Bold Life – Episode 4 – Zac Gordon

BoldLife

March 28, 2018 by Nicole P

Episode Notes / Transcription: MikeDemo: Hey. Welcome to the Fourth Episode of Bold Life. The BoldGrid Facebook Live Show. Today, we are pleased to welcome our guest, Zac Gordon. I’m your host, Mike Demo, the BoldGrid Evangelist. How’s it going, Zac? Zac Gordon: It’s going well. Thanks for having me on, man. MikeDemo: Yeah. Pleasure. How’s life going on with everything on your side of the world? Zac Gordon: Well, this has been a week of all-nighters. I’m working on pushing a big Gutenberg update to my course amidst things still changing but needing to react to stuff. So, it’s been a busy, tiring week, but doing well. MikeDemo: Excellent. For those of you that maybe are not familiar with you, you want to talk a little bit about your history, what you do, and how you got involved with WordPress. Zac Gordon: Sure. My history, most of my work has been in education. I started off teaching high school, and then went to like college university. Did some code school type stuff, boot camp scenarios, and kind of became officially siloed in WordPress when I went to go work at this cool, online teaching company, Treehouse. I was there for three years while they taught WordPress, and got to do a lot with WordPress 7 then. WordPress really became my life. I wasn’t teaching anything else at that time, and after they stopped teaching WordPress, I went on to continue to do it on my own focusing mostly on JavaScript and WordPress-related stuff. MikeDemo: Excellent. What do you spend most of your time doing now? ‘Cause Treehouse, you’re no longer with them, and that company’s evolved a little bit. Hasn’t it? Zac Gordon: Yeah. I mean, they’re … yes. Treehouse is still evolving. It’s still a great site focusing on a lot of cool development stuff, but not on WordPress specifically. Since then, it’s been a variety of projects. I launched this thing called the JavaScript for WordPress Master Course, which was a deep dive into the entirety of JavaScript language, and how it works with the REST API, and stuff like that. I’ve since kind of stopped offering that and focusing on smaller courses at the moment. Zac Gordon: A lot of my work is going into a Gutenberg development course. So, getting ready for that kind of stuff, and I’m currently working on a book with OSTraining on React, which has been fun. I haven’t done a publication before this on a textbook or something like that. That’s been my recent endeavors, education stuff relating to Gutenberg for myself or kind of with other groups. MikeDemo: Yeah. You mentioned Gutenberg, and you have your Gutenberg course, which I believe you can get to at gutenberg.courses. Zac Gordon: Correct. MikeDemo: Talk a little bit about that, what gave you that idea, and how that’s going. Zac Gordon: Sure. With kind of in the big picture, I’ve always just taken the approach of like I’ll teach something once it rolls in the Core. People are asking for the REST API for years, but it wasn’t really until it was solidified in Core that I really started working on development of it. Gutenberg had been on my radar, but it wasn’t till sitting at WordCamp US in, what was it now, 2017, end of 2017 when Matt was like, “Okay. This should be ready by April.” Then I thought, okay, I have to switch gears, and in about less than 30 days, I put together a nice five-hour course on Gutenberg, and launched that even though things were still under development. Zac Gordon: Now, we’re a couple moons into that, and I’m working on revamping it. The whole goal has been to teach people how to start building their own blocks, and start thinking about how they need to transition from the Classic Editor to the Gutenberg Editor, and a lot of JavaScript because it’s all React, and Redux, and JavaScript under the hood. That’s been a lot of fun to get into. MikeDemo: Cool. Are you getting a lot of adoption and people that are interested in Gutenberg, kind of getting ready before it hits Core? Zac Gordon: Yes. I think that folks who have plugins, and agencies are the main folks that are concerned with this, and probably more so, folks who are building plugins, who want their stuff to be Gutenberg ready. I think we’re probably gonna see a whole other resurgent of this course starting a few months from now when Gutenberg rolls out, and everybody learns about it because a lot of folks still don’t know that it’s here or coming. I think we saw an early wave of early adopters, but there are definitely still people that will probably not get into until after it hits Core. MikeDemo: Gutenberg is very interesting because a lot of people are predicting this will be the line in the sand, and it’s the end of WordPress or things like that, but I look back and people have said the same things about the Customizer, and the REST API. The Core is going to evolve, and I think it’s silly that people are trying to hold onto the classic methods when the project’s moving forward. What are your thoughts on that? Zac Gordon: You know, it’s kind of funny, but like I remember early on having teachers that would talk about working on mainframes and the first computer systems ever, and when I coded, the computer was the size of the room, and we had printouts that filled up huge rooms of paper. Most of them never bothered to learn web development because it was years later, and things evolved. Those who have, have this really, deep, rich knowledge of the evolution of technologies on the web, and I think we’re seeing a little bit of that. Folks who have an attitude of, I don’t want it to change, I just want it to be this way, take that approach. Those who want to always adapt and evolve are taking that and seeing the good sides of things. Zac Gordon: I think, honestly, where I see it now is that we’re going to have a transition period, and who knows, maybe a permanent period where you have Gutenberg for some of your content and not for others. I think the taking a hard line approach is probably not the smartest approach. For example, let’s say you’re using BoldGrid, and create whole site design or something like that to design certain parts of your site or pages, but then on your blog post, you just want people to have a rich blog post experience, so you switch on Gutenberg for that or you’re using advanced custom fields for custom post types because that makes the most sense, and you already have it built out, and you don’t enable Gutenberg for that, and you enable it for another section of the site. I can see that lasting a good year and a half transition. Zac Gordon: Several years from now, we’ll probably be evolved past that, and yeah, folks say this all the time. I know a lot of folks that have wanted to move out of this state several times depending on who’s elected, and they still all seem to live around here. Yeah. We’ll see. We’ll see. I don’t know that they’re other better options at the moment if you already know WordPress really well, but we’ll see what happens there. I’m sure there will be some shipped in the market. I don’t think it will kill WordPress. I think it’s a positive thing, and WordPress is doing the right thing by doing this. MikeDemo: Yeah. I definitely agree. Whatever can make WordPress more accessible, and adaptable for people that aren’t developers. I think it’s good overall, and I talked about this on another The Bold Life Show with, I believe, Nathan. Everyone predicts like this is gonna be the thing that’s gonna kill web developers, and no one’s gonna need professional help anymore, and I’m like, people still hire people to paint their house, mow their lawn, do their taxes, even though we have all these wonderful services that make a lot of it easier. There’s robots that can mow your lawn, but people still pay the neighborhood kid down the street. We’re not gonna lose this professional web development community. It’s just gonna kind of evolve. Plus, I always find it funny when developer’s like, “I don’t let my client in the backend.” Then why do you have a CMS? Zac Gordon: Well, although, I do remember teaching my students early on like, “Hey. You don’t need to tell them it’s running on WordPress. They could pay you for updates that their not super savvy or don’t want to be bothered.” Yeah. I think in the big picture, you’re kind of spot on with that. MikeDemo: Yeah. Definitely. So, shifting gears from Gutenberg a little bit, where do you see WordPress in 12 months, 24 months, 36 months? Zac Gordon: In 12 months, I’d like to see us with Gutenberg rolled out or at least super highly tested, and people being like, “Hey. When is this gonna drop? We’ve tested it on millions of sites.” Two years out, I think we’ll be kind of haven’t figured out that Classic Editor/Gutenberg transition. I can’t see in under 12 months that we have this solved, and everybody has transitioned everything over to Gutenberg. Zac Gordon: I don’t even know if Gutenberg makes sense for all content, to be honest. Then three years down the line, well, the cool thing then is we’re gonna have all of WordPress rebuilt as a beautiful JavaScript application. At the very least, if we still have different types of editing experiences happening, I see that’s being slightly evolved, but I think WordPress will be a whole different beast to develop with at that point, and based on what I’ve seen with Gutenberg, it’s gonna be nice. I definitely enjoy building in the modern JavaScript way as opposed to some of the more, it’s not outdated, some of the ways that you’ve had to do things in the past with PHP. Zac Gordon: I think that would be cool especially for folks that know JavaScript and know REACT. They’ll have a great time, and it won’t be too hard. That’s where I kind of see us three years from now, kind of past that, but we shall see. Right? I don’t think that’s too far off though. MikeDemo: Yeah. Do you think the plugin repo is gonna eventually have any flags to show plugins that are Gutenberg compatible or work with the Gutenberg especially if it’s a plugin that uses the Page/Post Editor or do you think it’s just gonna be the supports WordPress 5.0 and then by default that has to be Gutenberg-friendly? Zac Gordon: That’s a really good question. I haven’t thought about that. I guarantee in the marketing of the plugins, they’re gonna say if they’re Gutenberg-ready. Right? I haven’t heard anything about extending the plugin repo, so I imagine it’s gonna be like you describe, and how it is now. This has not been tested or this does not work with your current version of WordPress. That’s kind of what I imagine, but along those lines, it still hasn’t been super clear how long we get the Classic Editor built in, at one point it needs to become a plugin, is the plugin auto-installed for you, these kind of questions. I’m not sure. I haven’t heard anything, so I don’t imagine that they’ll do anything special in that regard for the plugin repo. MikeDemo: Cool. Well, shifting gears from the future, let’s look back a little bit. Looking back at some of your favorite WordPress and WordCamp memories, obviously, go to a lot of WordPress events, WordCamp US, local camps, do you have any specific stories or two that kind of stick out as some of your favorite moments, and why you like being a part of this community? Zac Gordon: Yeah. Oh man. Yeah. I guess like kind of three biggish ones. I mean, one of the funniest ones for me was the first WordCamp US when Matt Mullenweg was like, “Go learn JavaScript deeply.” It was really weird synchronicity like I got an email the weekend before like over the weekend from Treehouse being like, “Hey. We need to have a meeting on Monday.” And it had a weird feeling. You know sometimes you get a weird feeling about it. Zac Gordon: I found out that Monday that Treehouse is not gonna teach WordPress anymore, and they were letting me go. Then that weekend … so I found out Monday, and then like Saturday is this keynote like, “Go learn JavaScript deeply.” and I had no idea what I was gonna do for work or what I was gonna do. I wanted to stay in the community and like had a lot of support around that. So, that was a really cool experience, and I had been putting time and hanging out in the community, and trying to give back in ways I can for a couple years. It really felt rich to kind of fall back into that space. That was a really big one. Zac Gordon: This last year, 2017, I’d been teaching JavaScript. I have like well over 500 students. I felt like I was kind of like doing my part to help people learn JavaScript deeply, but I really miss doing in-person, and I felt like, okay, I’m gonna make this personal goal of going to as many WordCamps as possible, and teaching as many people as possible in-person JavaScript. I went to like well over a dozen camps all out of my pocket, no budget on this. This was not an easy task, but it felt personally like something I really wanted to do, and got to teach over 500 people in-person JavaScript workshops, and that was just like it really touched my soul in a good way, and was a really nice experience. Although, I can’t keep it up because I spent way too much money doing it, but it was a lot of fun, and meaningful, and got to meet a lot of cool people. That’s the second big one. That workshop tour was really fun. Zac Gordon: I think the third one I’ll share is more just like on a personal kind of one. I’ve really liked that the more I hang out in WordPress, the more authentic I feel I can be with myself. We’re all kind of weird people if you get to know us enough, and we put our best smile and face forward when we’re in a professional setting. But I’ve had people come up to me, they’re like, “Hey. I heard you’re into yoga. I used to live on an ostra or like hey man, I had like a UFO come and visit me when I was a kid. What do you think about that? Or like hey man, you see what they’re spraying in the skies? Those don’t look like normal clouds coming out of those planes.” So like, just crazy weird stuff that I would never normally bring up, and people troll you on the internet, and you find out they’re just small discussions. Zac Gordon: It’s been a cool thing becoming … just feeling more comfortable as myself, and letting other things bleed into the WordPress space, and hanging out with you at Disney after hours. So like, those have been really meaningful and lovely experiences that … I don’t know, honestly, that they make me a better teacher or help me professionally, but it helps a lot personally, and we definitely need more than just food and money to keep going. Right? We need some sort of feeling good about what we do, and those things bring that energy in a good way. Sorry, it’s a lot, but a lot of experiences have come out of these camps. MikeDemo: It’s interesting how you talk about the authentic, and vulnerability, and how that can actually help your career somewhat. I actually just got back from a conference in Orlando, ironically, and it was a … Zac Gordon: Hometown, baby. MikeDemo: Yeah. Funnel Hacking Live Conference. They give this talk, and there was this theme through all of these different speakers saying, being vulnerable and being authentic can help your career. It gave all these wonderful examples of how they showed a point of being really vulnerable, and how that actually helped their business. The example I can think of in our community is Isaac from [inaudible 00:16:13]. He did that Facebook live video with his son who was bullied that day, and that thing went viral, and now, he’s kind of doing these talks about being the unexpected brain coach. That little bit of honesty has skyrocketed him, not just in our community, but in other communities that are now learning more about him, and WordPress, and bullying activism, and I think there is something really cool about being honest. In a community like WordPress, you can show a little bit of that. Zac Gordon: Oh man. That’s so true, and what a beautiful example, man. I love this happening. Shout out to him as well, and his son, and all those people standing strong, and learning to do that in this world, and being connected about it. Like I know for myself, I’m launching this project called officeyoga.tv, and basically, gonna start live streaming office yoga sessions, which I never would have done. I taught yoga in the past, but never thought of bringing it into this space, and it’s been folks saying like, “Oh. You totally would. I’d watch that.” Zac Gordon: Usually, I have a studio set up. I’m moving into a new place. I’m gonna have nice beautiful environment behind me, things growing, and piano music, and yeah, doing office yoga. Another example of being authentic, connecting your life, all good things, and I gotta say this is a good community for it. MikeDemo: Definitely. I gave a talk which says we have all these different people from all these different walks of life, religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, political backgrounds, and it’s impossible for everyone to agree on every topic, but I just hope people just be kind because we’re here for WordPress, we’re all here to make ourselves better, and for the most part, I know people in our community that are opposed, opposite ends on the political spectrum, but they’re some of the best friends you’ll ever meet. I think that is so rare in the internet space, and it has to do with being present, and be able to meet people face-to-face, breaking bread with people, and that’s what I love about our community. Zac Gordon: I think that, that’s a really good shout out and point, and it’s funny because I’ve seen some of that myself as well. In fact, in some areas, I’ve seen it maybe not go as well, and it’s funny because we’re a community that wants to promote diversity, right? But diversity comes in a lot of different forms, and one of the forms of diversity is different of belief, opinions, and to be able to let people come together, and not let those be barriers is important. That’s good when it happens. It’s cool that you’re seeing that as well. And a reminder, like just remember when you ask for diversity, you’re gonna get it, so not everybody is always gonna be on the same page, and have different stories, and experiences, perspectives, histories, and good to stay open, and fluid, and flexible, and adoptive, and learning with that for sure. MikeDemo: Definitely. What events do you have coming up? Zac Gordon: Yes. I am going to be at WordCamp London. It will be my first time doing that this year, very excited. I’ve wanted to go there for a while now. I’m going to be doing WordCamp Europe, doing a workshop there with a buddy of mine, Julian Malisis. Shout out to Julian. We’re gonna be doing like an advanced REACT workshop there. Then it looks like I’ll be back at WordCamp San Jose, the WordCamp Costa Rica for the second time this year. Really excited. We’re gonna be doing some workshops outside of the event as well as connect with it, and let’s see, do I have anything else? Zac Gordon: Oh, yeah. I’m doing a conference. I’m doing the first JavaScript for WordPress Online Conference. I’m really excited about that. I put on some conferences in the past in-person, never done an online one. Hello cat. But that will be fun. It’s gonna be like a week or two after WordCamp Europe, and then WordCamp US. Honestly, I’m really trying to tone it down this year. Like I said, last year, I went to a lot of workshops and did a lot of camps, and it was kind of expensive. So, trying to see what I can do to still be connected to the community, but maybe not in-person everywhere. Those are the big ones for me. I think that covers it, but I’m also gonna try to take some personal trips this year too, which will be good. Get out in nature. MikeDemo: Excellent. Well, for BoldGrid’s side, we’re Camp Jacksfield, we’re Camp San Diego, in the next couple weeks, and from there, we got some more additional WordCamps, but we’re doing some designer conferences this year. Zac Gordon: Oh, cool. That makes a lot of sense. MikeDemo: Yeah. I’ll be at MinneWebCon, the Awards Conference in San Francisco, and the Front-End Design Conference in St. Petersburg, Florida. Zac Gordon: Nice. MikeDemo: We are very excited about adding those into our calendar. Zac Gordon: I love that, and I love that BoldGrid is also one of those companies that is very much involved in the WordPress space, but also gets outside of it. Right? Because that’s important too. I think we could all probably benefit from checking out some events that aren’t … nice, nice. MikeDemo: Excellent. Where can people find you online? What are your social accounts, websites, all that? Zac Gordon: Sure. Well, I’ve been off Facebook for a while, so I think have a professional page up there somewhere, but really Twitter is the only one I use. Zgordon on Twitter, and my main site, it’s tough to say what my mine site is right now. I think if you go to Twitter, you’ll find all that stuff linked up, but just kind of a quick round-off: gutenberg.courses is the main one for the Gutenberg stuff. I’ve teamed up with Joe Casabona, another great educator. He’s handling user centric courses. I’m doing developer centric courses. You could find those at gutenberg.courses. Thank you BoldGrid for being a sponsor there. Very grateful to help the outreach there. We do run some occasional BoldGrid specials. Hopefully, maybe you could look into one of those. JavaScript for WP is another one of my main domains. It has some JavaScript content, some content on Udemy, as well as front-end masters. If you are a Treehouse member, there might still be a few of my courses up there. Although, they are starting to get a little outdated, which is why I did the Udemy course. Those used to like seeing my Treehouse, more PHP, all that traditional theme plugin books, actions, filters. Check out that course on Udemy because I kept that updated from after leaving Treehouse. Yeah. Kind of all over there, but zgordon would love if you followed and checked that out on Twitter. Have some good series on Gutenberg development tips as well as I’m live kind of tweeting day-by-day my book writing process. If you wanna follow what goes into writing a book on REACT, you can check that out. That’s been fun to do as well on my Twitter account. MikeDemo: Excellent. What’s your cat’s name? Zac Gordon: Yeah. I think the cat needs an introduction too. Of course, the cat that is never here on the computer until we have a show. This is Snickers. Say hi, Snickers. Hello. The cosmic galactic cat. Yeah. I don’t think she has any social profiles that I’m aware of. I’m actually cat sitting. MikeDemo: Excellent. For those that are listening, please go to boldgrid.com. Check out all of our new stuff that we’re doing. Got some new themes, our [inaudible 00:24:20] system, and we got some new products coming out in the next couple months. So definitely follow us out there, and say hi to us at an event. Zac Gordon: Yeah. I wanna say definitely … I’m sorry, the last thing I’ll say is, please check out BoldGrid. I was really impressed with … of course, knew it as a page filter, it seems demos or site builder, but there’s a lot of other features, and functionality built in staging … yeah, it connects you with the themes, and a lot of cool stuff. I was really impressed when I jumped into that. I encourage folks who have not yet checked out BoldGrid either find demo at a conference and ask them to show you what’s up or just check it out yourself. MikeDemo: Cool. Definitely appreciate that. Well, definitely appreciate your time, Zac. Thanks for being a little bit flexible. I know a lot of [inaudible 00:25:09] while I get content out of this, and I really greatly appreciate your time. Zac Gordon: Hey. You as well. Thanks so much for being flexible. I know we had a slight rescheduling this morning, but very happy to be on, and thanks again for all you’re doing. MikeDemo: Awesome. Thanks, I’ll talk to you next time. Zac Gordon: Okay. Ciao. Bye. Oh my gosh. The kitty.