting like when
you're making something and
you're making something new
um I'm a maker and I love
making when I'm talking
about making me I like
super excited right like I
am like ah this is cold
like we've had
conversations about like
you can just nerd out and
I'm like ah this is amazing
and you do that and when
you're on a project and you
can nerd out with people
and you're really focusing
on something it's great you
are completely like
obsessed in that and it's
If someone is shouting at you,
I like most people.
If someone shouts at me,
I don't want to listen too
much because it turns out
that we don't like people shouting at us.
So it's quite hard.
What I found I consciously
had to do was bring in that
kind of usability and that
like psychology training of
myself to listen.
So the one-star reviews was
something I did a lot of
responding to and a lot of listening,
a lot of usability testing.
I like to call it usability,
not user testing,
because I'm not testing on
humans or animals.
That's my thing.
A little bit.
I just find it weird to say
that you can use the testing.
Yeah.
Although curious.
And just kind of going and watching.
And every time I did that, it helped me.
Every time that I talked to someone,
it helped me.
But yeah, it's not,
it's hard because you're being,
your history,
what you want is being removed.
You can't argue with someone
who's done that or you
can't discuss that.
I'm not going to argue.
I don't argue.
I will probably just walk
off and go and play with a puppy.
I don't do well in arguments.
I can't argue.
That's fine.
A long time ago,
I'm not that type of person.
But some people really, really can.
And that's okay.
But not over here.
So I think that that's the thing.
a lot of people still feel
that their their things
were changed their
difference but generally
what it was was how can I
use this thing this thing's
stopping me do something
that I want to do and when
you listen to that you
could even have a
discussion about okay but
what do you need to do and
how do we get you to do that
That was super helpful.
Or we could have a, okay,
we hadn't thought of that situation.
Let's now change this
because now you've given us
that information.
And that was one of the big
things was trying to get that input.
There was a time,
and I remember distinctly of like,
we just need input, not shouting, right?
Like in a good way.
Like it's great we're having
like some input,
but what we need is input
where you can then,
take action in some direction about.
And I think that that's kind of the thing.
And it wasn't all negative.
And I think that's the thing.
Like whenever something comes out,
these big projects,
it's one of those ones
where if you look back,
it would be really unjust
on the project to say like, ah,
it was all bad or it all
felt all bad because it really didn't.
There were some beautiful moments.
There were some beautiful spots.
But it does take its toll on
the people that were involved.
And I think in hindsight,
there are better ways to do it.
It certainly taught me how I
will want to approach projects,
how I want to approach releasing things,
how I want to approach communities,
how I want to approach the
work that I do.
And I think in general...
like product work,
how I want to approach it.
There's a point where you listen,
but you still have to take action.
And I think a lot of that time,
even in WordPress, we often say like,
give us feedback where we
don't say when that feedback,
we want you to stop with
the feedback and then we
summarize it and give action.
And we actually changed that.
There was a point in the
project where we changed to
start doing that.
And it started to be more
positive because we started to do that.
And we were just like, okay,
now we're actually giving you that.
And that's the thing,
like we're setting like that tone.
And I think it's a good way.
So yeah,
there's no good answers on things
like that.
And I think everybody has to,
look back and take a lot of
lessons from those, those projects.
I think WordPress is full of
these lessons.
If we take time to learn them,
any open source project is full of that,
but we sometimes move so fast.
We don't take those lessons.
I was lucky.
I had a sabbatical so I
could take some of those
lessons afterwards and go, okay,
here's those lessons I'm
going to take into my next bit of work.
And I have,
but I would encourage anyone to
take a couple of weekends
and if they do any open source work,
try and journal about what
have they learned.
Do an end of year.
What did you learn this year
in your open source work?
Yeah,
I want to come back to that because I
want to talk about
sabbaticals because I've
never had a sabbatical.
But you mentioned sort of
like this idea of it's
really easy to sort of
surround yourself in a
bubble and be like –
like not even see the
outside uh for a while and
I remember you know when I
was working at human made
um and we were doing a lot
of gutenberg stuff and I
had been doing a lot of
gutenberg stuff and I went
to word camp long beach uh
to give a presentation on
gutenberg um and it was a
really like introduction
like this is why you should
care about gutenberg and I
I knew that there was a lot
of like negative feeling
about it and I was like at
this point I was like gung-ho like
Gutenberg is the thing.
And it was really interesting because,
first of all,
the majority of my talk was
over the audience's head
because they didn't care
about or want to care about
Gutenberg at that time.
It was it was twenty nineteen,
which is still, you know, well after,
you know, it had been around for a while.
But people were very at
least the people who had
been using WordPress and a
lot of these are like business owners,
small business owners and like, you know,
users is like,
I don't want to learn a new thing.
Why do I need to learn a new thing?
They haven't got time to
learn a new thing.
Exactly.
And it was it was a little
bit sort of eye opening to
to come to the realization,
like kind of in front of an audience that,
oh,
I'm actually super privileged because
I work at an agency that is
able to create these bespoke things.
like curated experiences for
our clients and build these
really cool things.
But the majority of people
aren't in that situation
and they're using what they
can find either that's
built into core or through
a plugin or whatever.
And that might match the
thing that they want or it
might kind of come close
and they can kind of make it work.
but they're not getting the
thing that I am excited about building.
And they're not capable of
building the thing that my,
me and my team are building.
And that was a really
interesting sort of like
revelation that like,
it made me realize how much
of a bubble I was in.
Yeah.
So the, the bit that you say,
the privilege,
I've tried to remember that
and remember that feeling now I'm,
Like now I'm in a different
situation because now I'm
not a full-time contributor.
Now I kind of do what I do,
but I still contribute, right?
And so I try and both
remember what it's like for
the full-time contributors
and I also try and remember
what it's like for the
product makers because I
definitely sit between two now.
I try and remember that when
I'm doing AI work.
I try and remember that when
I don't have enough time to
learn and I get frustrated
because part of me does now.
I'm like...
I want to knit this weekend to do AI.
But actually, I generally want to do AI,
not knit.
But yeah, OK.
And I have these arguments
between myself about time.
And I try and tell myself
that I need to rest and all
these kind of things.
Or when I get caught up with
someone who's a full-time contributor,
I'm like, hang on, no.
We need to take this outside, right?
it is really difficult to
kind of remember and put yourself.
I feel quite privileged to
be able to kind of have
that and then still be in a space.
Quite a lot of people maybe
leave the spaces, don't kind of do it.
So it's something that I'm,
I feel lucky to kind of
still be building in this
space and making in this space.
I hope to continue for a
while to make in this space.
Um, not done yet.
Um, uh, but it, it's, well, it,
it's an interesting, you,
you have to recognize that,
the privilege of making that
you have and where you are
on that scale and that's
something I definitely had
a number of times because
we kind of were going
around giving talks about
Gutenberg and there were so
many times when I had this
and good and bad body
language right of people
and you have a like when
you're speaking you will
notice someone's body
language and you'll be like oh the um
Or the one-on-ones were also for me.
When someone just asks you a question,
you're like,
why is that not documentation?
Why could you not find that for yourself?
And
why like why is everybody
else that I'm talking about
excited about that and
you're so scared and you
look at them and they have
fear about that thing and
and there was real fear
from people and that that
was something to be like
okay I'm gonna like listen
to the fear generally when
it's in an extreme emotion
you can talk through the
extreme emotions um and and
really like kind of get to
the root of those ones
because it's generally like
a bit of information they needed
Um,
like fear comes from lack of
information generally.
Yeah,
talk about... So let's go back to the
sabbatical.
I want to hear about it.
I want to hear... I think at
the time you were probably
working at Automatic.
Automatic makes it very well
known that after you have a
certain amount of tenure,
then you are welcome to
take a sabbatical.
What is a... How long...
What does that mean?
What does that look like?
I've also observed and...
since I've watched the
company from the sidelines for many years,
that it's not super
uncommon for someone to go
away on a sabbatical and
then come back and then
realize that they're in a
different place than they
were when they left and then maybe
a few months later or a year
later they're like yep you
know what I'm done here I'm
gonna go off and do this
other thing that I kind of
explored a little bit in my
sabbatical um so yeah talk
about what that's like and
just having the opportunity
what you did and and yeah
how does that work
Yeah, so my sabbatical,
so nobody wanted Gutenberg
to be released as much as
me because my sabbatical was to end.
And it was a little bit
delayed because there were a few of us.
So there wasn't, you know,
people really wanted it to be released.
That's a half joke.
um but for me and in fact
it's encouraged uh
different companies have
sabbaticals in different
ways uh so I think uh I can
only give I've only had one
sabbatical one company so
that that is all my
experience I I hope that if
my own company grows I will
install this practice and I
guess that there's
something telling in that
and the reason why I think it is
It is an honor to be able to
say to someone for a month
or three months or whatever
set time to say, I trust you enough.
I'm going to give you some time.
You've done really awesome
in the work you're going to do.
And you don't have to think
about work for this set amount of time.
For me,
what it allowed me to do was
recharge and detox.
And that's what I did.
And the way that I did it
was by rediscovering painting.
Um, uh,
hit in like a time where we weren't
traveling, we weren't going around,
we were, you know,
small things of the pandemic.
Um, uh,
but it actually was pretty perfect
for me because of that.
I got to kind of recharge, uh,
really rediscover,
like sort out a lot of like
get really back down to
practice of getting up in the morning,
painting, going to bed, finishing,
and I got to finish some
pieces and that type of thing.
Do what I maybe would have
done in another life,
which I think is like one
of the things that people find.
They try on what they could
have done in another life.
That's kind of like going
back to that thing of like being able to,
what would you have done in
your other lives that you
could have lived?
um which I I guess is very
much a reflection you have
as you kind of get older as
well like that that
reflection and um but with
sabbaticals give you that
reflection at any age to be
able to check that out um
I've seen other people do
uh go and do massive
travels and stuff um I was
quite lucky I did quite a
lot of travel with work so
for me actually not
traveling was a real nice thing
Not having to get on any
planes was also really good.
Yeah, so that was it.
A really small life was
actually what I did with my sabbatical.
I had no, like,
often people have major plans.
I did a lot of really small things.
And it was really important.
to me to do really small things.
Uh,
and the small things kind of managed to
me,
cleaned my brain and sorted that out a
lot.
Yeah.
I say that I, I, uh,
I didn't go on sabbatical,
but I actually went on a
compassionate leave,
which kind of served the
same purpose at the time.
Um, that was, it was during pandemic.
Um, and, um,
my partner had shattered her knee, um,
Uh, right.
We were riding bikes with the kids.
Uh,
and I think there's like one of the
kids swerved in front of
her and she moved to not crash into the,
and like landed square on her knee, uh,
needed like lots of surgery
and was essentially
bedridden for a while.
And then even when she wasn't,
she's like on crutches for
a really long time.
Um, so I, I was lucky enough that, uh,
I was working at human made
and they let me take
compassionate leave to take
care of her and the family.
Um, because you know,
she was a stay at home mom.
So like, yeah.
That I needed to assume that role.
So so I was I did that.
And but at the time,
it also coincided with I
was super burned out.
And I was at least at the
point of burnout where I
realized I was burned out,
burned out because there's
a period of time when I was
burnt out and I didn't
realize I was burned out.
I just thought I sucked.
um and and like I was was
going through like I can't
do this anymore I can't
compete in like this I
can't be a developer I'm
like horrible I'm never
gonna like be any better
than I am today um
everything is bad um and
and then there's a certain
point it's like no I I I'm
burnt out and I need time
um and it just sort of
coincided with when this happened like
that uh that compassionate
leave was also sort of like
my burnout retreat um and
the thing so during the
pandemic you know some
people got into sourdough I
got into dnd um and I went
really hard into d I got
really into animal crossing
a lot of people did a lot
of people did so I don't
I got super into D&D because
I had been running a game for my kids.
And then when the pandemic
hit and we stopped being
able to play in person,
that was when I realized, oh,
this isn't just for the kids anymore.
This is a creative outlet
that my brain needs now.
And now that I took it away,
I am struggling.
Yeah.
And one of the things that I
did during the pandemic was
or during my compassionate
leave was get super deeper
into D&D things.
I spent hours like building there.
There's a platform called
Roll twenty and they have like, you know,
it's a tabletop virtual
tabletop and you can make.
and you can import maps and
you can do all sorts of lighting things.
And I spent like days
putting lighting effects on
this map that I got from
somewhere else that was
this ridiculously large
multi-level dungeon.
And I was doing all of the
like the walls and the
lighting effects for
everything so I could run it.
And it was not nearly like...
It was not nearly as good as
you could have done, but I was like,
B is really painstaking work, right?
And to your point of
thinking about what you
could do in another life, at the time,
there was the emergence of
the idea of a paid dungeon master.
And I mean, that exists now.
There's websites like
startplaying.games where
people sell their services
as a dungeon master or a
game master for whatever game.
And I had the thought, you know,
if in the perfect world,
this would be really cool.
And also I'm doing so much work.
I should definitely be paid
for all of this.
See,
that's where I had this reflection the
other day about like where AI,
like I feel like some of
the stuff I'm doing with AI
now and the lower end stuff
I'm letting it do, right?
The workflow stuff so that I
can do more of the stuff
that I know that helps me
from the burnout, which I think is good,
right?
Like it's all good because I'm,
then recharging myself and I
yeah so I think like if we
start to see like where can
we continue to use tools
can we continue to have
workflows I don't know
whether this is true for
you but since I've I now
know it's burnout for a
long time I was like I'm
not burnt out I don't I
will never have that that's
such a gen x thing yeah yeah burnouts for
not me.
But the reality is that I
don't ever want to have it again,
because it was really long.
And I'm pretty solid out of it now.
And the reason I'm out of it
is I have a lot of
processes and systems in
place and I now know what
to do and I like to I use
quite a bit of technology
to do that and I'm using
more and more of the
technologies that I can I
don't know if that's the
case for you that you're
like where can I systemize
to um particularly lean on
like workflows where can I
use AI to be faster and
when I mean AI I'm using
this general bucket of
anything that's new that
has a sparkle on it technology
Yeah, actually,
my partner and I were
having a conversation about
this yesterday because we
got into this debate about, like,
we had this conversation a
couple months ago about,
I think at the time I had
recently read an article about how,
or seen an interview about how Spotify,
the way that it, like, it has, like,
secret sort of partnerships with, like,
royalty-free music theaters.
companies that like add like
sort of fake artists that
they then inject into some
of their discoverer
playlists and things like that,
because it's basically cheaper for them.
And so like when you're
listening to a Spotify generated playlist,
you're listening to a thing
that Spotify thinks you
should listen to based on
maybe your behavior,
but also with these like
maybe a insidious little
thing inserted in there so
that they can get some
revenue out of that.
And it takes sort of like
your own sort of brain out of it.
And the counterpoint to that is like, well,
you can be more intentional
about like the Spotify
playlist that you make.
You can stop listening to
Spotify and go back to like MP threes,
which I have also done.
But like also.
I've got classic now.
Yeah, right.
And I've done that too.
And I've gone back.
I found my removable hard
drive that had my MP three collection.
I've added it to the network.
I've started listening to that.
And one of the things that
I've realized is that you
lose like the one thing
that I feel like Spotify
used to be able to do pretty well.
It kind of sort of does it okay.
And something that Pandora
used to do really well was the idea of,
OK,
I see where you are and I'm going to
give you some things that
you don't know about or
that I don't think that you know about.
Sprinkle in some things that
I think that you would like
that you haven't told me
that you already like.
that sort of discovery aspect.
Whereas like,
if I'm just listening to my MP threes,
there's like,
I can try to give it like a
discovery like experience,
like some obscure B side or
something that's not on the regular loop.
But it's,
it's still like coming from my own thing.
And I think what I realized
actually just like
literally the other day is
that like I did a collected like,
and massive collection of MP threes.
Um,
and I would go deep into the sort of
like music history of things.
Like I would get deep into, like,
I discovered like an artist
and I would be like, okay,
I'm going to go find all of
the albums by this artist.
And like, and, and that was,
that was discovery.
So that when, cause what I really like,
is a playlist that, as a music nerd,
as a DJ,
as somebody who likes to share
music with other people,
what I really like is I
like both the experience of
discovering something for
the first time that I like,
but also listening to the
things that are in the same vibe.
So I created this really huge,
massive collection
partially because I wanted
to be surprised.
um and and that's a thing
where like without other
people it's hard like
especially with music and I
was reading a thing yeah an
article by npr about like
the the like music
discovery requires people
or requires inputs because
you're not gonna and and
like radios don't exist
anymore we're all streaming
services now um yeah
So there's like this – it's
harder to discover music
now than maybe it was when
we all lived on a college
campus or when – We're sharing the tapes.
This reminds me a little bit, I think –
It's very easy to be binary
about technology, right?
It's very easy to be like,
I am just going to use old to check.
And I noticed when I
brought... Because the
algorithms are amazing.
When I just brought my...
my iPod Classic, of course,
the algorithms picked up
that I had bought my iPod Classic.
I was getting very targeted by that.
And it's like, oh, this old tech.
I was like, no,
I don't want just old tech.
I want to pick the new tech
that works for me and the
old tech that works for me.
A good example is I actually
have two iPads and actually
the one that I use is the iPad Mini more.
I do have a big one,
but that's great for when I'm drawing.
But the iPad Mini, perfect form for me.
It is, I don't know, but it works.
It's like perfect.
Turns out my Kindle could be
a doorstopper.
uh, for some reason, but I like,
I'm okay reading Kindle
stuff on my iPad mini.
So, but that's, that's as a,
another person would have
very difference.
And I think that's the thing
we maybe forget that in
those kind of days of past,
we didn't have a choice, right?
It was just one device and
you had to get used to it.
So we maybe look a bit for
it with these like rose
tinted glasses a little bit.
And we're like, oh,
that technology is all great.
Well, it didn't fit us.
It wasn't like one size fit all.
Like now some people want to
have a Apple watch and people don't.
They want to have a
different wearable device, right?
They want to have a ring or
they want to have a different thing.
And that's great.
Like the technology is coming.
I'm still waiting for the
glasses that work really
well for stigmatisms.
That would be so good.
Can we have those please?
but it's that just enough
right like and it's so
personal and that's the
thing the workflows and one
of the things I feel now is
is is critical is that we
don't say this works so
therefore it's going to
work for everybody and
that's what I really try
and work when I'm working
with product makers or when
I'm working with companies
I'm like okay I want to
listen first to what your
workflows are and that's
maybe the difference I do to when
I was doing the editor.
Like back even three, four years ago,
we all thought there was
one way of doing things.
Five years ago,
we thought there's one way
of doing products.
There's one way of doing things.
There's one way of doing everything.
We're actually a little bit
smarter than that now.
And we're realizing there's
many different ways to make products.
There's many different ways to do things.
And there's no right or wrong way.
There's a good result there.
And then there's that maybe
needs a bit of iteration, right?
But along the way,
there are variations to that.
There can be recommendations,
there can be good testing,
there can be not so great testing,
but there's no
GitHub labels.
There's no one labeling
system that will work in
every single case, right?
Yeah, that went super wide,
but I think we have to, like,
even down to what we have
in devices that work,
we have to be a little bit more...
eclectic in what we have and
I think the the kind of
longer that we're I find
I'm in tech the more
eclectic my bag is that I'm
wandering around with it's
an extremely eclectic
collection of devices and I
think that's okay like
we're gonna I've been
looking at the you know
I've got my Mac but the
framework laptop I
absolutely adore and I do
think at some point I'm
going to have one but that
would be my gaming laptop right um
I don't know if you feel the same,
like it's picking and
choosing the best thing for you, right?
And I think that's okay.
Yeah.
The framework laptops look really cool.
They do.
Yeah.
Well,
I think that's a really good place to
stop.
I think that's,
and thank you very much for
coming on to the show again.
I say again, for the listeners,
it's not again, but for me, it's again,
we won't talk about what happened,
but yeah.
can read about it on the on
the website um but speaking
of websites where can
people find you online uh
so you can find me on karma
toast on all the things
that's probably the easiest
way and by night
thoughts.com is where I
write things and I'm trying
to write more because I
also think we should start
writing more yes absolutely
well again thank you for uh
coming on tammy and thank
you all uh thank you you're
welcome uh and thank
everyone for for listening
and watching uh the show
and uh we'll see you on the internet