Episode 172 – The Hallway Chats Of WordCamp Italy Hallway Chats

In November 2022 Topher went to WordCamp Italy in Milan. While there he had several conversations with attendees and sponsors.







Episode Transcript







Topher: Hey folks, welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m your host Topher. This week is going to be a little bit different from usual. This last November, I had the opportunity to go to WordCamp Italy in Milan, or WordCamp Italia in Milano, depending on how your mama says it. 







While I was there, I got to have some actual in-person hallway chats with a number of people. And this week is going to be an aggregation of five of them. So you’re going to get to meet five really cool people that I have the opportunity to interview, and I hope you find them just as great as I did.







[00:00:40] 







Hey, everybody, this is Topher. I’m at WordCamp Italia in Milano, and I’m here with-







James: James Baldacchino.







Topher: James, why are you here? 







James: That’s good question. I’m here because I met two of the organizers in WordCamp US who told me it was coming up, and I said, why not? They also asked me whether I’ve been interested in applying to for a talk. My first reaction was, would I do? So I applied, they liked it, and here I am. 







Topher: That’s great. So you were at WordCamp US in San Diego? 







James: Yeah. That was fun. 







Topher: Did we meet and I forgot? 







James: Yes. 







Topher: I’m sorry. 







James: You met a lot of people.







Topher: I did. All right. Cool. So how did you get into WordPress? 







James: I joined Ellipsis 18 months ago. As simple as that. I’ve been using WordPress personally, of course, like most other people for a long, long time but I never realized there was such a huge community and such huge industry behind it. I have found WordPress incredibly useful. For example, when I was in a marketing job, which had zero budget, and I pulled together a lot of great websites for very low price. I loved it. But I never knew it was a beautiful shock to find out-







Topher: That’s a great word—beautiful shock. 







James: Yeah. 







Topher: When did you first realize the community was like that? Was it at WordCamp Us or did you find the community online? 







James: To be honest, the first year of working with WordPress, there was no WordCamp because it was all online because of the pandemic. WordCamps just cemented. But before, what made me realize what a tight-knit community this is was the fact that such a lot of information is shared so freely. 







Topher: Ah, yes. 







James: And there’s a lot of it as well. I’m coming from industries where if you have information, you don’t publish it, because you don’t want your competitors to know.







Topher: Right. Right. Proprietary.







James: So it was shocking and it was wonderful. I said, okay, then there must be more to this than what I realize.







Topher: And then you went to WordCamp?







James: And then I went to WordCamp Europe, which was massive. 







Topher: Oh, Porto? 







James: Yes. 







Topher: Did we meet there and I forgot?







James: No.