 Thank you. Thank you all. I'm Ray Mitchell and I'm a proud member of the WordPress community and Also a proud member of a smaller lesser known part of the community Black press I will take a moment to introduce you to a couple of members of our big and growing community destiny Fox Hano George Woodard III and Maestro Stevens So in preparation, I've got ten pounds of questions But only only have enough time for a five-pound bag worth of questions So I'm gonna ask these guys to be kind of brief Answers of questions as fully as you can but be brief First because it's a word camp I'm gonna ask the official word camp question if you would introduce yourself and Tell us what you do in WordPress The lights Are pretty bright should have won my sunglasses. Hey, my name is Maestro Stevens. I'm a Brand webmaster. I have a creative agency. I built websites for the WordPress obviously And I love branding my escape orders will tune so we didn't rehearse this Probably should have hello everyone. My name is George Woodard. I am a marketing consultant and WordPress web developer I have my own agency by the name of L squared media group. I'm based out of Houston, Texas by way of Alabama I'm a southern boy by heart This is actually my second time speaking at work camp last year. I spoke To represent the underrepresented in tech So when this awesome group of people came with this idea, of course, I was like heck yeah Let's let's do this. So glad to be here glad to see everyone. I Do have my shades, but I'll leave them in my bag and destiny conno coming to you all from Tokyo, Japan I am a sponsored Contributor by automatic working in the training team We work on learn WordPress check it out later. That's my shit loose plug, but yeah, I'm very excited to be here So thank you All right, well destiny definitely hold on the mic So as you might have been able to guess from the title of the presentation We're gonna talk a little bit about black press and black professionals So can you talk about the black pet black press ecosystem and how it came to be? Yeah, absolutely. Um, so I Within automatic I also helped co-found our black employee resource group Coco Maddox. There's a bunch of coco magicians in here, too And this idea of you know building community internally Really inspired us to break branch out further. So I'm a co-founder of Black press nice a sweet who also is from automatician and I just kind of came together We're like, how can we think about this on a broader scale? How can we impact more people when we have some ulterior motives as well that I'll share with you But essentially in 2022 we started having discussions with other black professionals in the word press space and You'll see on our website blackpresswp.com that They're before co-founders listed. So that's myself nice a sweet Allie Nimitz and Joseph Simpson who's helping organize this work camp for y'all, too And we really came together with this mission of yes Creating a space for black professionals to network connect build community Mentor share opportunities Really build a safe space to foster that and but we also had a Goal that's not yet realized but we hope to of bringing the future generations into word press specifically hitting up HBC use historically black colleges and universities and Going beyond just that to like what are the colleges and like Africa doing or other countries, right? But bringing in the global youth black youth Into word press at an earlier stage to education Cool. Yeah, so you talked a little bit about the community nature of it and you kind of alluded to Membership outside of the US can you talk a little bit about the group's makeup? And where the members actually do come from Yeah, so you can come from anywhere in the world We you know our mission is to connect folks that identify as being part of the black diaspora And so that includes me living in Tokyo that includes people black folks in Europe in the US Like we definitely don't see black press although it was you know founded in North America as being a you know US or Western Group we want to ensure there are connections fostered Throughout the world and we do have folks Coming from like Ghana From the UK some of them spoke today. So we that's really our mission in earnest Cool. Well, my strawma ask you the next question Can you talk a little bit about the culture of black press? How is the community contributed to who you are your business and to your place in the word press community? The culture of black press Well, first of all, I'm gonna be honest with you I'm probably gonna be one of the comedic reliefs in this panel right now I feel like I should be able to be myself And that's what black press for me was about I will definitely say that the culture was welcoming when I first entered I would definitely say destiny Just gave me so much insight and as well as just gave me opportunity to be able to have meetups And you know to do other things like that. So but the best part about I would say the culture is the fact that We we all are here right now and to me. This is history in the making You know what I mean? Like these lights are really getting on my nerves. I should have my sunglasses I'm trying not to be that guy. You know I'm saying I'm not gonna call people out But we've had some people on CP time coming through listen the culture is real and I'm saying this To say because if we can't do that if we can't if I can't call George out of some CP time this ain't you know listen And I'm past the mic. We're my teller. I'm ready to get hot We're gonna take him to church and that's what the culture about black press is you take them to church But we do it in the WordPress way. So I'm a fan. I'm in love. This is this is my family. This is these are my people Yeah WordPress has always been about community and extending This project to community and there's definitely a big sense of Partnership and collaboration. I'm gonna ask George this question As a member of black press I see as an actual member not just a moderator but a member But I've seen you and I've seen many other members to act Collaboratively as teachers and partners and guides, but I'm sure you alluded to the welcome that you've received What do you think that's such a big part of black press? for you and for the other members of the community, I mean when you come into any type of group you're looking for some sense of belonging and Specifically in tech, you know minorities make up less than 7% Even though we're 13% of the overall US workforce. So when you're coming into groups like this You're trying to find a tribe of your own somewhere you feel some sense of belonging So the whole goal behind black press is to bring Minorities and underrepresented in tech overall to have a space where you know, you're not walking into these camps Like this is huge, you know You're walking in you see hundreds and hundreds of people and you know nobody and like if you're not confident enough for Someone who just doesn't feel comfortable in a big space to be able to talk to people You don't know you want to find somewhere you can do that So that's the purpose with black press is having that type of group where you know, hey come on in You know, you have a tribe you have a place to sit somewhere that you feel belonging and Having individuals around you, you know maestro. We have Ms. Destiny over here being all way in Japan But still you know having those people to guide you I mean even down to the co-founder Mike little we get a chance to talk with him and just Getting that type of mentorship having that type of organization where you have someone around you that can just help guide you through your career And even just from a networking aspect, you know, you want to one of the articles I recently wrote for Master WP is about access having access to opportunities Being able to meet the people who have access to those opportunities to help you further your career So the whole purpose of this collective is to help more people Underrepresented in tech to have access to have a sense of belonging to feel like when they come into tech They have somewhere to be rather than getting burned out by just trying to fit in somewhere They don't feel like they fit in so that's definitely an interesting comment. I mean a lot of people have the experience of particular If you're in a minority group and I use that phrase Rather than underrepresented minority group. Sometimes you're just the only one I can think back to being in elementary school and if you look at the class picture everybody sitting in front You can definitely pick yourself out of the picture, right? so coming to a word camp and being able to see people and Still, you know, we have pretty good representation and I see over the years that I've been coming to UIs And guess what is it 2015 was the first one didn't get to go to that one, but 2016 I got to go and Just seeing faces and be able to wave at people. Hey, I see you there and Being able to kind of come together and seeing the numbers increase Over the years. I think has been a good experience and this being kind of a found age It's actually maybe a little more active effort to grow the population. So I see that So I'll ask a question and toss it to anybody who may answer Or who hasn't had a turn involved that maybe destiny Black press serves a black community, but it's not exclusive, right? That's your name. It's black press. We've got the black t-shirts on but it's not really exclusive community How does the community manage to balance the interest and needs of its black members? But also welcome and embrace the members of the broader WordPress community Yes, this is a well-asked question for sure And I would preface it by saying black press as he's noted is is not exclusionary But it is black by priority, right? And this is a space We are building to help amplify empower black professionals within the WordPress space But that can't only be done From within we also need the support of our allies who can also beat our drum with us and You know share those other opportunities that we might not be privy to or provide that mentorship in a way that is with shared language with shared mission and also in celebration of an effort to just in general increase the Expand the touch of WordPress, right? Because it is it is black press, but it is definitely not exclusively black and having That additional seasoning helps too Yeah, it just makes you know solid tastes better when you have more than just plain lettuce It's been interesting at least in my in my experience. Yeah, I agree with everyone's Up here just having you know People that you can reach out to in the community that might not necessarily be in the black press crew But also that wants to champion our mission. I mean, you know, we all Have to survive with relationships somehow. So just being able to have those allies outside of the organization that say hey You know we with you we hear you we agree with your mission We see you, you know being able to team up and partner. That's crucial I mean you you can't get through life period just by being in one silo You have to learn the branch out and you never know what those opportunities may bring So yes having our allies are it is extremely crucial in this case Not only just for black press but black and tech and just people in general So yes, we need our allies to help us with this mission to further along to partnership to grow, you know Maybe there is some training out there that we might not necessarily have access to that some of our allies might have access to and Having those type of partnerships are just vital for for growth of this organization All right, and I think growth is an important component because It's nice to see You guys, but I know that there are a lot more people here that are not necessarily participating and not necessarily just at the word camp but larger so I'll ask you this question maestro in terms of communicating the message What do you think or how do you think that we Like press can do a little better job at communicating our message and What are some asked that we can ask the audience to do to help communicate our message? I think this is the start Just being here. I Mean while everybody's been talking I've been looking at everybody's eyes like I'm a eye-looker I'm looking at everybody's eyes right now and I'm saying this because you know Being able to see you and you've been able to see us. I think that we definitely need to really so for example, I Met somebody yesterday and we were all taking our group picture and we just grabbed this random You know person this random black man. He had no idea that black press has even existed next to you know, he's hanging out with us, you know, and we're just going and chilling when taking it with them and That's how I feel like we need to continue to just keep Going back to the allies. We have to keep continuing to ask for help ask for support. I know that destiny. I I don't know a few others as well Can and Ali they're not here and I'm gonna shot them out for real for real See, it's about that. I try to shout out everybody. I can as much as possible show love I think that black press we need to do that a lot more. I know that we have The website which I hope everybody goes to everybody should know the website We we did some highlights. We've highlighted You know ourselves. I think that we definitely just need to continue to amplify, you know, our voices And I feel like this whole place should be feel I mean I can speak for myself I didn't promote like 15 minutes or 30 minutes beforehand just asking me. Hey, are you coming into your coming? Are you coming in coming in? I feel like maybe we could have done that Am I wrong? That's reasonable. That's reasonable. So it's just you know, I'm calling us all out You know, I'm calling myself out. I need to do better and I'm gonna be honest You know for a while I had kind of backed off for a little bit because I just got burnt out I got overwhelmed but when I got back in it it felt like home again And it was really really great to just be able to see like it grew and Every single time somebody's new is coming in and then I see in the chat Welcome this person. Welcome that person. Welcome this person. So if you are not black, it does not matter You belong with us You know, especially if you support and that's something I think that we definitely need to be able to help out a lot more with Thoughts George destiny I mean he said it, you know, just being able to be more vocal be more out front, you know Have having more of us on these panels Even the speakers in the different sessions, you know Letting everyone know like we're here You know myself I tried to to his point. I tried to tweet about stuff But you know, we all get busy things happen, but we have to do better about that You know being more proactive about our exposure And it works as a two-way street, you know, we have Many of us working many different facets within the WordPress community So, you know reaching out to our allies and say hey, this is something that someone has going on That's real big that we think should be highlighted making sure that announcement gets out and just overall being better about just You know letting people know that It's a lot of people out here doing a lot of different things for a lot of good causes Whether it's solving tech problems or just volunteering in general and just making those things known So you will know that these people exist these causes exist these products exist these services exist and just everything That's being done within the black press community just making sure that thing is out there and in front of the community Yeah, I think that definitely is a is one thing that destiny is a big champion of Celebrating our successes and prompting people to say what you're working on and say What's good and share it? I think it's just a matter of seeing those small successes and the big ones But saying those successes over time encourages you and inspires you to push a little bit harder to move forward so as the queen mother of the panel tell us Tell us why and tell us how right because you All right, so now it's time to thank destiny, but you put a lot of time and effort Into keeping us going so I want to personally say yes destiny you Your efforts a lot of times in our chat, you know highlighting people making sure that we are speaking out about what we're doing What everybody's doing whether it's big or small that effort does not go I'm bad at taking compliments. Thank you We can do this for the rest of the time because I think we're gonna finish early. I will shrink I But I just I Help you are feeling just like the love that we're trying to build in this community the support that we're throwing out there for each Other being vocal about it as well. It's really important And yeah, I I think of myself as like a community builder That's what I do in the in the training team with for the WordPress community at large and it's a joy in my life to be doing that so yeah kind of one thing about that is like Setting up the space for it one and Trying to follow up. So like small steps who I like we're all talking about like Come on. It's like being really plastered. Sorry How we felt like we could have done better to like we also can't be too hard on ourselves because we do have our other jobs This is volunteer work. So also just celebrating those little wins is really helpful to keep us going So, yeah, and I always love hearing all stories whenever it comes up. Yeah Celebrating successes and we celebrate big and small but also it's not participation trophies. I think part of it is Maybe it's part of the black nature. But yeah, you'll get cut if you're not doing your your role So yeah, you get clowned occasionally in the chat. We do that often too But it is in the spirit of lifting and building each other up And you talked about this potentially being a model for other groups as well We're laying out a process and other affinity groups Can maybe adopt some of the principles that that we've had We have a very very as we've alluded to a very very active slack channel We've built a website to kind of make things a little bit more public-facing But it is a growth process for us over the last couple of years Why didn't I wind it down? Let me see if I don't get anything else in here No, I'm not gonna say that one because I'm saving that for the last question I Guess also talking about other groups and other unrepresented groups talk often about allies and we definitely have our share Would you like at the risk of forgetting or naming somebody? Do we want to talk about the types of allies rather than just specific names? anyone Listen, I'm not afraid Michelle That has helped me been significant in my growth Joe has been significant in my growth Nye helped me get you know when Stina I got spot. I mean, George I mean, I can't I mean I can keep going the name the names can keep going now I'm just giving you clear examples of people who have been significant in my growth of understanding that you know This is a family. This is a community and I Know we were you know, you're mentioning allies, but I Look at all the people as allies, you know, that's why I started off with Michelle because obviously Michelle is not black, right? We know that She got some she she got some blackness to her though You know say you listen you come at it the wrong way. She's gonna come back at you now If you know Michelle, but I mean, there's just so many other people that I would say helped whether they're a person or whether they're a company So that's why you know for instance Go daddy. I'm shot them out. The other reason why I'm here, you know as far as you know paying for some pain Pain helping me pay for some sponsorship So it was you know, WP Tavern, you know, I can go down the list I'm just being honest with you like if I can't be honest with you We got a high this that's the problem with WordPress sometimes. We're not honest with ourselves We're not honest with ourselves And we're not we're not get showing love when we have the opportunity to do so So that's why I'm saying like, you know, whether it's an ally whether it's somebody who is a business a company a Sponsorship what doesn't matter whatever the case is. I just want to thank you if I haven't said your name Trust me you in my heart And I still thank you in a way. I just want to like plus one this idea of like the transparency and in that like Sharing these processes. That's kind of another reason why sometimes you feel like you have to build a separate space to to be able to shed light to those things so like as an ally definitely coming in and sharing whatever opportunities you have but kind of switching back to what Ray was saying about how they can also take learnings from what we're doing and tie it into their community is like to me a form of like transparency and knowledge sharing that We can all give each other as well All right, I'm gonna ask Maestro to bring us home since since he is a passionate advocate for black press and all that is black press How would you recommend someone to get started? What's the easiest way to dip their toe in the black press pound? What's their next up? I'm gonna conjure up my inner Bernie Mac Let me tell you something right now. Let me tell you something right now. You want to get in the black press better Go to the website and tell you right now. Go to the web. What's the website blackpresswp.com? Right there. Just all you gotta do Tell me right now. You go to the website. You sign up. You fill the button. They got slack chat. We got everything That's all you gotta do is just go to the website Is that simple enough for you Ray? Well, I've had a good time Thank you destiny. Thank you George. Thank you Maestro. I'm Ray Mitchell I think we're done except for the question taking and and please address the person you want to answer the question Is it on is this okay? It's on I have a question about the wapu the black press wapu. What was the inspiration behind it? Well, I'm gonna leave somebody else to answer that question because I just found out recently What the significance was to oh my gosh If you haven't seen our wapu yet, please go to wapu.com or whatever this site is and look at it. It's major poo Which is based off of like hbcu's Typically have drum lines and we have majors and so you'll see that inspiration of the drum culture In that so that was the inspiration and I'm gonna do a shout out to chanting ridder who is previously in the open verse team she helped design Our shirt she helped ally She helped design that wapu with us and collaboration with us and yeah Go check it out. It's really cute. We want to get swag some time Another question Yeah, yeah, so yeah curious on your thoughts on on this uh from all you really You know i'm from san diego, you know and like our word camps in san, I mean when I was a kid You know like san diego is about 12 black and now it's like six percent black, right? So diversity is not like that, you know the gentrification Really like, you know marginalizing, you know the the communities that we have there But like our word camps, you know for years our word camps was like one dude Various, you know various Smith coming down from riverside, you know to our word camps It was like our token black dude, right? So like for for like for us like How do we like, you know kind of increase that that community without marginalizing tokenizing Make it feel like we're like trying to hit quotas, right? Like how do we increase that diversity? You know like going forward like increasing that that community in a community that is Like increasingly diminishing, right? I was kind of curious about your thoughts on that Well, I know one of the things which actually brought me into the black press crew was hbc use Historical back colleges and universities. I myself as a hbc graduate graduated from albama annum in 2008 and 2017 I got my master's in computer science and to your point with You know having local meet-ups Being able to tap into that pipeline My personal experience in grad school was my time to study wordpress It's all self-taught, but I had no one in my local community. I'm originally from huntsville, albama No one in the local community who had any knowledge of what wordpress is So having now I live in houston texas, you know having the meet-ups being able to reach out to like pv Which is prairie university, uh texas southern and any other hbc use or even going to the inner cities You know a lot of um young black kids myself growing up in the inner city of huntsville You know having a computer was a luxury You know a lot of kids don't get a chance to get access to that type of stuff And exposing them just going out and show them, you know Instead of spending 10 hours on the ipad in front of it. You need to learn how it works You know exposing them to that type of stuff creating that pipeline into inner city kids hbcu students To give them the opportunity to understand that tech is out there You know, you don't have to pick a basketball. You don't have to go be an entertainer You can be a programmer. You can be a developer if you have a creative mind be a designer You might not have any of those tech skills, but you can be a qa. You could be a project manager You know, there's so many different Faces of this job in the wordpress community that many of black and brown kids and just underrepresented all together don't even know exist And just reaching out to uh those type of mediums, you know myself being hbcu grad That's one of the things I brought to the table is that The hbcu community is such a closely guarded community because of the reason hbcu's were started in the first place So as someone who's a hbcu grad I have that access to be able to say hey You know, here's an organization that's out here trying to represent black and brown people in the tech community And we want to give more exposure to black and brown kids in school whether it's in the elementary level all the way up to the collegiate level and Let them know like you don't have to go be an engineer If you don't want to you don't have to feel forced into that There's other ways that you can you know explore that creative mind to have a different career So I mean there are so many different ways to do it, but I know with us hbcu's and the inner city kids That's something that we're actively trying to champion to create a pipeline to bring more of them into this space So they have exposure and not even just wordpress. This is just one instance just in tech in general You know, there's many in the black press community You know wordpress is the only thing they do they can do full stack development You know, some may have cross platform development AI development Just anything to help them break into tech and know that these opportunities are out there that you can build a career Working in tech and have fun doing it too Yeah, I think to that end. I'm I'm definitely indebted to wordpress Uh, I've been doing it for a while and started my company for $250 Shout out to dream host one of our sponsors, but I bought a domain name Got a year of hosting Uh, I bought a theme from theme far. Sorry about that. Um But that's how I started it, right? We have the phrase or we talk about uh democratizing publishing And that's what wordpress can do but people have to know that and the way that we get more people to be a part of our democracy To have the opportunity to still today you can start your business For $250. So it's actually cheaper than it was 10 years ago, right? The only way you can do that is to get more people involved in the democracy By sharing wordpress and helping that local small business Helping that nonprofit to get rid of that janky wick site that they put together and give them something that they can work And when I talk to clients, I say, you know I work with wordpress You know something that the pta and the boy scouts and the little church ladies used to build a website But nasa and rolling stone and harvard business review and new york times use this as a backbone And it's the same thing that you can use so getting people to understand that there's opportunity through wordpress Is something that whether you're in black person or not if you're a wordpresser, you should be spreading the gospel of wordpress Right. I'm a I'm a wordpress evangelist. So I'm sorry. I did just want to underline that, you know, our shared language is wordpress, right? So we can bring that in any community and I I don't know if anyone saw but just down the hall There's like blacks in government another convention. Why aren't we yelling about wordpress? Convention right now too, right? So taking your wordpress our shared language and Seeing who's willing to hear is a way of bringing people in, right? So I have kind of a two-part question. My name is Courtney Robertson. I work at go ready As a developer advocate and I get to as part of that contribute to the training team with destiny And I've been doing so for A while we'll say I first met some of this crew george, you and I connected when I was teaching my underserved underrept high school kids That were being paid as summer interns to learn wordpress And in that bootcamp experience george and I connected kind of along those ways and some of the other people That came together that are now a big organizing force of black press Destiny I would like to continue collaborating on outrage to let organizations like this know About the work that's happening on learn because I see that there is an avenue whether it is through Bootcamp programs this one my kids were getting paid They weren't paying to be there. They were getting they were high school kids getting paid And and joe introduced emcee them in philly Which is just amazing I want to continue collaborating with you on maybe some outrage to programs like that so that we can foster Continuing the education and awareness But I guess maybe the next question wearing my other hat as go daddy Are we have similar to cocoa press? We have uh gd black and tech Would black press like to come and kind of present to maybe groups like that employee resource groups Hey, here is what's going on in the wordpress community and perhaps how you could get involved because I would really love for you to do that Mama Oh any auntie So definitely in our slack we have an opportunities channel So if you're like, hey, I think this is a great collaboration opportunity We would like to have some folks come and speak, you know time permitting Um, yeah, we want to hear about that. We want to see because we don't know everything We don't we don't know all black people either. So like we want to be introduced We want to know who they are. We want to share our space Um, and so I would say yes, let's continue those conversations. Um And what I have been intentionally doing is like when I started, um Helping folks put on like online sessions as I would cross post them to the learn wordpress Online workshop meetup as well because that's also exposure, right this cross posting a little bit of mixing And then people are like, oh that was brought on by black press. What's that? And I'm like, yeah hooked another one So, um, I think those parts where we can, you know I don't know if there's a better phrase for this. I killed two birds with one stone I'm sorry birds I'm metaphorical. Um Let's keep talking about that because I think, you know, our time is limited and precious and we want to make the most of it out of it Hello, great panel. My name is Alvaro Gurdian and I work for a Spanish language media company called La Noticia And not just for my company, but also fellow publishers that I know across the country Uh, I really love seeing this because we struggle to find talent that has both the technical competency and the cultural competency So I heard a little bit about How to help other um affinity groups get started. I just want to get down to the concrete part You know, how do we do it and because we got to find these people I think that well, bienvenidos y gracias por visitando Um, I think the opportunity is there. I mean, it's a template. I mean and the tools are out there and they're free Wordpress is free Slack is kind of free Um, it's really time And be willing to get together Yeah, so I'm a Christian and we often say, uh, we're two or more gathered Uh, things happen, right? Two more Latinos Two more Women Two more whatever get together There's power in that number and if those two tell two more I can't do my You know exponential math, but you can understand the process, right? Um, so it is something that we can talk to you about It's something that you can see for yourself by coming and joining us and uh I guess in the technical space george would say it's r and d Robin duplicate It's the opportunity to do this, right? So yeah, I would encourage it It would at least help me with my Spanish a little bit if I can get into another group so So to your to your point, um to your question because I know I don't think she's in here But I got a shout out, uh, william and aida too Um and the reason why is because we've been talking about kids and helping out and they do a lot in the community As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for them, I would have felt stranded in europe when I was a speaker Um aida speak spanish as as far as I know and william is black their combination So if you were and she and they're in black press, right? So i'm just trying to make it more practical and realistic, you know the ally, you know, um Modeling as you had mentioned. Um I don't know how many people speak spanish in the black press, you know community. Um, I had to raise her I gotta I gotta learn but i'm saying to say like maybe we well, we had to make the site bilingual And our first mode is to make it spanish, you know, and that way we're we're uh We're adding more to what you're saying, you know what i'm saying, but I definitely would suggest you you will reach out to aida I'm gonna guess last question because I see the uh, probably the last question. Yeah, what's going on? Yeah, um So you talked about the kids and you talked about Making stuff and advocating in different businesses and things like that. What about And my sure we already talked about this yesterday What about that one person man or woman who in a different career? And found that they want to do something else and they don't know how to get started or that person who's been training And putting it off putting off putting off and then they find a way to you know what let me try it But I don't know what resources I need or how to get started because it's easy to fail and then be like i'm good So what would you say to that person who is trying to get in? Especially if they are a person of color somebody who's black like what would you say to that person? Keep going persistence You know, no no battles won overnight Personally, you know, I'm not the strongest developer in the world, but I've worked along some very bright minds And if I would have quit I would not have made it to year 12, which is where I'm at now So it's really that mean that's kind of the the spirit of black press too is having that accountability to help push you to keep going You know, we all get beat up. We all get discouraged failures are part of the process But having a community to rally around you in those moments to help lift you up and keep you going You know, that's that's something you need to be around Um, but really it's just persistence keep moving. Um, even with switching careers One of the other black press is Caleb a good friend of mine He actually was a mailman at one point and then he in his downtime while delivering mail Studied wordpress to now work at penskey So, I mean if he had given up just imagine where he could be that's just the the overall Model you just have to keep going but also get around people who have that same collective mind That's willing to encourage you to keep pushing along because I mean in any job any career any profession You're going to hit walls. You're going to fail I mean, honestly, I remember as a kid somebody told me like I hope you fail because that's how you learn to get better And if you have people around you that constantly encourage you in those moments of failure Then that will keep you going further than where you are So just getting around people that have the mindset of you know, yeah, you're going to fall down. That's fine All right, let's get back up. Let's figure out what we're going to do next. Yeah Along that line, uh, this is not what at some level it is what I wanted to do on this kid In eighth grade. I'm old A they used to call it commercial art what we call graphic art at this time I thought I wanted to do that and left it entirely Did a lot of things came out of financial services started a different company That didn't quite work out, but I built my first website to do that People asked me about websites and that's how I actually began doing this as a job I could have done much more sooner had I not had to do it alone Having a community that will help you Will help you go further faster and I guess that's one of those old black problems as well, you know, but uh It's an opportunity to do it in this community So the person who's tried and considering a career change Well, you can find people in black dress crew who've gone through the same thing Or who want to learn a little learn a little bit more about design because they you know Really can't tie their shoes when it comes to picking colors. There's people who will Help with that too. So definitely I think there's the opportunity for collective growth In collective organizations like this And we hope that we'll join you you'll join us All right, because we want you Content us Okay, then thank you very much