WPCoffeeTalk: Svilena Peneva

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[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to WPCoffeeTalk with your podcast Barista Michelle Frechette, where we interview people in the WordPress community from all over the world. Every guest is asked the same questions and every guest has wonderful and varied answers about their history and their hopes. Special thanks to our espresso level sponsors, Bluehost, WS form and beaver Builder. And now on with the show.

Welcome to WPCoffeeTalk. I’m your podcast Barista Michelle Frechette, serving up the WordPress stories from around the world. And today my guest is in Bulgaria. I love that. I don’t know that I’ve ever talked to anybody in Bulgaria before, but welcome to the show Svilena. Let me see if I can say your last name correctly. Peneva. Peneva.

[00:00:50] Speaker B: Peneva. Yeah.

[00:00:51] Speaker A: Oh, close. Peneva. Okay, now I will remember every time I always know your first name. I don’t think I’ve ever called you by your last name name.

[00:00:57] Speaker B: So anyway, it would have been weird if you had. So I think it’s okay.

[00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. And I think it was last year we met. First time for the face to face too, which was very nice. And I’ve seen you at several word camps since then. And it’s always a pleasure to run into you, for sure.

[00:01:13] Speaker B: That is true. I think we met in Athens for.

[00:01:15] Speaker A: The first time, I think it was, yeah. And you all had like lovely little swags and gave me things which were fun and I love, I love all my WordPress friends itself. It’s just such a great community. But anyway, let’s learn a little bit about you today. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

[00:01:33] Speaker B: So I work at Nitro Pac, and what we do is we do site speed and performance. And technically, if I had to give you a title, I’m the partnerships manager. And what I do is all things affiliates, all things events, all things marketing, partnerships, and all things people, I guess.

[00:01:51] Speaker A: Yeah, you’re the people person there, kind of like I’m the people person over at stellar WP. So we do similar things, I think, which is why we run into each other at events. It’s always a pleasure. So I ask everybody to have a mug. Can you show us your mug and tell us a little bit about it?

[00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I do have my mug here. It’s. I just think it’s really cute. And to me it looks very vintage. It’s nothing fancy. It’s just from Ikea, but yeah. And to me it looks similar to something my grandma has. Or maybe I’m making it up.

[00:02:19] Speaker A: But, yeah, no, I agree. It’s that pretty delft blue flowers on it that makes me think of, like, twal, the old fashioned stuff. So what are you drinking today?

[00:02:31] Speaker B: At the risk of getting shunned from society, I’m going to tell you that I don’t drink coffee.

[00:02:35] Speaker A: That’s okay.

[00:02:37] Speaker B: I just have, and I don’t drink tea either. I just have water in it. But if I had to have something else, it would probably be a very classically, traditionally bulgarian drink, which is a yogurt drink. And basically what we do is we mix yogurt and water just enough to make it more liquid, and we drink that. And it’s super refreshing. It’s also a really good hangover cure. If you’re hungover.

[00:03:03] Speaker A: Is it similar to kefir?

[00:03:05] Speaker B: It is. It is. But kefir, it’s a little sweet. And we also put a little bit of salt. And I think that’s actually the electrolytes that help you with being hungover. But I think it’s also something that they have in Greece and Turkey and maybe some middle eastern countries.

[00:03:21] Speaker A: But, yeah, I want to try it. I want to try it sometime.

So let me show you my mug. I have my spoons mug. I love it. I just think, isn’t it cute? I just think it’s so cute. It’s small, though. And so I almost overfilled it with coffee this morning. So I have coffee, cream and sugar this morning that I’m drinking because it is morning, my time. So I need a little bit of caffeine to get me through my day.

So how did you get started with WordPress?

[00:03:49] Speaker B: I started with WordPress three years ago, which is how long I’ve been with nitropack, which is my first full time job after university. And I fell into it. It wasn’t something that I was purposefully looking for.

I was applying for several jobs at the time, and nitro Pak just happened to be at the time. They had grown a lot and they were hiring for multiple positions at the same time. So the name Nitro Pak kept coming up and coming up on LinkedIn because that’s mainly where I was applying, and I kept seeing it. And I remember so vividly going on the website and trying to wrap my mind around what they do, and I found it so difficult because I read, okay, nitro pack and sitespeed improves the user experience. I get that. And then words like HTML and Js and CSs and caching started popping up. And I, at the time, I had no idea what that meant, but I just happened to have the best connection with my direct manager at the time, which is why I decided to pick their offer. And here we are three years ago.

[00:04:54] Speaker A: I love it. It’s interesting how it’s like I didn’t know what it was until I started this job, but now you’re like all in and out and you know everybody in like the circles of word camps and things like that.

[00:05:07] Speaker B: It’s definitely funny.

[00:05:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. I’ve been doing WordPress for twelve years this year and I just started it because my best friend and I started a nonprofit and her husband built a website and then said, here’s your login, and we had to figure out how to use it. So that was a lot of fun. It was a little frustrating at first, and terrifying, if I’m being honest, because I thought I could break it very easily, which is not the case, of course, but it was a lot of fun. When you press publish and then everybody, anywhere in the world can see what you just put on the web. I mean, they don’t. Right?

They would, but they could. Exactly.

Speaking of people being able to see things on the web, when you look at websites kind of just across the board, whether they’re WordPress or not, what do you think is something that we as designers, builders, developers don’t focus enough attention on that would make our websites better for the end user?

[00:06:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I think I might be biased here or what do you call that in English?

Yeah. Okay, let’s say it’s biased, but I would say side speed, performance and accessibility, because they go hand in hand. And some accessibility also plays into, like site speed plays into accessibility. And if you have a fast website that way you make it more accessible. And that is something that I noticed. Like if I go on a website and it loads too slowly or something is janky, or there are content shifts and things like that. As a user, I get annoyed very quickly and I think that’s the overall trend anyway. Like we are becoming more and more impatient and therefore that’s something that we need to pay attention to as people building websites, or especially as people making money online, because they’re very closely tied, I think.

[00:06:59] Speaker A: Do you think. I know this is true for me. So I’m asking somebody who’s an expert in the field, do you think people are more impatient when they’re viewing sites on mobile than they are on desktop?

[00:07:13] Speaker B: From my point of view, I would say so. And the trend is that I can’t quote a percentage, but I think most users nowadays are on mobile anyway. And for me, I don’t know. There are certain things that I only do on my laptop, and I saw a meme about it yesterday, and I thought, oh, my God, that’s so true. Like, for instance, I would never, ever buy plane tickets on my phone. Never. Like, that’s a computer activity. But then there’s that, for the most part, I do on my phone, and I am more impatient when I’m on my phone.

[00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I’m the same way. And that’s. I know that wasn’t one of the questions I sent you, but you made me think about it as I was thinking about, and it’s true, I don’t think I would ever buy tickets, plane tickets on my phone either. But I’ll order furniture. I will go through anything on Amazon, like, all of those kinds of things. Like, here’s my credit card. Right? But plane tickets, I think it’s, the process is so much different than anything else. That’s a good point. I like that. And you must send me the meme because I want to see it.

[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:08:16] Speaker A: What’s something that you wish you had known? I know your journey is only three years, as you say, but what’s something you wish you had known earlier in your WordPress journey that would have made life a little bit easier sooner?

[00:08:29] Speaker B: Something that would have made things easier sooner is about how large of an aspect community is. And that is something I realized. So I went to my first Wordcamp in 2022, which was the one in Porto, and that was my first Wordcamp. That was our first Wordcamp as a company. And now that it’s been some time, what, it’s almost two years, and I’ve been to a few more wordcamps, it’s a way different experience for me. And you know exactly what I’m talking about. Like, everyone knows each other, and you feel completely at home, and you see the same people and you feel like you’re friends with them and you are. But my first experience, while it’s a really cool community, while you’re still an outsider, as is the case if you’re the outsider to any community, it’s scary because there are all these things and traditions that people know and you know nothing about.

So something that I would say is the community aspect. Like, if you need help, just don’t be afraid to reach out, and most people will be really happy to help you. Or if you feel like you need an intro to someone and you already know, or you have a friend or two, just ask them and maybe they know that person and most likely they’ll be happy to introduce you.

[00:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that’s very true. I get asked to introduce people all the time because I do know a lot of people and I’m always happy to make connections where I can.

I’m cautious sometimes. Right. So it depends exactly what somebody is asking for because there are nefarious people who are trying to take advantage of others in the community, but those are few and far between. But I always do. When somebody is authentic, I will do anything that I can to try to connect them or help them, for sure. And I think I’m not alone in that there. Like you said, there are so many people in our community willing to help, even competitors. Right? So like, I work for a hosting company. I am friends with so many people at other hosting companies. It’s not about that. It’s about just building the community. So, yeah, I’m glad you, I’m glad you discovered that as well.

So you’ve been to a few word camps now, and I don’t know if you’ve attended meetups or done on other online events, etcetera, but what’s some like, what’s an experience you can tell us about that was really pivotal or inspirational for you at a word camp or WordPress event?

Now my cat is meowing, so you may hear her.

[00:10:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

It’s really hard to pinpoint one specific moment, maybe I would say it’s just the overall difference that I feel now that it’s been a couple years of going toward camps and like I already mentioned, the experience for me going now and the experience for us going as a company, the differences between night and day because we’ve made that effort, because we’ve gotten to know people and it’s really been amazing. And it is about putting the time in and putting the effort in and showing up again and again and taking the time to get to know people and taking the time to connect. Because for me, like, I’m a non technical person and sometimes, I’m not going to lie, I find technical people are like highly technical people, intimidating. But what I realized is that actually everyone just wants to connect and they don’t necessarily want to talk about, I don’t even know about what, like something. Well, they just want to talk about food and traveling and oh, I got this t shirt today and I got it in that booth and yeah, yeah.

[00:11:58] Speaker A: It turns out developers know programming languages, but they don’t speak them. They speak English like the rest of us or their own language, for sure. Right. So I was always intimidated by developers as well, because it’s just like the information that they store in their head to be able to create the thing. The tools that we use is intimidating. Right. But, yeah, but at the end of the day, we’re all just people wanting to have a beer or a cup of coffee or whatever together or a yogurt drink. If you don’t drink coffee.

Tell us a little bit more about Nitro Pak. I mean, the word nitro gives you a lot of insight into what it does. That’s a beautifully named product and what you do with it specifically.

[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah, the name is really interesting, and that’s something that I asked our founders about, like, how did you come up with it? And basically, Nitro is the speed part. And Pack refers to the fact that we have an all in one approach, so you get everything you need for speed or for performance all in the same place. Um, what was. Oh, yeah. Tell you a little bit more about Nitro pack and not just the name. Yeah, yeah. So basically, Nitro Pak was first created as an extension for Opencart in 2013. So over ten years ago. Yeah. Because at the time, from what I’ve been told, our team kept running into the same problem, which was websites are slow. We need to optimize them manually. We don’t want to keep doing that manually. So let’s just outsource it and let’s just do that and fast forward five years to 2018. They created the company nitropack, and then fast forward three more years, I believe, to 2021. That was the introduction of core web vitals by Google. And that is when, actually a lot more emphasis was put on performance and site speed. And that’s when really, we saw a lot of growth as a company. And that’s when I started in 2021. And when I started, I think I was the 20th person, or 21st. And right now, Nitropack has over 60 employees, so we’ve grown even more since then. I like to joke that I’ve contributed so much to this growth. Maybe that’s the case. I hope it’s the case, but, yeah, we’ve definitely come such a long way.

[00:14:21] Speaker A: And, yeah, that’s wonderful. There’s. You remember, I think it was from Top Gun where they’re like, I feel the need, the need for speed. Right. And it’s like, it’s so true that a slow website is just like a death knell. I’ve told this story before, but, oh, gosh, this was probably seven or eight years ago now. I was freelancing. But I also was organizing the local meetup, and a woman said to me, I’m having problems with my website. Could I come meet with you? Could you, like, take a look? And I said, absolutely. Sure. So she comes out and she says, for some reason, the homepage is so slow, and she had, like, the most gargantuan featured image on the homepage, and it took over 30 seconds for that image to load. Like, well, that’s going to cause you. Anybody’s going to bounce from a site that’s. I mean, even 4 seconds is too long for most people nowadays, but over 30 seconds was just terribly terrible. And so I showed her how she could optimize her image and make it smaller. Doesn’t need to be 30,000 pixels wide. You know, things like that. She wanted the detail, and, like, it’s the web. You don’t need the level of detail because it’s lost anyway, so. But, yeah, you’re right. And so looking for ways to speed up your people’s websites, it’s not just good for Google and good for those things, but it really is good for your end user who wants to see things happen more quickly. But Google likes it, too.

[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:15:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And so in your position, I mean, I have an insight of what you do, but in your position, when you’re not at a word camp, what are you doing?

[00:15:59] Speaker B: When I’m not at a word camp, I’m preparing for a word camp.

[00:16:03] Speaker A: Isn’t that the truth?

[00:16:06] Speaker B: We were joking about that in Taiwan that so far, like, we mostly do the flagship ones, but when you take into account the fact that there’s three of them, and let’s say they’re about three months apart, as soon as you wrap up one, you have to start preparing for the other one. So that definitely takes up a big chunk of our time and of my time.

What else do I do?

Am the go to person for our affiliates. So if they need something, I’m the person that they pull by the hand and that they complain to, or sometimes politely, sometimes not so politely.

Yeah. So affiliates, events, any kind of marketing partnerships. Yeah.

[00:16:47] Speaker A: So you do it. The one reaching out and talking to other people and other companies to make those connections. That’s great. And it seems to me that you do enjoy your job.

[00:16:57] Speaker B: I do. And sometimes. Sometimes it’s a lot, I have to say, but it’s because I make it a lot for myself and it’s because the expectation that I have of myself, but for the majority of the part, I feel incredibly lucky and I am to do something that I enjoy doing, something that I think I’m good at and something that is fun and something that allows me to meet people like you and to talk to people like you from around the world. And it’s really wonderful.

[00:17:27] Speaker A: It’s funny. Somebody said to me recently, I don’t remember what we were listening to, but there was a fellow on that had a british accent, and they’re like, oh, my gosh, I love his accent. And I honestly said, unless I can’t understand what somebody says to me, I don’t even realize sometimes that people have accents because we talk to people all over the world all the time, and unless I’m like, I’m not sure what he said or what she said, it doesn’t even register sometimes because we go to these word camps, and you could talk to ten people within ten minutes who are from different parts of the world. So it’s just focused on the words that. How they come across. And I thought, man, I used to love accents, and now I’m totally desensitized to them, but it’s fun.

[00:18:14] Speaker B: I still love them, actually.

I still notice them. I was at an event yesterday and the day before located here in Bulgaria and in Sofia. And a lot of the people are bulgarian or from another balkan country, like Greece or Romania or Turkey, but there were actually a few people from Ireland. And I thought that was so entertaining. I just loved it. It never gets to me.

[00:18:40] Speaker A: I will say that the irish accent is.

Is particularly lovely, for sure.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let me move into the rapid fire questions. They’re not really rapid. They’re just maybe shorter answers. I don’t know why I named them that, but they’re fun. So here we go.

What are two or three must have plugins that you would recommend to somebody building their own website? And you can say nitro pack. It’s okay.

[00:19:06] Speaker B: So nitro pack. Nitro pack, and nitro pack. Once again, no.

Yeah. That’s one of the questions that you sent me in advance, and I have the time to think about it. And I have to say it’s a little difficult because I know the people behind the plugins, so it’s hard for me to separate. Okay, Joy, would I mention this plugin because of the plugin or because I know the person and I know how hard they work and I know how cool they are, but I think they go hand in hand. So. Okay. I would say nitro pack. I would say yoast and WP umbrella.

[00:19:42] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:19:43] Speaker B: Also. Okay. Can I get on, like, one more yeah. I would also say insta WP.

[00:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I have to get ficus on the show. He needs to come on the show and talk about his product. It’s phenomenal. And he’s growing like crazy, his business. So we use it at stellar WP all the time. So we had a nice partnership with him. At any point during the last three years in WordPress or, you know, maybe even before, have you had a mentor or if it wasn’t an official mentor, maybe somebody that just took you under their wing or that you looked up to to try to emulate? And who was it?

[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah, this is actually a really easy one. And it’s something that I’ve mentioned before, like, not to you, but in conversations before. So one of the first people that I met was, and I should really learn how to get her name right, but it’s Anne Boboled.

[00:20:36] Speaker A: Anamika Bobolette. Yes.

[00:20:38] Speaker B: Yes. She was our sponsor rep for the first wordcamp that we sponsored. And really, at the time, I had no idea what was what. I had no idea what we were doing, what we were supposed to do, deadlines, design files, anything like that. And basically she told me, if you need anything, whatever you need, here’s my number. Just call me. And she’s been amazing. And she’s really a force of nature.

[00:21:02] Speaker A: And she is.

[00:21:04] Speaker B: Yeah. I just love that.

[00:21:06] Speaker A: And I don’t think you’ll find. Well, there are some other people, but she’s a very, very strong advocate for accessibility as well, which is. Which is wonderful. I love it. Yeah, she’s awesome. I agree with you 100%. Okay, so for the next question, you can’t say her, though. You must say somebody else who is somebody that you admire in the WordPress community and why.

[00:21:29] Speaker B: Okay, I’ll go with.

Maybe I’ll butcher his name, too. I’ll try to say it in French. It’s okay. I won’t try to say it in French because I don’t speak French. But it’s the founder, or the co founder maybe, of WP, umbrella, Aurelio Mole, because he’s such a sweetheart. First of all, he’s amazing, but he is probably one of the hardest working people in WordPress. And he’s really, like, you can see and you can tell based on their product, but based also on their marketing efforts and their community efforts that they’re really trying to go and they’re going above and beyond to establish their product and their brand.

[00:22:07] Speaker A: And he gets involved in social, which is nice, too. So, like, you feel like you know him before you even meet him, so. Yeah, definitely. And he’s so down to earth, very real person. I love that about him also.

[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:22:19] Speaker A: What’s something that you’d like to work to learn in WordPress but that you haven’t learned yet?

[00:22:27] Speaker B: It’s not one particular thing, but I would have to because I already mentioned I’m not a technical person and it’s something that I always tiptoe around and I like to stay away from. I would have to say one of my goals would be to get more technically involved within my position and because I think that’s something that would help me grow professionally, but also personally. If there’s something you’re scared of, just do it. Like nothing’s going to happen. Yeah.

[00:22:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I’m never going to jump out of an airplane, but I agree with the learning tech part of that. Just do it.

And if you’re somebody that wants to jump out of an airplane, God bless you, it is not me. I’ll wait for you on the ground.

What’s, what’s one of the biggest mistakes that you’ve made in WordPress and what did you learn from it?

[00:23:19] Speaker B: So maybe one of the biggest mistakes we made as a company when attending and sponsoring and doing word camps was sometimes being a bit too salesy because at the time I didn’t realize that that’s not the WordPress way to do things and it’s not what people are really looking for. And what’s great is that at first it’s like people will tell you that you’re doing something wrong. And when I say people, I mean people like Joseph, for example, she’ll come and tell me, this is not how we do things. And it’s a little surprising at first. And obviously you do feel like you’re doing, you did something wrong without even realizing it because we, like you, don’t have bad intentions. But the great thing is that people will take the time to come and tell you we don’t do this because of ABC instead of, let’s say, just telling you. Okay, you’re banned from Wordcamp. You can’t go in. Yeah. So I think that’s, that’s a good thing.

[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s gentle correction as opposed to otherwise. Yeah, like gentle parenting.

Well, what’s your proudest moment in WordPress?

[00:24:31] Speaker B: I keep going back to this, but every time I’m able to have a slightly more technical conversation and with a technical person and feel like I made sense and feel like they’re on the same page as me, I’m like, good job, because years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do that.

[00:24:52] Speaker A: So, yeah, that’s awesome. I think that when we have those kinds of moments of realization, I said something, it made sense, the person listening. Yeah, that’s really awesome. I gave a talk at Wordcamp San Diego back in 2018, and one of my colleagues came into the session to support me. And he is a developer. Like, just a developer extraordinaire. This man knows so much. And my talk was called the hidden features of WordPress. So it was things like little simple things, like the different menus and things that people might not be aware of. So he was thinking it would just be all like, he wouldn’t learn anything from me, but he was there to support me regardless. But I mentioned one feature that you can’t access without knowing the URL for, because you can really mess up your website.

And he came up to me at the end and he said, I learned this part from you, and I didn’t think I’d learn anything. So thank you. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, I felt like, you know, I just saved the world from something. I don’t know. It was a good feeling, for sure. So I understand that feeling.

[00:25:58] Speaker B: But actually, okay, if I have to pinpoint one moment or give you one example, something I’m really proud of, and we’re very proud of as a company, is the fact that we partner with and we work with and we collaborate with Google on few different projects on a few different levels. We work with them on a product level, and it’s really, they’ve been amazing and we’ve been able to bounce ideas off of them, but we also have partnered with them on a marketing level. And last year we did a series of four webinars with them, which was amazing. And we got to give back to the community and educate them and talk about starting really from the ground up, about the importance of site speed, about core web vitals, about, and then getting really granular about each of the metrics and how to optimize for that manually if you choose to do that. Or if not, there’s this great thing called nitro Pak. But there have been those times when I’ve been able to have, what are, for me, more technical conversations with people on the performance team at Google. And those are the people who call the shots and people who make the rules about performance. And then I tell myself, okay, if you can have a conversation with them about performance, you’re doing all right.

[00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Then you could have a then you could be on a podcast with somebody like me. Easy peasy.

I love. That’s really awesome, actually.

I see the Google booth at places, at Wordcamps and things like that, and I, like, shy away, like, oh, my gosh, that’s Google. I have nothing to add. Right. But they’re so nice people.

They really are.

[00:27:40] Speaker B: They are my main takeaway from working with them, because sometimes in my job, I approach a lot of people and let’s say I have a lot of ideas about what we could do with many companies. And when you have conversations with people, let’s say they sound excited at first or they seem to be on board at first, but then for one reason or another, things don’t happen.

Maybe they. I don’t know, maybe someone is too lazy, or maybe they have other priorities, etcetera. But when we got in contact with Google last year about doing the webinar series, they were like, okay, great idea. Let’s do it. Can we start this month? Let’s start this month. Let’s do four. Let’s do one a month until the end of the year. And I was like, it was a come to Jesus moment. It was amazing. I was like, this is why they are who they are, and it does what it says on the tin. And I was like, I knew it. I knew there are people out there who actually have this work ethic, and they’re amazing. Yeah.

[00:28:41] Speaker A: And it’s easier to talk to people at Google than it is at Facebook for some reason. And Google is this huge corporation, so that tells you something right there. They really are about what they talk about, which is pretty cool.

[00:28:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:28:53] Speaker A: Okay. So if you weren’t working in. I say tech usually, but, I mean, you and I really aren’t the techy people, but we are working in tech. What’s another career that you might like to attempt?

[00:29:06] Speaker B: So if you couldn’t tell by my full face of makeup. I like makeup. I like skincare, and I’ve been into makeup and skincare for 20 years, which is the vast majority of my life. And I think something I really enjoy is being a dermatologist.

That is a career path that I considered and that my parents strongly suggested, but it’s not something that I took, and I don’t regret it. And it’s something that I still read a lot about in my free time, et cetera, et cetera. And I love trying new things and your trends and products, etcetera. And, yeah, I do love it. But that’s, I think, something that I would have liked to explore.

[00:29:47] Speaker A: Otherwise, that’s very cool. And you do have a beautiful, beautiful skin, and your makeup is always on point, so. Absolutely.

[00:29:55] Speaker B: Thank you so much.

[00:29:57] Speaker A: What’s something on your bucket list?

[00:30:01] Speaker B: Something on my bucket list?

[00:30:05] Speaker A: Probably not jumping out of an airplane, right?

[00:30:08] Speaker B: No, not me. Out. No. No.

Maybe. I do like to travel, and like I said already, I’m really lucky that I get to travel for work. But I do love Europe, which I feel like sounds really boring. But I think it’s pretty cool that, like, me and us Europeans get to have so many different countries at our fingertips.

If I have to say what’s on my bucket list, maybe visiting a country like Japan or South Korea. Okay, I’ll go with South Korea. Let’s say, because of the skincare, because they’re really far advanced, and they’re really light years ahead of the game, so maybe that would be it.

[00:30:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Last year was my first time in Europe to visit Greece. This year, I will be in Italy. I wish my bucket list. And I never had travel on my bucket list before because there’s so many other things I want to do, like give a TED talk and that kind of stuff. But I would love to have a month where I could just travel from country to country and see all of the wonderful things in Europe, because it is so. I mean, it’s big, but it’s smaller than the US. So it’s like, the idea of being able to travel around there to somebody who lives here, like, I’m gonna get in a car and drive 6 hours, and I’m still in my same state. Right. So, like, to be able to see it all is doable, and that would be so exciting.

[00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I love that as well. And there’s just so much history here, and especially when you go to a country like Italy, and if you visit. I think my favorite destination is Rome, and I went to Rome twice last year within the same month. Don’t ask me. Well, it was because of two concerts that I went to, but it definitely became my favorite. And now after world camp Europe, I’m going to go again for a few days, and it’s just.

And I’m not really a person who is that into art or who knows a lot about art, but when you’re in Rome, you’re surrounded by it. You’re surrounded by art history. Like, you’re just walking in. There’s the coliseum, and then there are the spanish steps and all these things, and it’s just mind blowing. Yeah.

[00:32:18] Speaker A: Yeah. It’s interesting. Too, because I think people think there’s like an american culture, but there’s so many cultures in such a smaller area in Europe. The same is really true here. Yeah, there is an american culture, but the culture of western New York, where I live is so different than the culture of New York City. And we’re in the same state. So I understand, like, you can, you know, throw whatever, throw a paper airplane and land in a different culture in some places. And I just, it’s just so beautiful and fascinating to me. So if I ever do take that month, I’m going to visit you. I hope that’s okay.

[00:32:50] Speaker B: Of course.

[00:32:52] Speaker A: Show us or tell us about a hidden talent that you might have that nobody else or people in WordPress might not be aware of. Yeah, this is the most fun question because people have so many different interesting things.

[00:33:05] Speaker B: Show you or tell you. And I knew this question was coming as well. And really I can’t think of anything. But if you ask my team, and if you ask my team lead in particular, she’ll tell you that my talent is replying to emails or any kind of messages scarily quickly.

As a partnerships person. I live on LinkedIn, I live in my email inbox, I live on slack. And if, if I see it, I’ll reply. I’ll reply right away. And sometimes she tells me, you’re creepy. You need to stop doing that five minutes. Or if you reply the next day, no one wants to see in their email box that you replied to them at 02:00 a.m. Or whatever, something like that. But I guess that’s one of my hidden talents.

[00:33:50] Speaker A: You don’t like the notifications either? You need to clear the notifications.

[00:33:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I need it gone. Yeah, I need to know I did it. Yeah.

[00:33:58] Speaker A: But then what I do sometimes is I’ll wake up in the morning and I’ll look at my phone and I’ll see that people have dmed me. But between that time and taking my shower and getting to my desk, I might forget that I have somebody to reply to because it maybe takes a little more depth. So I’ve started taking screenshots of conversations so that I look at my phone and remind myself who I need to go back and talk to so I don’t leave anybody on red, so to speak. So little life hacks. Little life hacks. Yeah, they work.

So how can people find you and nitro Pak. So if they’re looking for a website, if they’re looking to connect with you on social, things like that, how do we get in touch with you.

[00:34:38] Speaker B: I’m the most I don’t have Twitter and that’s something. That’s another thing that’s been on. I don’t have x, I’m sorry. That’s another.

[00:34:46] Speaker A: I still call it Twitter.

[00:34:47] Speaker B: Me too. And I don’t think that’ll change. That’s another thing that’s been on my bucket list, but I don’t know if it will happen. I don’t have a personal one. We do have a company account on Twitter where we’re fairly active, but me in particular, I’m the most active on LinkedIn, so that would be the place to find me.

[00:35:05] Speaker A: Excellent.

[00:35:05] Speaker B: And Nitropack’s website is it’s HTTPs column slash slash Nitropack IO IO.

[00:35:16] Speaker A: Very good. We will have all of those links, including your LinkedIn if that’s okay, on the show notes for this episode. So if you’re interested in a transcript of today episode or you want to get in touch with Sulena or Nitro Pak, go to wpcoffeetalk.com, find Silena’s episode and all of that information with a few more things that I ask outside of the interview will be on the show notes for this episode. Thank you so much, Selena, for joining me. Especially. I don’t think people know today’s Saturday, so taking some time from your weekend to speak with me, I really and truly appreciate it. I always love talking to you and getting to talk to you outside of a word camp where we get to spend a little more time has been a true treat for me. So thank you.

[00:35:56] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. It’s been wonderful.

[00:35:59] Speaker A: It’s my pleasure. We’ll see everybody else on the next episode of WPCoffeeTalk. We hope you enjoyed this episode of WPCoffeeTalk. Please share it with others who you know would enjoy hearing from the people who make the WordPress community the wonderful place that it is. If you are interested in joining us as a guest or a sponsor, please visit our site at wpcoffeetalk.com.