[00:00:08.10] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:08.20] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:08.29] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:10.25] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:12.23] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And thank you so much for joining us.
[00:00:25.16] - Taylor
Welcome back.
[00:00:26.06] - Gordon
You normally say something there. That's why I waited. If this your first time with us, then please like, share, and subscribe if you enjoy it. And let's get straight into an addendum from last week. So if you were watching last week, we were talking about Home Assistant and automating the house. And we had a bank holiday weekend and spent a bit of time on it, didn't we, Taylor?
[00:00:51.17] - Taylor
We did.
[00:00:52.17] - Gordon
So we've set up a few routines and automations. I now have my office where if I walk into it, we've got an E-motion Pro, which is a little sensor that uses radar to see if somebody's in the room, and it will turn all my hue lights on for me. And then when I leave the room, it will wait a minute in case I come back in again. And if I don't come back in, it'll then turn the lights off, which is great, isn't it?
[00:01:21.09] - Taylor
It is.
[00:01:21.24] - Gordon
What's your favourite automation that we've done so far?
[00:01:24.23] - Taylor
I really like the automation that connects to the Apple TV. And when you play the TV, it will dim the lights. And when you pause it, it will put the lights back up to bright so you can see and go and do whatever you need to do. And this was an automation that I saw on a YouTube channel, and I thought it was a great idea because it's useful. You need to be able to see when you're getting up to go and get some more snacks or you need to go to the front door. But then when you're watching a movie or something, you want to be able to focus on the TV and not have the bright lights on.
[00:02:03.20] - Gordon
Yeah, it's a really good idea, and that's a lovely automation. Obviously, you need to have lights that are controllable for that. And in our lounge, for example, we do have an Apple TV, but we don't have the lights to control. So I can't do that in here at the moment. But at some point, I guess, we'll replace these lights and we'll put some smart lighting in, which will be great.
[00:02:26.24] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:02:27.27] - Gordon
So let's get straight into our topic. And we've got one topic again this week, like we had last week, and we're both going to talk about it. Pardon me, I could feel that coming. That's why I paused. Next week, we are going to Switzerland, aren't we?
[00:02:46.12] - Taylor
We are.
[00:02:46.29] - Gordon
We're going to a place called Basel. Is that right?
[00:02:51.25] - Taylor
No idea.
[00:02:53.12] - Gordon
I think it's pronounced Basel. It's a place that the Eurovision Song Contest was in just a few weeks back, and that's not the reason we're going. Why are we going, Taylor?
[00:03:07.18] - Taylor
We're going to WordCamp, which we went to last year, which was in Italy, in Turin. And we're going this year again as well. So it should be good fun.
[00:03:17.17] - Gordon
So it's WordCamp Europe, and if you don't know anything about it, it's a convention and a meetup for people who work professionally with WordPress. And this is the software that we use and a lot of other people use to build websites on. It's a very flexible framework and does everything that we've ever needed it to do. And it's a really good opportunity to network with the other professionals. There's talks, there are workshops, and it's the first time I've ever been to Switzerland, so that will be exciting as well. Have you ever been to Switzerland?
[00:03:57.26] - Taylor
I've been to Switzerland once. When I was doing my 12 months of coffee and I went to a new city every single month, I went to Zurich and I met up with an internet friend, which was really cool because I had been friends with him for a couple of years and I got to meet up and he showed me around and went to some nice restaurant, got some macarons, which was the first time I'd ever had them.
[00:04:24.11] - Gordon
Do you mean macaroons?
[00:04:26.14] - Taylor
Yeah. And just really, really nice city, really beautiful, expensive, but very clean and really good public transport and really good just general city, essentially.
[00:04:44.25] - Gordon
Yeah. So we're not going to Zurich, but it is Switzerland. And I think a lot of what you experienced in Zurich we'll experience in Basel. So that will be good. I'm looking forward to that. As far as the convention goes, that starts a day or two after we actually get there. So we do have a day to ourselves. Have we got anything planned for us there?
[00:05:08.22] - Taylor
We were going to go and have a look and see if we could go up into the Swiss Alps because I feel like it's something that you should do. You always see these beautiful picturesque photos, so I'd love to go and visit and see it for myself. I know that Jonathan Jernigan is a huge fan of Switzerland. When he came over to WordCamp Porto or WorldCamp Europe in Porto, he went backpacking and went around Europe. And one of the favourite places he said, was the Alps and also just Switzerland. He loved the city, well the country. So that's definitely something I want to do because I didn't do that last time.
[00:05:51.26] - Gordon
So you never know. Next week in our episode, if we do an episode, we may have been up the Alps by then, which will be interesting. What we might do, just talking about next week, is we might see if we can find one or two people maybe to do a podcast with. And that would be a slightly different episode to normal because we're going to be at WordCamp during the week, so we might have to record it a couple of days early and then put it out on the Friday as we normally do. But, yeah, look out for it because I think we're going to try and do that this time. I know we say we're going to try and do this on various different times in the past, but I think this is something we really should do. We can find out a little bit more about certain people that we meet. So back to the convention. What are you looking forward to most at the convention?
[00:06:51.08] - Taylor
I enjoy the talks. I always find them interesting. It's interesting and fascinating to see what people do with it. There's a lot of different types of talks and lectures and workshops because it's not just professionals that go. Anyone that uses WordPress, there's a lot of people that are hobbyists or they use it because that's what their business website is built with and they want to learn more about it. There's so many different people. There's lots of people that are plug-in developers and big companies that have some stake in WordPress - not the open source, but their business is built around WordPress. And so they come with a business mindset of selling to people like us who use WordPress and build websites for clients. There's just so many different areas. It's not just WordPress itself. It's SEO, it's marketing, it's scaling your business, your agency, building a big plug-in company. There's so many different areas and people that have done what you want to do for 5, 10 years plus, because WordPress is now 20 years old. So there's some people who have been in WordPress since near the beginning and have a lot of experience with it. And then there's people that this is their first WordCamp; or they've only been using WordPress for a year; or they've only just gone from it being a side hustle to their main business, and they're trying to grow that and scale it; or they're trying to get themselves started, essentially. So many different types of people to meet and talk to.
[00:08:33.29] - Gordon
And last year we were able to go around various sponsors. So people who had a booth, in American terms, or a stand, in the UK terms, at a convention where you can look at different people's offerings and all things that are based around WordPress, whether it be hosting or plug-ins or themes or services, all these things where you can meet up with the people who actually do the work and build these platforms. And you can chat to them and you can talk to them about your use case and what you want to see. It's a great way if there's something that you've been using and they're there, you can go and talk to them and say, "look, you know what? I've always wanted it to do this. Maybe you could consider that." And they could then sit down with you and have a chat and find out why you want that to do a certain thing and understand the use case and then make a decision as to whether that's going to be of interest to other customers that they have. And you just can't do that anywhere else, really. This is one of the few opportunities you get to do that. Plus you get to actually see and play with new plug-ins that are coming out or updates, which is always very exciting. And they have different sized stands depending on how the sponsorship's gone or how big a stand they've got. And sometimes they bring out a whole heap of people to man the stand, and other times it's just one person on their own, isn't it?
[00:10:12.06] - Taylor
Yeah, it's completely different. Some people have goodies and things you can go home with, swag, merch, which is always fun, going around collecting all the stickers and all the T-shirts. I got, I think last year, I got a little bag that was probably A5 size, and I use it pretty much every single day because I put my portable charger and a couple of other things that then go into my bag that is then easily, I can easily move it between the different types of bags I have without having to take every single individual item out.
[00:10:49.01] - Gordon
Yeah. There's also the talks that Taylor mentioned before, and there is workshops. I haven't actually looked at those yet, but we need to do so because if it's a workshop that we want to go to, we need to register for it. And there's a limited number of people that can register for each workshop. And if I remember rightly, last year, Matt Mullenweg, I think that's how you pronounce it, who is the head of Automatic, who create WordPress, actually spoke as well. I don't know if he's going to be there. It is a WordPress Europe, so the chances are he might be there. It'll be interesting to see if he is because last year, he talked about the future and where they were heading and what they were going to do with it. And here we are a year later. So it'll be interesting to see if any of that's changed. Especially as there's been an awful lot of things going on in the last year with WordPress. If you've followed any of it with WP Engine and all of the, I don't know, silliness, I don't know how to describe it, but there's a lot of things that have been going on in the background with one company doing and saying one thing and another company doing something else and then blocking them and stopping them from doing stuff. Hopefully, it's sort of... I haven't heard anything about it recently, and I think that's probably a good thing because it calmed down a bit. But there was a point during the last year that I thought WordPress was going to self-implode, basically. So I'm sure we'll hear more about that when we go out there. It's quite an experience, actually. I mean, it's not a cheap thing to do, but we both work with WordPress every working day of our lives, so it's a really important thing. I think we mentioned this when I was talking about Trix, wasn't it? When I said it's really important to go to these places and meet people and talk to people, and you start seeing similar faces at these events, and you start to recognise them. And it's at that point you stop and have a little chat with them. And all of a sudden, you've got a new friend who's got a new experience level and you can access that and they can access yours and all sorts of things happen. So what else are you looking forward to? Anything in particular?
[00:13:29.25] - Taylor
Getting on a plane?
[00:13:33.07] - Gordon
Yeah, I mean, you like flying. I like flying. It's nice to go to new places. Switzerland is quite cheap, isn't it?
[00:13:41.23] - Taylor
Not really.
[00:13:42.03] - Gordon
Been saving up. It is interesting, though, isn't it? Because the public transport, I understand, is free, and that's really cheap because it's free. And then everything else is really expensive. So I don't know quite how they do it out there, what the balance is as far as making sure you cover the costs of all this free travel and everything else. There's obviously a lot to find out. And it's a new culture for me. I've never been to Switzerland. I don't know how the Swiss live, so that will be exciting for me as well. That's pretty much all I want to say. I think next episode, if we get a chance to record an episode with people, will be interesting because we'll try and do it when we're there and we'll be able to give across some of our experiences up to that point. So I think next week's could be a very interesting episode. Anything else you want to say?
[00:14:47.08] - Taylor
I don't think so.
[00:14:48.18] - Gordon
Well, in which case we will come back to this next week and hope that you enjoy. If you are going, by the way, please leave a message. You can leave a comment on YouTube, that will find its way to us. We'd love to meet up with you at WordCamp Europe if you're going to Switzerland. Just leave us a message. It'd be great to meet up with people who listen or watch the podcast and vidcast.
[00:15:16.01] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:15:16.17] - Gordon
That's everything from me.
[00:15:17.16] - Taylor
And me as well.
[00:15:18.17] - Gordon
As always, you can like, share, and subscribe. We're on YouTube, so please make sure you let everyone know if you enjoy the episodes.
[00:15:27.13] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes and anything we may have spoken about.
[00:15:33.26] - Gordon
And if you are travelling to Switzerland, what better way to travel than to listen to a podcast of This Week With. And you can do that on any of the major podcast past platforms, and you can even ask your smart speaker to play This Week With Taylor and Gordon, and hopefully, it will do what you ask it to do and play the latest episode. We'll be back with you next Friday at 1pm, hopefully with a pre-recorded episode from Switzerland. That'll be a first for us, won't it?
[00:16:07.12] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:16:07.16] - Gordon
So until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:16:12.10] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:16:14.23] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:16:14.29] - Taylor
Bye.
