Genesis Shapers: February 2021

1
00:00:00.359 –> 00:00:00.780
David Vogelpohl: Hello everyone and welcome to the genesis Community live cast this is our genesis shapers recap episode for February 2020 shapers meeting titled bug hunt.

3
00:00:15.030 –> 00:00:25.860
David Vogelpohl: i’m David vogel pole i’ve been a proud member of the genesis Community for a little over eight years now, I lead genesis wp engine and I loved helping the genesis Community get better together.

4
00:00:26.130 –> 00:00:34.290
David Vogelpohl: With my friends from the shapers joining me for this recap episode is kari deals carrie welcome back to the genesis Community live cast.

5
00:00:34.590 –> 00:00:36.420
carrie dils: Thanks David always good to be here.

6
00:00:36.750 –> 00:00:46.110
David Vogelpohl: glad to have you normally will have another shape or join us for these recaps rim kiss to free us will be joining us next month, he had a schedule conflict wasn’t able to.

7
00:00:46.740 –> 00:00:52.050
David Vogelpohl: Join us this month, so carrie and I are going to bring us home here with a recap, of the shapers meeting.

8
00:00:52.680 –> 00:01:00.360
David Vogelpohl: will go ahead and jump on in and the first question we asked in every shapers meeting is, can I get a show of hands for those that were able to make it today.

9
00:01:00.780 –> 00:01:07.350
David Vogelpohl: carrie you were able to make it looks like we have let’s see who else Mike hamburger bill Ericsson Robin coronet.

10
00:01:07.740 –> 00:01:24.090
David Vogelpohl: need a Carter there’s carries waving hand travis Smith rem custer free this Ryan Ken stra from the genesis custom blocks team john Brown is nine seeds with the many with a dancing Panda and to dancing.

11
00:01:25.320 –> 00:01:27.000
David Vogelpohl: What is this a penguins.

12
00:01:27.630 –> 00:01:32.220
David Vogelpohl: yeah I got the dancing penguin from you know a little dry use that emoji so much carry.

13
00:01:32.340 –> 00:01:32.880
carrie dils: I don’t.

14
00:01:33.150 –> 00:01:35.640
David Vogelpohl: it’s from a former shape or tanya mork.

15
00:01:35.700 –> 00:01:39.330
David Vogelpohl: tanya low dancing penguins.

16
00:01:39.450 –> 00:01:40.620
carrie dils: He loves it into okay.

17
00:01:41.160 –> 00:01:42.360
carrie dils: hey tanya.

18
00:01:43.170 –> 00:01:49.170
David Vogelpohl: Now internally at wp engine and our slack people read me because I used to dancing penguins and much.

19
00:01:50.700 –> 00:02:04.110
David Vogelpohl: know why by dolla who is on previous shapers recap episode and it looks like we had Sally gets and Nick craft it looks like and Ryan Murray Ryan, does the disco.

20
00:02:04.590 –> 00:02:06.240
David Vogelpohl: emoji there is a present.

21
00:02:07.710 –> 00:02:08.580
carrie dils: For full House.

22
00:02:08.970 –> 00:02:12.300
David Vogelpohl: yeah that’s a pretty good pretty good show turn out there.

23
00:02:13.440 –> 00:02:30.600
David Vogelpohl: So the first question was will you join me in congratulating the y by dolla on his launch of awesome press O s O m press maybe i’ll do a little screen sharing on this one kind of see what’s going on here with with know why.

24
00:02:31.890 –> 00:02:43.200
David Vogelpohl: He actually comes up several times in this episode, but know why launched this theme business call a theme and plug in business called awesome press.

25
00:02:43.860 –> 00:03:02.700
David Vogelpohl: And they’ve launched a couple of different genesis child themes one’s called uprising and the other is Dakota and both of these themes use one click theme setup as well as they include collections, which is the kind of.

26
00:03:03.780 –> 00:03:15.330
David Vogelpohl: theme DEMO content all chopped up and available in the editor that’s available through genesis custom blocks, I should have installed these themes before we recorded this I could actually show what they look like on the back end.

27
00:03:16.110 –> 00:03:19.530
David Vogelpohl: But know why and his team have done a really, really good job here.

28
00:03:20.220 –> 00:03:35.070
David Vogelpohl: For those unfamiliar with know why he is a genesis and wordpress Community organizer based out of Spain he’s also, of course, one of the genesis shapers so we wanted to take a minute there to congratulate him for that if you check studio press dot blog.

29
00:03:36.150 –> 00:03:40.380
David Vogelpohl: there’s a blog post on there talking all about awesome press and what they launched.

30
00:03:41.280 –> 00:03:44.100
David Vogelpohl: Did you congratulate him carrie i’m not seeing your name here.

31
00:03:44.220 –> 00:03:46.260
David Vogelpohl: Unless you hearted one I think i’m.

32
00:03:46.320 –> 00:03:52.440
carrie dils: might have hearted rim kiss because he said pretty awesome with the.

33
00:03:52.980 –> 00:03:54.210
carrie dils: osm pun.

34
00:03:56.340 –> 00:03:57.360
carrie dils: Or if I will, if.

35
00:03:58.110 –> 00:04:00.000
David Vogelpohl: I don’t get it man congratulations.

36
00:04:00.000 –> 00:04:02.610
carrie dils: congrats know why that was not meant to be a slight.

37
00:04:02.970 –> 00:04:07.830
David Vogelpohl: Oh, maybe you’re multitasking I might have been getting my coffee during that first.

38
00:04:08.940 –> 00:04:10.110
carrie dils: First moments of the meeting there.

39
00:04:10.770 –> 00:04:17.730
David Vogelpohl: is a great thing about slack meetings being a singer you can have little side quests I know your heart is there kari I try.

40
00:04:17.760 –> 00:04:19.080
carrie dils: Yes, absolutely.

41
00:04:19.380 –> 00:04:19.830
David Vogelpohl: yeah that’s.

42
00:04:20.070 –> 00:04:22.740
carrie dils: Actually pretty cool now there may be other.

43
00:04:22.800 –> 00:04:37.110
carrie dils: theme shops genesis theme shops out there that are doing this, but no wise is the first one i’ve realized that was using the one click theme setup that you can do now, with genesis in the taken advantage of collection, so I thought that’s pretty cool.

44
00:04:37.470 –> 00:04:44.340
David Vogelpohl: yeah the combination of with collections he I think they’re the First, there are a few others that have used one click theme.

45
00:04:44.340 –> 00:04:46.770
David Vogelpohl: setup obviously that was one of the top requests.

46
00:04:47.760 –> 00:04:49.260
David Vogelpohl: For the framework.

47
00:04:50.520 –> 00:05:00.810
David Vogelpohl: Was you know, make the DEMO setup process less annoying, and so we actually had a few folks who were able to implement that in their theme, so that was really good to see.

48
00:05:01.320 –> 00:05:10.440
David Vogelpohl: And, of course, with know why launching awesome press kind of from the ground up he was able to do all the new stuff right away versus having to update all been so that was great for him.

49
00:05:10.500 –> 00:05:10.830
yeah.

50
00:05:12.330 –> 00:05:15.990
David Vogelpohl: It looks like Sally Nick croft are congratulating him.

51
00:05:17.400 –> 00:05:27.240
David Vogelpohl: I think Ryan Mary is as well he’s has a disco thing again no I was appreciative so thanks Ryan can start saying congrats.

52
00:05:30.330 –> 00:05:31.920
carrie dils: David vocal pole coming through.

53
00:05:32.820 –> 00:05:35.640
David Vogelpohl: When yes, there you go.

54
00:05:36.690 –> 00:05:46.200
David Vogelpohl: john brown nine seeds giving congrats there to know why, and I think that’s one of the things I think I love most about the wordpress in genesis community is just how.

55
00:05:46.500 –> 00:05:52.890
David Vogelpohl: people that have similar businesses still support each other, I mean coming from other tech fields where it was more adversarial.

56
00:05:53.190 –> 00:05:56.070
David Vogelpohl: yeah it’s like Why are these people being nice to each other and had to.

57
00:05:56.490 –> 00:06:01.530
David Vogelpohl: Like kind of learned, as I went, but this is a great of john their put their congrats.

58
00:06:02.730 –> 00:06:07.800
David Vogelpohl: Have you do you participate in other tech communities where it’s not as friendly carrie where it’s a little more cutthroat.

59
00:06:08.250 –> 00:06:13.110
carrie dils: um oh wordpress is pretty much where where I stick around.

60
00:06:14.310 –> 00:06:19.290
David Vogelpohl: Okay okay well just be warned that the Gray white girl is not as friendly, as we are here.

61
00:06:19.350 –> 00:06:19.890
Okay.

62
00:06:21.600 –> 00:06:34.110
David Vogelpohl: All right, on to our next question which, which is a little more kind of on point thinking about generally how we support the genesis and wordpress community, but this question says do your technical non technical theme customers.

63
00:06:34.470 –> 00:06:48.420
David Vogelpohl: use local or staging environments when they make changes on their own, or features like one click staging on web hosts or software like local helpful for these types or non technical types of clients.

64
00:06:49.440 –> 00:07:00.450
David Vogelpohl: Before we get into their feedback from the other shapers carrie i’ll just ask you, I know you do a lot of education with folks through carrie deals calm or on genesis and wordpress i’m guessing and maybe even other things, but.

65
00:07:01.620 –> 00:07:11.190
David Vogelpohl: Do you find that like one click staging or even something like local is helpful for the non technical user is that still just like too much to fathom like they got to go Wild West.

66
00:07:11.190 –> 00:07:11.520
coding.

67
00:07:13.080 –> 00:07:20.820
carrie dils: I mean, I obviously advocate for using a local environment, but I think for the the average bear it’s.

68
00:07:22.260 –> 00:07:25.320
carrie dils: I mean, none of my clients ever used it.

69
00:07:27.330 –> 00:07:37.590
carrie dils: And I don’t know that a non technical audience is reading my blog but yeah I think it’s a little in theory it’s wonderful, but I think it’s a little.

70
00:07:39.570 –> 00:07:42.300
carrie dils: Complex for for non technical folks.

71
00:07:42.960 –> 00:07:51.270
David Vogelpohl: yeah I feel I feel like a non technical users are like the people that need staging more than anybody because they make the most mistakes and so like.

72
00:07:51.660 –> 00:07:59.970
David Vogelpohl: wp engine like we have automated backups by sake of example, and I think that probably saves a lot of non technical users rears when they make a mistake and Chris.

73
00:08:00.240 –> 00:08:01.560
carrie dils: My rear a few times.

74
00:08:01.920 –> 00:08:09.420
David Vogelpohl: Oh yeah well right, of course, we all make mistakes right, but I think people do rely on those backup features to recover from that.

75
00:08:10.260 –> 00:08:21.240
David Vogelpohl: But it is interesting to think about like Well, we know it’s a best practice and of course it would help you avoid a lot of headaches, if you followed it so so finding past that help people using genesis seems frankly anyone in wordpress.

76
00:08:21.990 –> 00:08:29.190
David Vogelpohl: So it seems helpful bill Ericsson says, our clients use staging for building testing redesigns.

77
00:08:29.640 –> 00:08:45.090
David Vogelpohl: And then we saw a few other folks like bill mentioned that same thing, but like like know why, but when you dig in a little deeper what you realize is they set them up and train them on there, and so this kind of self serve journey using local or staging.

78
00:08:46.500 –> 00:08:51.870
David Vogelpohl: seems to be beyond folks and it felt like bill, and why we’re also helping them push it to production.

79
00:08:52.920 –> 00:08:54.420
David Vogelpohl: So I thought that was kind of a tell.

80
00:08:54.660 –> 00:08:57.090
David Vogelpohl: On those replies does that make sense to you.

81
00:08:57.270 –> 00:08:58.890
carrie dils: Oh yeah definitely.

82
00:09:00.720 –> 00:09:14.850
carrie dils: And Sally kind of chimed in with the same thing, most of her clients don’t don’t even touch their websites it’s up to her so she’ll move move it over to staging do the changes and they’ll review it in that environment and then but she’s actually doing all the all the technical.

83
00:09:16.020 –> 00:09:21.090
David Vogelpohl: yeah that makes sense, I mean none of my clients and my agency days would have done this on their own.

84
00:09:22.500 –> 00:09:25.080
David Vogelpohl: At least the the non technical clients.

85
00:09:26.220 –> 00:09:32.820
David Vogelpohl: looks like travis Smith reinforces that travis says only my enterprise clients use staging.

86
00:09:35.610 –> 00:09:41.010
David Vogelpohl: Ryan Murray, talking about how fair amount of his do it, but again kind of that hand holding notion.

87
00:09:42.900 –> 00:09:47.760
David Vogelpohl: john brown says his non technical customers almost never use local staging and if they do.

88
00:09:48.780 –> 00:09:54.780
David Vogelpohl: it’s only to test out something very major like a redesign switching plugins things like that.

89
00:09:56.010 –> 00:10:01.470
David Vogelpohl: This is really interesting I mean, I think the feedback was pretty consistent across the board there.

90
00:10:02.370 –> 00:10:17.220
David Vogelpohl: There were some things flagged around some of the trouble with using staging or local environments relative to like the amount of data on a site and pushing and pulling that back and providing people pass to segment out, you know media or something similar.

91
00:10:18.330 –> 00:10:20.850
David Vogelpohl: To help limit the impact of that.

92
00:10:22.620 –> 00:10:31.470
David Vogelpohl: But I think if you’re listening or watching this and you are Wild West coding or as people might call cowboy and cowgirl coding.

93
00:10:32.850 –> 00:10:39.210
David Vogelpohl: Right exactly basically making changes in production it’s extremely dangerous and i’m sure you’ve probably even felt that before.

94
00:10:39.810 –> 00:10:45.300
David Vogelpohl: But check with your host because a lot of hosts will have really easy like one click staging options.

95
00:10:46.290 –> 00:10:54.120
David Vogelpohl: And really easy ways to push this changes into your live environment and then, if the host does have that they will also.

96
00:10:54.720 –> 00:11:03.180
David Vogelpohl: provide support for the APP and that’s certainly true, you know wp engine and flywheel and then the other major managed wordpress has that i’m familiar with.

97
00:11:03.930 –> 00:11:09.450
David Vogelpohl: So, like don’t be afraid to ask, because the right thing to do, I just that I guess that’ll be my public service announcement for now.

98
00:11:10.110 –> 00:11:18.210
David Vogelpohl: And then local which you can find it local wp calm is free it’s a way to have staging on your local computer, which is helpful for all kinds of reasons.

99
00:11:18.780 –> 00:11:24.540
David Vogelpohl: But one of the key reasons I like it, for that is because, if you are on a host without staging.

100
00:11:25.320 –> 00:11:36.870
David Vogelpohl: You can actually use that local environment for your staging and there are non technical ways to use that as well, so that’s my public service announcement guess, I should also throw in update wordpress and php to i’m at it.

101
00:11:37.200 –> 00:11:38.040
carrie dils: There you go and.

102
00:11:38.100 –> 00:11:40.170
carrie dils: definitely do those things on a staging and.

103
00:11:41.220 –> 00:11:43.560
David Vogelpohl: Yes, yes, oh, my goodness.

104
00:11:45.570 –> 00:11:49.260
David Vogelpohl: Local is actually really helpful for that, because when people are migrating.

105
00:11:49.980 –> 00:11:57.930
David Vogelpohl: To new versions of php oftentimes cheaper host will not have really elegant tools for that, like a wp engine we have like little things like.

106
00:11:58.530 –> 00:12:09.420
David Vogelpohl: The php version tester and we can give you a different environment you change the php, but a lot of hosts don’t do that and local does let you select your php environment, so you can you can.

107
00:12:09.870 –> 00:12:22.110
David Vogelpohl: You know, have your site and local have it on the latest version of php see if it explodes or not fix whatever needs to be fixed and then migrate it to your host when when they have that environment, you know ready for you there so.

108
00:12:23.400 –> 00:12:26.490
David Vogelpohl: Okay enough public service announcements on their next question.

109
00:12:27.630 –> 00:12:39.180
David Vogelpohl: For less technical wordpress developers, do you find creating custom blocks with genesis custom blocks, more or less difficult than creating a custom theme, with the genesis framework and why.

110
00:12:39.510 –> 00:12:53.040
David Vogelpohl: And I was actually really surprised at some of the feedback we got here but carrie, what do you think like it is using the php and CSS templates and custom blocks harder than creating a custom theme, with the genesis framework from your view.

111
00:12:54.270 –> 00:13:07.230
carrie dils: I don’t know that it’s harder, but my response to this was, I think it’s it hasn’t been around as long, therefore, there are fewer resources or tutorials or how to use or snippets.

112
00:13:08.310 –> 00:13:15.510
carrie dils: Out there for people to leverage and so it’s may be perceived as harder just because there’s not as.

113
00:13:17.520 –> 00:13:20.070
carrie dils: Not as many things, showing people how to do it.

114
00:13:20.670 –> 00:13:33.660
David Vogelpohl: yeah that’s a good call out with the content, it seems like the theme from the other shapers I mean nita pointed this out, I think Sally pointed it out and others was the snippets.

115
00:13:33.840 –> 00:13:34.800
carrie dils: And the fact that.

116
00:13:34.830 –> 00:13:44.730
David Vogelpohl: You know there’s just like this, this huge rich ecosystem of snippets out there for folks to use that they rely on and that just doesn’t exist yet in the custom blocks context.

117
00:13:45.450 –> 00:13:53.640
David Vogelpohl: So that was that’s where one of the reasons I really love the shapers meetings, because it’s like the thing you didn’t think of is often can sometimes be the response you get.

118
00:13:54.030 –> 00:14:07.470
David Vogelpohl: And I think this is one of those areas, particularly around snippets I mean we knew about the documentation piece of course, but at least for me personally, that was that was an interesting way to think about the what makes it difficult for people to build custom blocks.

119
00:14:09.300 –> 00:14:17.220
David Vogelpohl: You know I think custom blocks and, of course, with the block editor also evolving over the year I think there’ll be more to come there but.

120
00:14:17.820 –> 00:14:27.000
David Vogelpohl: that’s an interesting problem that at least wasn’t on my radar says good to get that feedback there, and this one is really interesting Ryan murray’s a genesis blocks pro needs.

121
00:14:27.810 –> 00:14:40.140
David Vogelpohl: To be plus one mobile responsiveness out of the box, it looks like he was flagging some mobile responsive issues there, but I know the teams looking into that, but they are mobile first designs, I really want to dig in to see the screen.

122
00:14:40.230 –> 00:14:42.300
David Vogelpohl: yeah everything will be talking about.

123
00:14:43.200 –> 00:14:49.590
carrie dils: You have a question started out about genesis custom blocks and then kind of morphed into a conversation about genesis blocks.

124
00:14:50.220 –> 00:14:53.100
David Vogelpohl: Oh, you know how that is carrie, we can only heard the cast so.

125
00:14:53.100 –> 00:14:53.520
Much.

126
00:14:57.420 –> 00:15:07.530
carrie dils: Oh, that reminds me of a super bowl commercial from years ago I can’t remember what the advertiser who the advertiser was, but it was like cowboys on horses like.

127
00:15:09.450 –> 00:15:11.430
David Vogelpohl: It was an experience commercial.

128
00:15:12.120 –> 00:15:13.110
carrie dils: Oh okay.

129
00:15:13.290 –> 00:15:15.810
carrie dils: yeah all the cats yeah.

130
00:15:16.560 –> 00:15:17.610
carrie dils: they’re hurting the cats.

131
00:15:17.940 –> 00:15:25.050
David Vogelpohl: That was it’s funny you don’t remember the name of that company they actually went out of business or they’re from Austin there is a joke here locally, that they were disappearing.

132
00:15:26.310 –> 00:15:26.700
David Vogelpohl: But.

133
00:15:27.720 –> 00:15:29.430
David Vogelpohl: or no, no, that was a jillion.

134
00:15:30.630 –> 00:15:38.880
David Vogelpohl: yeah and they were supposed to make a jillion dollars my dad not a period, and it was a Jillian, but that was part of the bubble verse back in.

135
00:15:39.480 –> 00:15:46.860
David Vogelpohl: 2011 so you didn’t remember the name of the company, though, maybe they had a commercial where you remember the name they wouldn’t have gone on a busy.

136
00:15:46.860 –> 00:15:52.980
carrie dils: yeah they nailed the memorability part on the concept, but just not the actual important piece.

137
00:15:53.490 –> 00:15:54.840
David Vogelpohl: yeah the guy was.

138
00:15:55.050 –> 00:15:57.360
carrie dils: Any anyhow i’m now i’m getting us off topic.

139
00:15:58.110 –> 00:15:59.460
carrie dils: i’m happy to be here as well.

140
00:16:00.300 –> 00:16:03.450
David Vogelpohl: Or you can can’t pass up a good cats cat story.

141
00:16:04.590 –> 00:16:06.450
David Vogelpohl: Alright, on to our next question.

142
00:16:07.560 –> 00:16:14.940
David Vogelpohl: bro very appropriate, of course, for black history month here, but do you know any black owned businesses in genesis or wordpress.

143
00:16:15.300 –> 00:16:26.100
David Vogelpohl: We could include in wp engine and flywheels black history month content and social campaigns or do you have any clients who ran black owned businesses that you’d also like to include.

144
00:16:27.090 –> 00:16:38.790
David Vogelpohl: Basically what’s happening is there’s a employee resource group or er G called rise in wp engine collectively across wp engine and flywheel.

145
00:16:39.780 –> 00:16:47.700
David Vogelpohl: Really, to help provide representation and organization for black individuals and people of color within our company.

146
00:16:48.180 –> 00:16:59.340
David Vogelpohl: And what that employee resource group did was they started to compile a list of black owned wordpress based businesses, as well as clients of those businesses like agencies and things like that.

147
00:17:00.690 –> 00:17:12.180
David Vogelpohl: who operate black owned businesses so that we can blog about it and then promote those businesses as part of black history month as of the time of this recording we’ve already published a list of agencies we’ve.

148
00:17:12.210 –> 00:17:15.810
David Vogelpohl: compiled, including those contributed by the shapers here.

149
00:17:16.590 –> 00:17:26.520
David Vogelpohl: As well as folks from the genesis community who contributed them in a thread that I posted in genesis wp on Facebook and then some tweets I did as well to help elicit those.

150
00:17:27.030 –> 00:17:34.020
David Vogelpohl: And so we have carrie you had suggested leg or i’m not going to read all the business sales because i’ll be in those blog posts.

151
00:17:34.350 –> 00:17:34.860
carrie dils: Sure sure.

152
00:17:35.280 –> 00:17:38.880
carrie dils: yeah to two women I knew from the Dallas.

153
00:17:39.000 –> 00:17:48.660
carrie dils: Fort worth wordpress Community kind of a way back in the day, like for seeing clear who’s a business coach and then clear Matthews, who does copywriting marketing.

154
00:17:49.290 –> 00:17:52.410
David Vogelpohl: I know a lot of folks named with with the word Claire in their name.

155
00:17:55.260 –> 00:18:01.770
carrie dils: it’s kind of this weird requirement to be a friend of mine your name has to somehow incorporate clear so i’m sorry.

156
00:18:01.800 –> 00:18:02.490
David Vogelpohl: gamer clear.

157
00:18:02.640 –> 00:18:04.530
carrie dils: That we can’t we can’t do this anymore.

158
00:18:04.590 –> 00:18:18.780
David Vogelpohl: that’s why we’re not close friends carrie I got it no it’s funny my my agency was called marketing click and it was cute like a click and people, I had a disproportionate number of customers with the letter Q in their company name it was really bizarre.

159
00:18:19.680 –> 00:18:21.780
David Vogelpohl: I think the queues were attracted to each other.

160
00:18:23.340 –> 00:18:29.940
David Vogelpohl: But moving on we’ve got Sally recommending some folks Ryan, Marie Curie deals again.

161
00:18:31.710 –> 00:18:33.840
carrie dils: And, of course, our very own nita Carter.

162
00:18:34.110 –> 00:18:43.320
David Vogelpohl: Yes, absolutely and needed Carter There we have some more stuff coming and follow up to that Community live cast episode she and Mike Little did so stay tuned for that.

163
00:18:44.490 –> 00:18:45.120
David Vogelpohl: and

164
00:18:46.650 –> 00:18:53.700
David Vogelpohl: looks like we have a few others who submitted names I grabbed all of these at the after the meeting I went back through and grabbed all of them and put them into the form.

165
00:18:54.480 –> 00:19:03.240
David Vogelpohl: That we’re using to populate those blog posts, and thanks to the shapers for contributing to this and then thanks to anyone else who saw that on Facebook and also contributed names there as well.

166
00:19:04.200 –> 00:19:11.850
David Vogelpohl: on to the next question which collections, if any, do your customers use the most and collections or feature within genesis blocks, of course.

167
00:19:12.390 –> 00:19:20.520
David Vogelpohl: And then, what would you like to see from collection, or what i’m sorry, what would you like to see collections feature next.

168
00:19:21.210 –> 00:19:30.840
David Vogelpohl: This was easy interesting collections is fairly new to the genesis blocks construct it’s it’s essentially a whole side of block based DEMO content, all with the same design.

169
00:19:31.800 –> 00:19:45.990
David Vogelpohl: And so there’s two men different levels of adoption rim kiss to free us hasn’t used them yet know why by dolla has used them in a matter of fact they’ve built to have their own and their themes and awesome press as we’ve talked about them oh wait.

170
00:19:47.040 –> 00:19:48.000
David Vogelpohl: I think know why.

171
00:19:50.970 –> 00:19:53.550
David Vogelpohl: Has a video I can share he posted here.

172
00:19:53.820 –> 00:19:56.400
David Vogelpohl: i’m an admin suite isn’t every take the audio.

173
00:19:57.420 –> 00:20:01.650
David Vogelpohl: let’s see here own I want to check the video before I share my screen make sure.

174
00:20:03.360 –> 00:20:06.450
David Vogelpohl: i’m going to be given know why good coverage here.

175
00:20:08.010 –> 00:20:10.440
David Vogelpohl: Now to get to the right point the video to it’s like a long video.

176
00:20:12.030 –> 00:20:13.830
David Vogelpohl: i’m going to abandon this I don’t get far enough.

177
00:20:14.670 –> 00:20:15.510
David Vogelpohl: Okay okay.

178
00:20:15.570 –> 00:20:25.920
David Vogelpohl: yeah it’s too much to go through sorry no I should have prepped for this, but in his themes uprising and Dakota they’ve put collections, in which I thought was pretty cool.

179
00:20:26.610 –> 00:20:38.010
David Vogelpohl: And nita says, I showed the collections to a client who is really, really new at wordpress in genesis and she loved it, she would like to see more feminine colors in here, though.

180
00:20:39.030 –> 00:20:49.290
David Vogelpohl: They are really dark feminine based designs are a big part of the genesis community as a whole and it’s interesting when we have.

181
00:20:49.950 –> 00:21:00.240
David Vogelpohl: New things come out like collections, this will be oftentimes one of the first kind of feature requests I know they look for that, when they design things and the theme and blocks team.

182
00:21:01.620 –> 00:21:14.130
David Vogelpohl: And you know things like diverse representation of people at people in DEMO images and things like this, but it looked like needed felt we needed more there and in the feminine designs in the collections was a good call out.

183
00:21:17.940 –> 00:21:22.020
David Vogelpohl: So it was also good to see an edict kind of showing it to that novice person.

184
00:21:22.080 –> 00:21:22.950
David Vogelpohl: You know I feel like.

185
00:21:24.240 –> 00:21:25.950
David Vogelpohl: The key feature of blocks.

186
00:21:26.550 –> 00:21:38.190
David Vogelpohl: is, ultimately, to make it easier for content, creators to edit and create an edit content like if every idea, you have, for your website every single one is, you have to have a developer, to help but.

187
00:21:38.580 –> 00:21:46.800
David Vogelpohl: that’s not super helpful to you, I mean, of course, extreme customization you need a developer, but like building out content should not require a developer.

188
00:21:47.340 –> 00:21:51.450
carrie dils: What he agreed yeah totally agree, so this is a way of kind of empowering.

189
00:21:52.470 –> 00:22:04.830
carrie dils: A non technical user to create really beautiful professionally designed things on their own so yeah john brown mentioned he’d be interested in seeing some information on how to actually create a collection.

190
00:22:05.940 –> 00:22:11.370
David Vogelpohl: yeah there is documentation and it’s linkedin that thread you see the lights flickering tears.

191
00:22:11.430 –> 00:22:13.500
carrie dils: Oh yeah is that your your your power.

192
00:22:13.890 –> 00:22:26.100
David Vogelpohl: Okay, no i’m not haunted we’re recording this during the great ice storm of 2020 here in Texas, and I am hanging on by my fingernails to power and.

193
00:22:26.910 –> 00:22:33.930
David Vogelpohl: it’s flickering because I think the ice is affecting the power line so we might have to record this episode in two parts, if we get cut off here.

194
00:22:34.050 –> 00:22:34.470
Okay.

195
00:22:35.580 –> 00:22:36.810
David Vogelpohl: knock on some wood real quick.

196
00:22:36.840 –> 00:22:37.380
carrie dils: There you go.

197
00:22:37.470 –> 00:22:38.100
there’s power.

198
00:22:39.870 –> 00:22:40.560
David Vogelpohl: Oh, my God.

199
00:22:41.820 –> 00:22:45.240
David Vogelpohl: All right, let’s keep moving, they will get all right all right.

200
00:22:45.540 –> 00:22:52.470
David Vogelpohl: next question if you’re using genesis custom blocks, do you find the new design for the blog creation process helpful or disruptive.

201
00:22:53.070 –> 00:22:58.080
David Vogelpohl: to your blog creation workflows for so for those following along in February 2020.

202
00:22:58.500 –> 00:23:15.090
David Vogelpohl: There was a major update to the ui in genesis custom blocks it didn’t really change the functionality of the way it worked on the back end but just a nice cleaner ui more in line with the design system of wordpress admin in general wp admin in general and so.

203
00:23:16.110 –> 00:23:21.840
David Vogelpohl: I think the feedback here in a while I liked it Ryan liked it, I thought it was nice.

204
00:23:24.690 –> 00:23:26.220
David Vogelpohl: And that was pretty much it, I mean it’s.

205
00:23:26.220 –> 00:23:28.740
David Vogelpohl: sort of hard not to like it, it was a good design, I thought.

206
00:23:28.860 –> 00:23:29.250
yeah.

207
00:23:30.660 –> 00:23:37.200
David Vogelpohl: Okay, so that was a bit of a softball question, but the product team wanted to see what folks feedback was after that launch.

208
00:23:38.280 –> 00:23:39.570
David Vogelpohl: next step, are you.

209
00:23:39.660 –> 00:23:46.410
David Vogelpohl: Oh, this one was a Midi nita brought this up in a DM to me, are you seeing any genesis sites or otherwise.

210
00:23:46.740 –> 00:23:51.810
David Vogelpohl: That are having ads blocked unexpectedly after recent firefox updates.

211
00:23:52.320 –> 00:24:03.300
David Vogelpohl: And this really gets down to the root of ad blocking and the way browsers and ad blockers effects sites now of course this doesn’t sound like a genesis thing it’s like a web thing but.

212
00:24:03.660 –> 00:24:12.210
David Vogelpohl: The reason we added here to the shapers is because I need a Carter had noticed many sites being affected by the firefox update and.

213
00:24:13.590 –> 00:24:28.860
David Vogelpohl: And bill Ericsson, separate from firefox through work he does, but with publishers using ad networks like ad there i’ve had actually seen massive effects to the revenue that their sites were able to generate.

214
00:24:30.840 –> 00:24:41.070
David Vogelpohl: The the purpose of the question was to try to understand how widespread this was and it looks like Anita and bill.

215
00:24:41.730 –> 00:24:56.340
David Vogelpohl: were the only ones really experiencing a problem with it, but I think this has more to do with where they focus their time versus it not being a widespread problem for publishers in general.

216
00:24:56.730 –> 00:24:57.300
carrie dils: agree.

217
00:24:57.480 –> 00:24:58.710
David Vogelpohl: What do you see there carrie.

218
00:24:59.100 –> 00:25:01.680
carrie dils: I haven’t experienced it but you’re right, I think the.

219
00:25:03.120 –> 00:25:09.600
carrie dils: The sites that they’re doing more likely to see the effects from that firefox doing the Ad blocking.

220
00:25:12.390 –> 00:25:24.630
David Vogelpohl: it’s it’s bill talks about what one of the ad networks, he works with and what they’re doing and i’m going to actually have him on my podcast press this.

221
00:25:26.400 –> 00:25:31.410
David Vogelpohl: And that’ll be happening, I think it’s happening in February or March.

222
00:25:32.610 –> 00:25:36.030
David Vogelpohl: But we’re going to go into detail with bill on this.

223
00:25:37.080 –> 00:25:54.540
David Vogelpohl: What he describes, though, is what this net ad network or what these ad networks are actually doing, and he says, these ad networks are scrambling to collect email addresses so they can associate first party cookies on site a with site B.

224
00:25:55.110 –> 00:25:59.310
David Vogelpohl: So if you’re running a publishing site i’m going to go into detail with bill on this.

225
00:25:59.820 –> 00:26:08.010
David Vogelpohl: On that podcast but but generally one of the key issues that’s happening with browsers is not supporting third party cookies.

226
00:26:08.520 –> 00:26:14.760
David Vogelpohl: Now ad networks rely on third party cookies to track visitors, as they move around sites.

227
00:26:15.060 –> 00:26:25.350
David Vogelpohl: Now, of course, this is scary and the Ad networks and everybody else needs to oblige by all the privacy laws, but at the end of the day, with the Ad networks are trying to do is show a relevant ad for the user.

228
00:26:27.060 –> 00:26:36.090
David Vogelpohl: And so what you can do with the right disclosures and the right, you know opt in is essentially collected visitors email address.

229
00:26:36.510 –> 00:26:42.840
David Vogelpohl: And then through the email address be able to associate their interests with the ads you would ultimately show them.

230
00:26:43.170 –> 00:26:48.840
David Vogelpohl: Now, obviously, you have to be very careful with how you go about this to stay in line with the laws of your you know.

231
00:26:49.380 –> 00:26:56.850
David Vogelpohl: Where you do business, and all those kind of other kinds of things and i’m going to talk about the legal side because bills, not a lawyer, but we will talk about the tech side.

232
00:26:57.480 –> 00:27:06.000
David Vogelpohl: On that podcast i’ll be posting about it on my Twitter when it’s published, if you want to follow me, you can get notified that way at wp David V.

233
00:27:06.510 –> 00:27:11.610
David Vogelpohl: And then you can just Google press this if you want to check it out there cool sorry I don’t have the date handy.

234
00:27:12.540 –> 00:27:21.720
David Vogelpohl: But this is a big deal, and you know it’s it’s the balance of the Web right the balance between people’s expectations and rights to privacy.

235
00:27:21.990 –> 00:27:32.940
David Vogelpohl: And then the balance of essentially publishers providing free content and media to monetize with with ads and who was it here was it travis Smith or Nick or somebody.

236
00:27:34.830 –> 00:27:43.500
David Vogelpohl: really talking about people moving into not using ad networks and trying to get those ad relationships directly with the advertiser.

237
00:27:43.770 –> 00:27:49.560
David Vogelpohl: So that way your ad doesn’t require on embed codes with tracking scripts that can get picked up by blockers.

238
00:27:50.160 –> 00:28:01.260
David Vogelpohl: I think that’s great, but I just don’t know how an individual publisher that doesn’t have a larger company with sales people and add managers can even facilitate this, I mean I figured you’re just dropping in the embed code and.

239
00:28:02.310 –> 00:28:16.140
David Vogelpohl: You know optimizing your ad networks and revenue kind of automatically and just inheriting all that from the network have you ever dealt with a site that had kind of standalone ad units that weren’t part of an ad network carry it’s Okay, you have and i’m just.

240
00:28:16.140 –> 00:28:23.100
carrie dils: curious no I haven’t i’ve actually only done a handful of sites that use that network so it’s not something to have a lot of.

241
00:28:23.310 –> 00:28:30.960
David Vogelpohl: Experience clearance and yeah my agency days and we had to deal with ad blockers less less back then folks have to do today, but.

242
00:28:31.380 –> 00:28:37.530
David Vogelpohl: The good thing about the individual advertisers like buying an ad unit directly from you as you make more money.

243
00:28:38.700 –> 00:28:45.300
David Vogelpohl: You can also tailor it really well, it also works really well with like advertorials or like sponsored posts basically.

244
00:28:45.540 –> 00:28:52.230
David Vogelpohl: Okay it’s another way to get really quality advertising in front of your audience and if you collect the money directly.

245
00:28:53.250 –> 00:29:05.280
David Vogelpohl: You know, you can make a lot per purchase as a publisher but the downside is it’s a lot of operational drag right, and you have to go find these customers and close them and get them to renew.

246
00:29:05.820 –> 00:29:20.610
David Vogelpohl: And so I think the Ad ad ad network conundrum staying in line with what browsers are doing staying in line with what gdpr is doing and and other you know legislation and other jurisdictions.

247
00:29:21.690 –> 00:29:36.960
David Vogelpohl: it’s it’s a challenge, but I also think there’s an opportunity there to find a nice middle path I just don’t think that there’s an elegant way to answer these questions, right now, and so I don’t think personally the genesis is the context in which to solve that.

248
00:29:38.220 –> 00:29:41.040
David Vogelpohl: I think there’s other contexts to solve this at large.

249
00:29:41.640 –> 00:29:54.210
David Vogelpohl: But it is helpful for us to understand the pressures that site creators are going and going through to find growth and success in their in their businesses so it was helpful to ask this question to the shapers.

250
00:29:55.050 –> 00:30:11.880
David Vogelpohl: make sense, all right well that was it that was the last question on the agenda, and then the cats kept talking for like another 20 minutes here, so we always say like we’re officially winding it down, but if you want to keep talking talk amongst yourselves and they did.

251
00:30:12.960 –> 00:30:19.830
David Vogelpohl: But we won’t go all into that looks like more more details on some of the ad inventory stuff but i’ll tweet out about that article with bill.

252
00:30:20.280 –> 00:30:30.420
David Vogelpohl: So if you are interested in learning more check that out, I think bills also blogged about this a little bit on bill ericsson.net carrie Thank you so much for running through the recap with me today.

253
00:30:30.810 –> 00:30:35.310
carrie dils: You betcha sorry you got stuck with just me, but you know, hopefully.

254
00:30:36.510 –> 00:30:42.000
carrie dils: Hopefully ramekins can join us next month and and your lights will not be flickering by then.

255
00:30:42.270 –> 00:30:45.510
David Vogelpohl: I like to kind of have like the haunted house effect so.

256
00:30:47.250 –> 00:30:52.770
David Vogelpohl: And i’ll live with only having you this time it is, it is a bit much, but I think i’ll be okay.

257
00:30:53.610 –> 00:30:54.240
carrie dils: Good deal.

258
00:30:54.930 –> 00:31:01.080
David Vogelpohl: Thank you so much Gary if you’d like to learn more about carries up to visit carry deals calm.

259
00:31:01.920 –> 00:31:09.690
David Vogelpohl: Thanks everyone for listening and stay tuned for future episodes of the genesis Community live cast again this has been your host David vogel Paul.

260
00:31:10.170 –> 00:31:20.160
David Vogelpohl: i’ve been a proud member of the genesis Community for a little over eight years now, I lead genesis wp engine and I love helping the genesis Community get better, together with my friends from the shapers.