In this episode, Robbie & Roger go on the scene in Phoenix, Arizona to gather intel from Raquel Manriquez, Adam Weeks, Rae Morey, Christian Taylor, Matt Swartz, Zack Katz, Emma Young, and Derek Ashauer about their insights on PressConf, highlighting the importance of community, personal growth, and adapting to technological shifts like AI. Discover how intimate gatherings and authentic conversations can foster resilience and innovation within the WordPress ecosystem.

Key Topics:

• The significance of personal growth and healing in business success
• Why PressConf's small, curated environment enhances networking and authenticity
• The role of community in navigating turbulence in WordPress and digital marketing
• The legacy and culture of WordCamp Phoenix and its community support
• How events foster grounding and collective resilience during community turbulence
• Conversations around AI as a team member versus a tool or threat
• The importance of lifestyle-friendly business structures
• Strategies for small teams to increase efficiency and adapt to AI-driven tools
• The value of in-person connections for deeper, meaningful business conversations
• Practical advice on managing work hours and mental health in digital agencies

Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction: The purpose of PressConf and its community focus

00:40 - The intimate environment of PressConf and its benefits for networking

01:37 - The value of authentic, human-first interactions in conferences

02:31 - The conference's role in community healing amidst WordPress turbulence

03:55 - Unique, vulnerable conversations happening at PressConf

04:24 - The legacy of WordCamp Phoenix and local support for tech communities

05:44 - How Phoenix supports new and experienced community members

06:10 - PressConf's role in community grounding during WordPress turbulence

07:08 - Insights from agency owners on market shifts and organic marketing

08:32 - The importance of in-person connections and relationship building

09:54 - The serendipity and spontaneity of face-to-face meetings

10:24 - Addressing AI's impact on business and team efficiency

11:21 - Structuring a business around personal lifestyle and strengths

12:20 - Practical advice on managing work hours and mental health

Resources & Links:

• PressConf (https://pressconf.events/)

I think of it as my love letter

to the WordPress

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community, especially the business

community in WordPress.

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There's a lot of turbulence

in the WordPress community at the moment.

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There's a lot of turbulence in digital

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marketing and software

and everything in the moment.

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This is my conference.

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Every year I'm going to be here.

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Hey, Robbie.

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Hey, Roger.

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We're here at Press Conf,

and we've got one of the main organizers.

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Raquel. You're everywhere.

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You're at all the events, girl.

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Do you like to go to events?

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the whole purpose of press conf

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is for a very simple way

to put it for personal growth.

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I'm a firm believer that when we're healed

and whole from the inside out.

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We then can implement

amazing business strategy.

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so at press conference

it's about personal growth and healing

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disguised as business.

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Okay.

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Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody.

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My number one is to see people

individually field

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and inspired and challenged,

because I know that will affect

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what they do in their business

and on their business.

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I think of it as my love

letter to the WordPress community,

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when people show up, it feels like

they're coming to my birthday party.

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but in actuality, you get the gifts.

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So what made you come back?

Press conference.

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Such a great environment for just talking

to other folks in the WordPress community

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who want to chat, business and chat

very openly about it as well.

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with an event like press conf.

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It is so much smaller.

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There's 120 100 people.

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It's a much smaller event.

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It's over several days and you're going

to have multiple opportunities

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to be a human with these people

when I have been to two word camps

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like WordCamp Asia a few years ago

in Taiwan, it was so awesome

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to run into people and have chats,

but then they were always fleeting.

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I always found

it was really hard to really catch someone

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long enough to have a good chat,

but press conf keeps throwing you back

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into conversations with people

because you just keep running into them.

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It's the right size

for actually having enough people

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that you don't have to talk to everybody,

but you have the opportunity to

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it. Breakout groups are easy.

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Like it just happens naturally.

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It's it's at smaller curated community

of people that are here on purpose.

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It's filtered.

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And you have multiple opportunities

for like, hey, let's let's go get lunch.

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and there's tons of food around here.

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be a human first?

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Not that I wasn't a human,

but when we see people,

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we sometimes get into business mode real

quick and like, oh, I hate small talk.

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I was like, sorry, but

we're here in person and you do need to

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ask human questions like, be a person

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first is one of those no BS.

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Like that's where we start.

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Show up your whole self,

not just your company.

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Don't.

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Don't lead with the business card.

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Hey, I like to hand you like.

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Stop it, stop it, stop

it was the authentic group of people

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and just the communications.

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Everything was very authentic

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both in the sessions, but also just,

you know, in the hallway type thing.

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I felt like I had a much better pulse

of where everyone was at, it definitely

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had that intimacy that, you know,

some of the other conferences don't have.

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Yeah, I think that it's probably

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been my favorite software conference

I've ever been to.

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there was a lot of crying,

which was surprising to me.

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But I think, like in between the tears,

the context of the

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the the the, the talks were very different

than the other,

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like word press conferences

and other just conferences in general,

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like marketing ones.

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I don't know,

it was like stripped down, vulnerable.

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The F word was said a lot, and I was like,

these are my type of people,

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you know, like,

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I don't want to hear some regurgitated

like, this is your marketing plan.

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This is the funnel type of stuff.

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So that was interesting.

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Valuable conversations

with product owners, hosts,

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smart people, and WordPress.

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I am not the most technical guy,

so I just love chatting

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with everyone here

and learning more about the ecosystem,

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You've been involved with the Phoenix

WordPress community for a long time.

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Many. 1120. Oh my goodness.

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What is it about Phoenix and WordPress

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that creates this culture

where people love coming?

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They people travel here

from all over the world

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I think there's a legacy

that we're fortunate to have.

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I mean, we had some of the best word camps

back in the day.

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One of the earliest word

camps was at Word Camp Phoenix.

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Yes, 2009.

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I was not even in the community

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at that point,

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That was one of the very,

very first word camps.

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we have a lot of tech in the Phoenix area,

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so there's a lot of tech minds

There are some local cities

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in the Phoenix area that are invested

in supporting tech agencies.

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We have this group called yes, Phoenix.

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We have co-working spaces

that are all really

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supportive of entrepreneurs

who are working in tech.

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And so that makes it

I think we have a great pool of people

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who are doing WordPress

or are doing websites.

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One of the things when we do a word camp

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or any kind of event,

we want people to feel welcome.

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We want newbies

who've never been here before.

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We want them to

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feel like they have a spot here as well,

and we talk about that as a team.

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It's very intentional, and so we really go

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out of our way to try and be that

welcoming community.

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There's a lot of turbulence

in the WordPress community at the moment.

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There's a lot of turbulence in digital

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marketing and software

and everything in the moment.

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How does an event like Press Conf help to

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help you find like your footing

and grounding?

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first year was about bringing

the community together.

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and we were telling people about it

at the beginning of word

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camp us

the first word camp us in Portland,

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before things changed radically

in the WordPress community.

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With Matt speech on the state of the word.

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then all of a sudden

we had this major bomb go off,

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which then made this conference

even more critical.

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And so it was really about healing

and about relying on each other

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and about showing

that we can rely on each other.

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We can have hard discussions

and have them in a healthy way.

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it's been incredibly helpful,

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especially this year,

just to hear other people sort of defuze

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the situation or the fears a bit and say,

look, WordPress is not dying.

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You know, hearing agency owners

say we're not losing clients like crazy.

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Yes, there are some concerns

and things to work through,

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and the landscape is shifting a bit,

but hearing that

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from those business

owners puts me at ease a bit,

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because I'm an interesting spot

as a full time creator.

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I'm like, I don't know what's happening

until I have these conversations.

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I just hear rumors of,

oh, it's really bad market shares,

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you know, being taken up and everyone's

moving the vibe coding.

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And I'm like, is that true?

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I don't know.

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So I think just talking to people who are

in the trenches has been really helpful.

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running an organic marketing team,

I like to share my opinion a lot.

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I like I was joking around,

the AI search has been my personality

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like for the last few months.

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So I want to talk to other people

like what are they doing?

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Is it the same thing?

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Are they seeing the same things as me?

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So I like having conversations like this.

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what I'm dealing with

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is centralized just me or is it our niche

or is it the entire landscape?

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my number one goal is mostly

just to hear what everyone else is doing.

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You know, learn from that and bring that

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back to the agency

and to the product side.

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it's more about trying to understand

where things are going and

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being able to adapt to it, I almost didn't

come this year, to be honest.

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My wife had to kind of convince me

and nudge me to do know I told my wife I'd

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probably know about 50, 60% of the people

that are going to be there.

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I love going the first year because I

got to meet a lot of other product owners.

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I got to learn a lot

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from them, make connections, So

it felt like I had made those connections.

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What more could I get out of now

that I'm back here again, I'm like.

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I'm very much glad I came,

because then it's like that.

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It's that, you do forget that

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talking with people in person

is really helpful.

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That there is a different level to it.

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And being able to talk with people

who understand what you're doing,

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what your goals are, what you're

trying to achieve, they understand it.

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They've either been through it

and have succeeded or been through it

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and failed, and can talk to you about it

on a personal level,

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on a more direct level,

because here in person,

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you feel more willing

to talk about the details

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as opposed to maybe in a Twitter

DM or an email or something like that.

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You're okay.

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I see that you're a real person,

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so I'm willing to actually

have a real conversation with you.

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you go down in the lift and you head out

to, you know, to the talks

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or going out to grab a coffee.

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You constantly running into people and

picking up the same conversation threads

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and then maybe grabbing a drink later

or something.

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So it allows you to really go

that step further than what you can

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at other WordPress events,

because you can keep

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diving deeper into conversations

at length with people.

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there's the hill that we can go and hike.

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And I think we ran into each other

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hill last, last year

and ended up having coffee.

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And so the serendipity

of just running into people

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and running into the same people again,

and being able to pick up

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those conversations is really obviously

AI is huge and it's kind of hard

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not to talk about it or address it,

and it's constantly changing.

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And I feel like whatever

we were doing last month

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with AI to help us with our businesses

is probably something new

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or completely antiquated at this point

today.

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Then, of course, I come back to

what are you doing for your own

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personal health?

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That then will help you implement

better business practices.

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those old tools were built

for different paradigm.

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Now we are looking at tools

that are built for AI first agencies.

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We need a new set of tools

how do you stand out?

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Is your crowdsourcing your solutions

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to be better than your competition?

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And you come to an event like that

to meet eye to eye need

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and NE where hey, what's I'm

struggling here.

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What are you guys doing?

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Matt Cromwell was talking about, you know,

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your teams are going to be smaller,

more efficient.

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Well, I'm a team of one.

I can't get more efficient than one.

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What you know, what I liked about

Katie's is also like,

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this is what worked for me,

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and where I was in my life

is how she kind of presented it.

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And I feel that heavily,

because that's something

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how I've always structured my business

for like the last many years now is

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I want to the idea of like a lifestyle

business.

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And I don't mean that's

because I want to sit on a beach

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and do all that kind of stuff.

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It's a business

that wraps around how I am as a person,

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and what works to my strengths,

and what makes me happy and excited

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to get up in the morning.

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I think biggest takeaway

was that it's okay

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to structure a business

around your lifestyle.

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I've had this tension

in my own business of

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do I need to cater my lifestyle

to the business?

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Is it okay to say, well,

I don't know if I want to work

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12 hours a day,

I have sort of reframed AI as a tool

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to treat almost as a team member

rather than a business executive,

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and I think that's

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an important distinction to make,

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because a lot of people

have been leaning on AI as like,

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I just ask it what to do, or it's

just going to come up with stuff for me.

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And that's where a lot of the fear

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mongering comes from, of

AI is going to take over the world

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and replace my business,

and I don't think that's actually true.

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I think you have to treat it

as an employee, a team member.

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So you still have to have a plan

to give it and say, can you help me

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with this?

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it's kind of like

getting a more affordable employee,

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but it's not necessarily

a business partner or executive or leader

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who's just gonna like,

take things and run with it.

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Excellent. I want to just give

a quick answer for you.

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You do not have to work 12 hour days.

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Please stop working 12 hour days.

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Good to know.