MageTalk: A Magento Podcast

ReferencesMM21PL discussion panel: Building Magento Open Source Future - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adTHJXy-c3Y Community Prioritization Process Updates - https://community.magento.com/t5/Magento-DevBlog/bg-p/devblogAdobe Commerce / Magento Community Managers:Parul Sinha (https://www.linkedin.com/in/parul-sinha-87965240/overlay/about-this-profile/) - Engineering Leader - Developer CommunityPriyakshi Chauhan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/priyakshi-chauhan-a8533b43/overlay/about-this-profile/)  - Community Manager - Adobe CommerceMagento Open Source website: magento-opensource.com (https://magento-opensource.com/)Read about the Magento Association: magentoassociation.org (https://magentoassociation.org/)Become a member: hub.magentoassociation.org (https://hub.magentoassociation.org/memberships)Reach out to Mathias: https://twitter.com/mattlefauxhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/mathias-schreiber/ info@magentoassociation.orgTakeawaysThe Magento Association plays a crucial role in the Magento community, providing support and resources.Mathias Schreiber's background in the TYPO3 community prepared him for his role in the Magento Association.The transition from working with Smith Bucklin to taking over operational tasks was challenging but necessary.Adobe's support and funding are essential for the success of the Magento community. The MA has the official rights to use the Magento brand in promotional material, which is a unique proposition.The Community Council is being formed to bridge the gap between Adobe and the community and help with code contributions and direction.Meet Magento events are important for bringing the community together and making merchants aware of the platform's capabilities.The MA is working on reviving committees and is open to new ideas that benefit the Magento community.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Matthias Schreiber01:53 Matthias' Background and Transition to the Magento Community05:10 The Role of the Magento Association and Community Ownership08:08 Transitioning from Smith Bucklin to Independent Operations15:06 The Importance of the Magento Association21:54 Adobe's Investment in the Magento Community25:12 Funding and Sponsorship of the Magento Association30:41 The Purpose and Future Plans of the Magento Association36:11 The Role of Marketing and the Value of Credibility39:32 The Community Council: Bridging the Gap Between Adobe and the Community46:04 Meet Magento Events: Connecting Merchants and the Community57:36 Community Involvement: Committees and Opportunities to Contribute Also available on Youtube 📺

TakeawaysEric Erway discusses his return to the Magento community after working outside of it for a few years.The role of the Magento Association in bridging the gap between the community and Adobe is discussed.The importance of collaboration and empathy in moving the Magento platform forward is emphasized.Eric shares insights into the evolution of his role from UX designer to driving force behind PWA Studio. Meet Magento UK is an upcoming event where Eric will be delivering a keynote speech. He aims to connect with the audience and share a holistic perspective on the Magento ecosystem.The Magento community should focus on documenting and sharing their stories to preserve the history and inspire future innovation.A positive vibe and mindset are crucial for the growth and success of the Magento community.Magento continues to be a powerful platform with a wide range of extensions, integrations, and a strong developer ecosystem.ShipperHQ is a shipping experience platform that helps merchants optimize their shipping processes and improve customer satisfaction.Choice and competition are essential in the e-commerce market, and Magento offers merchants the flexibility to choose their preferred solutions and payment providers. Also available on Youtube 📺

00:00 Welcome to MageTalk #240 - You have now listened to Kalen for 10 days straight!02:49 Kalen judges Willem’s character05:10 Mathias Schreiber becomes new MA Director - replacing Smith Bucklin10:39 To Rant or Not To Rant, that’s the question13:18 MageOs representation at Meet Commerce Madrid - Going all-in on MageOS15:31 Rant on new Magento brand guidelines18:50 What’s the MA’s trajectory going forward?25:38 How do we transition from Magento to MageOS?33:12 Where’s the line on making fun/memes/criticizing online?39:17 In our hearts it will always be Magento41:23 MageChat update - Meet Commerce - essence of events Also available on Youtube 📺

Recorded on October 24, 2022Link to the video version:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEe3tf1xUYo--00:00 Intro to Episode 239, warm welcome to Filip Rakowski and Bartek Igielski00:28 Filip and Barteks relationship to Magento02:31 The many Magento frontends Bartek made06:16 How much Filip changed after Forbes 30 under 3010:33 VSF "the company" is doing good and the cats are healthy15:39 Forbes selection process17:35 How VSF became independent company from Divante / Y Combinator27:26 Work ethics - Pomodoro Technique for productivity - VSF Management34:30 VSF company structure - Remote work38:36 Async communication - Arguments for/against meetings42:02 MACH / Composable - Has Magento always been composable?50:58 Composable and single-points of failure57:06 Composable vendor lock in1:00:06 The dream of Interchangeability - Unified data models1:06:10 Outro, thanks to our guests Filip and Bartek Also available on Youtube 📺

00:00 Welcome to MageTalk ep.23801:02 Magento Swag through the MA?07:24 Magento Branding / OS Task Force10:59 A year ago Kalen didn't care12:38 Magento businesses hurt with Adwords from Adobe15:16 Is Willem prepared to walk from the MA?22:00 What do we need from Adobe (reg. Magento brand)?26:38 Does Adobe need the community?28:24 Google performance metrics on Hyvä sites35:33 MageChat updates41:27 Giphy or Jiffy51:52 Meet Magento Thailand coming up55:56 MageTalk (or MageChat) meetup Madrid?58:11 MageUnconf Austin?1:04:56 Magento Security Patches released Also available on Youtube 📺

00:00 Intro01:55 MM22NYC - The history of the event and why Kalen only brought home socks07:18 Meet Commerce, the bring-your-wife conference in Madrid December 202209:31 Mingling with other platforms at conferences, are we allowing ourselves?18:57 The uniqueness of MageUnconference in Germany21:28 Jisse pulling back to Magento roots25:14 The community needs to represent Magento brand28:43 Kalen goes awkward for a minute30:40 Harrison Loveall got the Magento Magic experience31:59 #OrangeIsNotRed, why the Magento brand is so important35:43 Adobe does good for the community38:50 Magento will be long supported, how MageOs fits in nicely40:38 Hyvä and Adobe Commerce support48:13 About acquisition and spending time with Gene Commerce51:42 Everybody loves Eric Erway53:44 Magento open source contribution voting board (MA)58:01 Who's maintaining the Magento code base?1:02:50 MageOS and Magento OS working in harmony1:08:42 The PTHML Twitter directive Also available on Youtube 📺

[00:01:25] Kalen: We’re finally in a good, uh, 2 36. So episode 2 36. So the last one was bringing amnesty into the fold 2 35 and[00:01:36] Willem: we’re finally episodes 236.[00:01:40] Kalen: 2 36. We’re getting into a pretty, pretty steady schedule here. I think this is, uh, you know, we, we said, Hey, let’s, let’s, uh, let’s test the waters with this whole idea of rebooting ma talk.And, um, you don’t know until, you know, but I think [00:02:00] it seems it’s happening. It seems this is actually happening. So I have a question to, um, yes,[00:02:10] Willem: Asher almost at episode 240. Yes. Just four to go. How do you feel about the fact that people have spent 10 days of their lives listening to you? That’s crazy on me.Talk.[00:02:30] Kalen: That’s pretty nuts, man. Whenever you take a step back and think about the aggregate, uh, stuff, it blows your mind cuz. That’s kind of the cool thing about podcasts is that you don’t really, you’re not really conscious of the aggregate when you’re doing it. You’re just kind of chatting with a buddy.That’s, what’s so beautiful about it. But then when you think about it, like, I remember hearing Joe Rogan talk about that as if I know anything about what it’s like to be that famous, but, [00:03:00] um, same dynamic, different scale. But like when he realized he had this massive audience, it was like a huge surprise, but, um,[00:03:12] Willem: just, uh, two more, no, four more days.And then we have magenta New York and you’ll feel you’ll reconnect,[00:03:24] Kalen: feel the vibes I’m already at your[00:03:26] Willem: field of vibes and[00:03:28] Kalen: yeah, I’ve been feeling the vibes, man. I’ve been feeling the online vibes and, um, But it’s always better in person. It’s always, there’s something it’s always magical in person,[00:03:42] Willem: you know?Yeah. I was so happy that events were back earlier this year. Yeah.[00:03:46] Kalen: Yeah. Um, yeah, man, I’m finally ready to talk about the new thing I tweeted about it this morning. Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah, the, [00:04:00] the new business, the community.[00:04:04] Willem: Um, let me life check what this new, the tweet was you have, because obviously, I don’t know.I don’t know anything about you’ve this new thing[00:04:12] Kalen: yet. Yeah. You’ve been busy working. how screwed up would it be if there was, uh, I won’t, I won’t even mention it. Um, so , if there was a certain version, um, so,[00:04:28] Willem: uh, I made a thing as what you tweeted and it’s Mitch chat.club, Mitch private community. That’s.Tell me about your new, um, board Mitch yacht club. Yes,[00:04:43] Kalen: honestly, that was a really good name that you posted. I like that a lot. Um, so so, um, so this is a slack that I created seven years ago. Uh, that was initially just, um, [00:05:00] You know, I was wanting to just, you know, have a place to chat with other, uh, magenta developers, doing stuff.It got up to five, 600 users. And, um, I was real active with it, uh, for, for years. And there was a bunch of people in there, you know, a lot of the, you know, a lot of the, you know, um, big names, as you would say. I see it feels so douchy to say that, but, um, but anyways, it, it was, it was a cool little thing. And then, um, the last couple years I kind of ghosted from it as I sort of generally pulled back a lot from the community and, um, mm-hmm and so, but there was this like skeleton and, and I’d always thought about turning it into a paid community because there’s just lots.Cool stuff you could do, but I didn’t really have a, a real reason to do that until now when I decided to ramp down commerce hero and I was like, okay, I gotta find something to do. I gotta start making a living. I gotta [00:06:00] find a, a, a way to replace the, in my income and things like that. And so it was this thing.It was this thread that I’d been thinking about for years and, um, had been building community for years is just a little free slack thing. And, um, and so, uh, so yeah, so what’s objective, what’s the objective. The objective, um, is to. Um, have, um, I should be better at this by now explaining the objective. Um, it’s to have a place to connect with, with your peers is I think a lot of it as an a, as a, like a digital analog to a conference, you go to a conference costs a little bit of money.Um, it, that does create a bit of a barrier to entry. Um, but it’s an environment where you can learn stuff. Um, there’s also gonna be weekly talks, live talks [00:07:00] there’s um, um, but also like to me, the magic of it, the purpose, the objective of it is more than just like, you’re gonna learn things. You’re gonna be able to get your Magento questions answered.It’s mm-hmm, There’s a magic that happens when you combine. getting technical questions answered with having a place to socialize. That’s kind of fun. Um, and, uh, basically those, those two things, um, and you know, everybody’s in a million different slacks and discords and stuff like that. But, um, you know, some are more engaged than others.Every company has a slack, some are more engaged than others. I think about, you know, a friend of mine who was at a company that was this great team, really vibrant team, really collaborative. They’d have a lot of fun together, post memes, da da, da, da, but also they would, um, you know, if they needed help with anything, they [00:08:00] could post a question, get an answer really quickly, very collaborative, right.And as, as everybody’s going remote, everybody’s using slack or collaboration tools. Now the question is, how good are they? How good is the environment, the community. So companies have a culture, companies have a community component to them, but I’m trying to create this at more of a distributed level across the whole, uh, ecosystem because some, and some people go, listen, man, I already have a company slack.It’s great. We love it. It’s perfect. I can get all my questions answered. We have a great time. The vibes are strong, so you may not need this if that’s you. Right. Other people are like, man, like I was talking to buddies like man, our slack used to be so strong, but whatever happened, a bunch of people left the company.Now it feels kind of dead. So this is a, a way to kind of support, um, people with those, with those different.[00:08:56] Willem: It’s also hard to always complain about the projects and your colleagues [00:09:00] and your company slack. It’s nice to have like a, an external slack to complain[00:09:05] Kalen: at that. That is a big part of it. That is a big, there’s a rant channel in the slack, which is one of the, like the most active people in the slack like that channel the most.And I think that it’s really important to let off some steam it’s a human need. It’s a psychological need to go shit, man, this client just told me to do this. It’s so du it’s. So Stu now this gets into the topic I wanted us that we started getting into last week that I want to dive into is mm-hmm how do you create the rules of engagement in a slack community in general, in mind, specifically in yours, specif.What does it, what’s that line between being yourself, talking a little bit of shit and, and being toxic. Right. I don’t think that you can strictly, uh, define that, but I think that [00:10:00] I’m going into it with the best of intentions. The amnesty thing is a perfect example. People in our, uh, people constantly talk shit about amnesty.Why? Because they’ve had bad experiences in the past, but what happened was inspired by your collaborating with them and, and things like that. I said, you know what? And, and, and we did the, we talked about it on the podcast and I said, and the, the, the CEO, uh, replied on Twitter, Serge. And, um, and so we had a conversation.I said, listen, um, I’d like to get you into this community. There’s a lot of negative sentiment. And my thought on, um, on, uh, the, the, the way people should be allowed to communicate is like, Uh, they should be allowed to say some negative things, right? I don’t want to tell everybody everything they has to say has to be.So I want people to be themselves. If you’re having a bar with, if you’re having a drink at a bar with a friend, you’re [00:11:00] gonna say, dude, this thing is shit. This extension is shit. Or, you know, so I want to be able to create some, some kind of an environment of that, where you can be honest, be yourself, but, but then what happened is I.I talked to him. I thought this guy, this guy understands the challenges. He’s willing to deal with the negativity and turn it into a productive thing. I said, and this has turned into another, I think big benefit of the community is that all the members are gonna have priority escalation directly to the CEO for amnesty issues.And I want to do this for all the different extension companies out there. Now, in order to do that, I have to make sure that what they’re escalating. Is not, they’re not just ranting about every ran. So there’s already begun to be some conversations in the extensions channel where people are say ranting, and then, so we’re going, okay.So here’s the deal. Amnesty released some improved coding standards a year and a half ago or two years ago, whatever it was, they’re working on improving their quality from that point [00:12:00] forward. So if you have an issue you wanna rant in the ran channel, have a have at it, have a blast. If you wanna talk about it in the extensions channel, we need to keep the conversation focused on what can actually be improved.So if there’s an issue constructive, so if there’s something you hit four years ago and you’re angry about it, I hear you. That sucks you. That caused a lot of pain in your life. You may have had to stay up all night because of a deployment. That’s real. However, if we’re talking here, let’s talk about what can be changed now.Has let’s point to the specific extension, has that been addressed recently or not? Has that been fixed recently or not? And I I’m gon

In this episode, Willem and I talk a little bit about some of the pain Amasty extensions have caused to Magento developers but also try to provide some constructive criticism to an extension company that... Also available on Youtube 📺

In this episode, Kalen sits down with Isaiah Bollinger to review (and roast!) some of the interesting and absurd bits about the Magic Quadrant. Isaiah is the CEO of Trellis Commerce – a leading ecommerce... Also available on Youtube 📺

[00:00:00] Willem: Welcome to Mitch talk. This is episode 233 and my name is venom [00:00:09] Kalen: and I’m Kalin. That was that. That was, that sounded extraordinarily professional, like very. Very slow, calm, confident.... Also available on Youtube 📺

In this episode, Kalen sits down with Willem Wigman. — [00:00:00] Kalen: all right, man, should we do the intro? You want to clap? Let’s clap. Like [00:00:04] Willem: when we just landed the airplane.... Also available on Youtube 📺

In this interview, Kalen sits down with Damien Retzinger, the Founder of Graycore, a software engineering firm specializing in ecommerce, as well as a member of the Magento Open Source Task Force. Also available on Youtube 📺

In this episode, Kalen sits down with Willem Wigman, the Executive Director at Hyva Themes. [00:00:00] Willem: If you ask me, we’ve been doing that for 10 years, Magento always has been composable a lot... Also available on Youtube 📺

In this episode, we sit down and talk about a little bit of everything – from advertising to Kalen’s track record on predictions, a little bit of Magento, and moaar. Kalen has launched a new... Also available on Youtube 📺

In this episode, we sit down and talk with Willem Wigman, the inventor of the Hyva Frontend Magento Development framework. Also available on Youtube 📺

Per Kalen’s suggestion, this episode will be in Memorium to the passage of the Magento brand, now renamed Adobe Commerce. It is also, definitely, totally not in any way in relation to the 12 hours... Also available on Youtube 📺

Phillip and Kalen are trying to do the oft-attempted, rarely accomplished Reverse Podfade. Will they succeed? Only time will tell. Also available on Youtube 📺

No longer coming to you live from his kitchen table, David Manners joins us for his FIFTH appearance on MageTalk, an-all time guest record. Kalen sits down with David to discuss some of the finer... Also available on Youtube 📺

Kalen finally convinced Damian to join Twitter in March. Things are looking up! Building on PWA is all too common for Graycore, and Damian shares his experience in delivering the next generation of headless commerce... Also available on Youtube 📺

Eric Hileman sits down with Kalen to discuss team remote culture, how to maintain open communication in Slack, and how to balance technical discussion in meetings with non-technical contributors. Listen now! Also available on Youtube 📺