Video Archives

Paul Davids and Jacob Collier

I know I share a lot of Jacob Collier content, but this one is particularly interesting because you can see him learning things in real-time, exploring an instrument that is not his native tongue but he’s already world-class in. It’s so interesting to me the polymath musician friends I have who can play so many instruments how they bring the technique and language across their learning, and this video illustrates it well.

State of the Word… in person!

Update: Here’s the recording!

I’m very excited that we’ll be broadcasting the State of the Word “live from New York City” this coming Tuesday, December 14th! There will be a very small “studio audience” of community members there in person.

Recording the solo version last year was actually one of the hardest things I’ve done in a long time. It’s funny, with a live audience I can comfortably present for an hour no problem, but recording that 25 minute presentation, alone in a room staring at a camera, was an excruciating process over two days and dozens of takes. I got the advice afterward that even if you’re just staring into a camera, it can be helpful to have an “audience” of a few friends in the room.

Even more than that, though, I’m positively giddy to see some of my friends from the WordPress community in person for the first time in several years. Please join via streaming on the 14th, and also there will also be at least 20 watch parties around the globe if there’s one in your neighborhood. Looking forward to catching up, celebrating the community’s accomplishments over the last year, and hopefully raising a torch for our march toward freedom on the web in 2022.

Open Insulin

One of my big themes is that open source will transform every industry, with key examples being WordPress in web publishing, WooCommerce in online commerce, Wikipedia in reference, and Bitcoin/Ethereum in finance. Medicine, though, has been relatively unscathed so far. Here’s a great video introducing the Open Insulin project, which for the past 6 years has been developing their own method of manufacturing insulin and is going to open source its process to the world for anyone to recreate.

It also reminds me of the What If? article in the Economist a few days ago about mRNA self-biohacking. Hat tip: Riaan Knoetze.

WCEU Open Thread

I just wrapped up a fun session with Matías and Brian, and though we covered a lot of ground we weren’t able to get to all the questions from the audience. Starting at 2:58:

So this is an open thread, if you have any question from the talk please drop it in the comments here, and myself or someone in the community will respond! We’ll keep this open for a day or so.

State of the Word 2020

This tumultuous year, two things really helped me get through it: my colleagues at Automattic and the community of WordPress.

At the end of the year I usually deliver a speech to the WP community we call the State of the Word, that celebrates what we accomplished the previous year and shines a light on what we could focus on in the coming year. There’s always a great energy in the room and I love mixing with the audience before and after the talk. This year we did it online, which meant we could produce the talk a little more, and we made extra time for the Q&A afterward with answers not just from me but folks across the community.

One thing I’ll call out WordPress 5.6 had an all women and non-binary release squad of over 50 people, a first for WordPress and probably any large open source project. Also the market share of WordPress grew more in 2020 than it has in any year since it started being tracked!

If you’re curious about what’s next for WordPress, check it out: