thoughts

Will I Be Able To Stay Relevant With WordPress?

As I was writing an article for the Tavern containing my thoughts on a few of the topics I’d like to see new sites dedicated to WordPress cover, I wondered if WordPress has passed me up. Five to six years ago, I felt like I had a good handle on what WordPress was doing and where it was going. Now, not so much.

Not only do I not know where it’s going, I’m personally not interested in some of the topics that WordPress users today want to know about. eCommerce, the business of WordPress, enterprise, and application development. These things sound cool, but hurt my head just thinking about them.

I have no idea how to be relevant with these topics since I’ve never operated a WordPress business, have no experience with enterprise, never operated an eCommerce store using WordPress, or know anything about product development or pricing. Some of those topics scream BORING to me and the best content is based on real life experience.

I’ve always written about WordPress from a user point of view as I’ve primarily used WordPress for publishing and managing content. Every now and then, checking out new plugins and themes. Over the years, I’ve become less of a tinkerer and have become comfortable with the way the Tavern operates. I don’t experiment as much as I used to.

If I’m not already, at some point, I think people like me who use WordPress just for blogging and managing content are going to be considered old school. Using it as a foundation for applications, frameworks, eCommerce, or powerful solutions to problems is going to be the cool, shiny way to use WordPress. I’m wondering when/if what I have to offer the WordPress community in terms of information, experience, etc will just be irrelevant to the trends, topics, and use cases of WordPress in the near future.

I don’t think it will be any time soon considering the huge user base of novice-intermediate users who are always looking for the next cool theme or efficient plugin to handle tasks. But it is something I’ve been thinking about and will continue to think about in the foreseeable future.

 

Looking Up

One of the greatest feelings I experience in life is looking up to the heavens on a cool, crisp, clear night when the stars are easy to see. I take deep breaths in the cool air and somehow, it seems to rejuvenate me. Looking up at the heavens, wondering many things. Reflecting on life, questioning if we’re alone within our universe and what the future has in store for me. Looking up at planets, stars, and galaxies reminds me how small and insignificant I am in the grand scheme of themes.

Just when it seems I’ve arrived at a Eureka moment, I notice the dog is ready to come back inside. I let her in and continue on with my meaningless life.

To Think That

Damn Gray Cable

I sit here in my room, otherwise known as my office staring at my computer monitors. That cat 5 network cable which extends from the back of my desktop machine travels along the wall and eventually finds itself connected to a device known as a router. Just inches away from the router is the modem. From there, I gain access to just about the entire world. All I need to do is type in a few words into a search engine or into the address bar in the browser of my choice and browse the enormous amount of information that is just waiting to be consumed. In mere seconds I can share photos, videos, and audio from my neck of the woods that others may never experience. I am somebody on this big blue ball known as Earth.

However, if I unplug that gray cable from the back of my computer, I lose access to the entire world. I become a nobody. Sure, I have a cell phone in which I can call people, but the feeling of being disconnected is simply too much. The feeling of living life at the pace of a snail sinks in and becomes unbearable. I read a book to make my mind feel at ease but it’s useless. As I read the book, I wonder what tweets I have missed, what’s in my inbox, the struggles of what it will be like to regain my momentum and catch up. I go for a walk to enjoy life but it’s not enjoyable because I am not connected. I grab the latest issue of Wired Magazine which has been sitting on my dresser ever since it arrived and begin to read it. After reading the first few pages, I realize that all of this information is old and has probably been published to the Wired website a month before I received the magazine.

I once again take a seat in my chair and stare at the computer monitors and think about what having that cable connected to my computer has enabled me to achieve in life. That cable has provided career opportunities, lasting friendships, endless hours of entertainment, and the ability to live life in more than one place in near real-time. The data traveling through this gray cable has provided a means of life for me. It’s become a huge part of who I am, what I do, and what I will be. After relishing the top down perspective of the cable and what its meant to me, I plug it back in and get back to work.

I Don’t Know – Google It

Google Memory

Nowadays, thats typically the response I hear when I ask someone a question. Why is that? Neuroscientist Ian Robertson recently polled 3,000 people and discovered younger ones were less able than their elders to recall standard personal information. 87% of his respondents over age 50 couldn’t recite a relatives birth date, while less than 40 percent of those under 30 could do so. When Ian asked those under 30 their own phone number, at least one third of them had to take out their handset to remember.

The moral of the story here is that, humans are reaching a point where they no longer need to remember information but rather, machines are the ones who are storing the information that can be retrieved within a few keystrokes. I know I have asked a number of people some interesting questions and instead of providing what they thought was the answer, they merely tell me to Google it. Does this happen to you as well? Leo Laporte likes to coin this term as (GAM) or Google Assisted Memory. As long as he can remember how to type into Google, he will seemingly never forget anything.

Although typing into Google and receiving those results is a very fast way of obtaining information, sometimes I just want to hear the answer from a human rather than a search engine.

I’d be very interested to hear your feedback regarding this subject as I think it is fascinating. In retrospect, it sounds like the beginning of the cyborg era, wouldn’t you say?

I Don’t Know – Google It

Google Memory

Nowadays, thats typically the response I hear when I ask someone a question. Why is that? Neuroscientist Ian Robertson recently polled 3,000 people and discovered younger ones were less able than their elders to recall standard personal information. 87% of his respondents over age 50 couldn’t recite a relatives birth date, while less than 40 percent of those under 30 could do so. When Ian asked those under 30 their own phone number, at least one third of them had to take out their handset to remember.

The moral of the story here is that, humans are reaching a point where they no longer need to remember information but rather, machines are the ones who are storing the information that can be retrieved within a few keystrokes. I know I have asked a number of people some interesting questions and instead of providing what they thought was the answer, they merely tell me to Google it. Does this happen to you as well? Leo Laporte likes to coin this term as (GAM) or Google Assisted Memory. As long as he can remember how to type into Google, he will seemingly never forget anything.

Although typing into Google and receiving those results is a very fast way of obtaining information, sometimes I just want to hear the answer from a human rather than a search engine.

I’d be very interested to hear your feedback regarding this subject as I think it is fascinating. In retrospect, it sounds like the beginning of the cyborg era, wouldn’t you say?