Sandy Edwards of Data Driven Labs – What Can I Do to Help Make it Better? – BoldLife 2.0 Episode 2

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the second episode of BoldGrid’s BoldLife podcast. I’m your host Mike Demo and I’m joined by my cohost, Jesse. How are you doing Jesse?

 

Great. Mike, how are you doing?

 

Good. Just, I’m actually in London right now cause I just got done with Joomla Day, Austria in Vienna, and getting ready for WordCamp London this weekend. So that should be exciting.

 

Nice.

 

Yeah. And also we are joined by Sandy Edwards who does a lot of kids camp and word camps. How’s it going, sandy?

 

So far, so good.

 

Awesome. So tell everyone a little bit about yourself, what you do, how you got into the wordpress space, and how you kinda got into this kid camp thing.

 

Absolutely. So basically I started with wordpress about seven years ago. I worked for a local agency that did digital marketing and one of the services they offered was wordpress development. So while I didn’t really handle that side of things when I first got there, I kind of morphed and grew into a project manager and eventually just learned development and, uh, went from there. So that’s Kinda how I got started. But, um, the biggest thing that I’m working with right now is, like you mentioned the kids camp program.

 

Yeah. So tell a little bit about that. So you actually are doing kids’ camps right now with wordpress, but your passion is just education in general, not necessarily wordpress education. So how did you get into kids’ camp? What is kids camp and what are your long term goals? Is it beyond just wordpress or what are you trying to accomplish? And now you know, you’ve done a lot already.

 

Awesome. Yeah, no. So basically the biggest thing with kids camps is an opportunity to get kids of all demographics into a safe environment where they can learn how to write and blog and really find their voice. And, and like you said, I am extremely passionate about education as a whole. And what you’ll find if you look through, um, just different initiatives that I’ve helped out with is that for me, education isn’t just about today or the camp, it’s about challenging kids to be a better person. So one thing when you’re in a kids camp, uh, whether it’s attached to a word camp or just something that is in the community as a whole, you’ll find that I’m constantly encouraging the kids to write more. And in the more they write and science backs this up, the better their test scores are. So the more you get your kids out there and writing and thinking and processing more information, the actual better their test scores are going to be long term, which actually gives them a better shot at higher education as well.

 

Awesome. So with that, tell us a little about the history of kids’ camp at wordpress, where you involved from the very beginning and like the first kid’s camp or did you kind of come on a little bit later and um, expand something that had already existed?

 

Yeah, so actually I came in a little bit later. I came in during year two, uh, and I was just helping out. Uh, Michelle butcher Jones. She’s the one who started the program and she started it in Miami and I came in in year two and just kind of assisted and helped out. And then I brought the program to Orlando. And so basically from there I was able to, with my time I had available, take that to other communities and work with other communities to find people in their local community to kind of pick up the initiative. Um, but the history of kids’ camp is, is really born out of necessity. One of the things that Miami always had was a bunch of kids that just came to the event, um, and there wasn’t really anything for them to do. And so it became one of those events that was like, okay, we’re going to do this.

 

So that the non attending parent of the camp was able to, uh, work with their child in a parent child activity on campus without having to go find something else to do while the other parent attended a word camp itself. So that’s kind of where it was born. And then now it’s just, it’s kind of become its own community. We actually have a some kids across the country that are on the speaking circuit and word camp. And I think that’s totally awesome to see 13 14 15 year olds speaking at their local WordCamp and even sometimes not their local WordCamp and traveling to speak. I think it really goes to show how inclusive the word camp community and word press community is as a whole.

 

That brings up an interesting topic because I’ve seen more and more people under 21 under 18 cause we both go to a lot of word camps speaking and that is great. But I’ve also started to notice a trend and after parties trying to have the afterparty locations be more inclusive, not necessarily be at a bar, maybe a restaurant that has a mix of options. So if you want to do that, have a drink, you can. But if you want to sit down and get out of the, you know, in a more quiet environment. Have you noticed that because there was a younger demographic, not necessarily kids camp adjust younger attendees that are and maybe high school and um, young adults that are coming to these things that word camps are shifting from kind of how they do their social activities?

 

I am and I think it’s awesome. I think one of the things that sometimes organizers forget about because we’ve done it one way for so long is that not all attendees can drink. Not all attendees will drink and having an event at a bar isn’t always the smartest, most responsible option. I know that I have attended word camps in the past where you had to be 21 to get through the afterparty door and I think that it’s really important for those questions to be asked to the venue ahead of time because there are some bar type restaurants that don’t have that requirement, but there are some that do. And so not just for the sake of if you have kids who attend or if you’re having a kids camp, but because we’re ushering in a new generation of word pressers, I think it’s extremely important to make sure that every event and every activity is accessible.

 

I would definitely agree it my favorite after parties have been events that have an activity or something with it, be it an unofficial one like after word camp Jacksonville on Sunday where a bunch of us went to top golf or loot conf where they had tacos and burgers and there was, you know, beer and stuff for people that wanted it. But everyone played a bunch of board games. I feel like that for me personally appeals more. But I also understand that you need to appeal to a wider demographic and I’m liking to see some of these camps try different things.

 

Well, I mean, I don’t know. I can’t remember. You were in Orlando last year, I believe. Mike. Um, yeah, we went to top golf. Um, yeah, so basically with ours we of course we had the kids camp so we’re hyper vigilant about it, but we actually found a local place called whirly ball, whirly Dome and um, they had a bumper car ball game type thing, um, that also had laser tag. And let me tell you those kids, I mean they, it was kids versus adults in every laser tag game and it was awesome and the adults loved it and the kids loved it. And just finding those types of things. There’s something in every town. So it’s just a matter of just really looking and, and being vigilant about it.

 

Yeah, we’ve been having that trouble and interesting challenge in Germany because we’re going to do a social event on the one night where it is not an official word camp event. And Jesse, we’ve been like looking into, try to find a very unique venue that also appeals to people that um, do want to drink but also just want to hang out a network. And it’s an interesting challenge but you are right Sandy that. Every city has something.

 

Well and even word camp us last year had a bunch of kids but there was no kids programming a set up but there were a ton of kids running around and you know, luckily the after party was at, at a venue that, I mean it was a science center so definitely set up for kids. But all of us adults, men, we had a ton of fun.

 

The uh, the science center, um, made me feel more like a kid than any other after party I’ve ever been to.

 

All I can say is going down the slides that late at night, my back felt it for two days later. I must be getting old.

 

Definitely in the planetarium. It was a little trippy. A lady you got into that evening as well.

 

Yup.

 

Uh, so Jesse, I’m curious. So when did you start getting into development and you know when you were younger? Cause when I was in middle school, I started, I built my first website when I was in second grade, pure html and back in 94 or whatever it was. And then I started coding like I did all my midterm paper. And not midterm, all my middle school papers and html and I printed out the html code and submitted that. Um, fun fact when I did, uh, uh, a report on the death penalty. I was non tactful at all and in fifth grade I had a mini plane. I do want my stuff.

 

Um, yeah, so you know, my story is very similar. I grew up um, with an insane amount of privilege when it comes to technology because my, my dad was an engineer at Hewlett Packard, um, growing up. And so, um, from as early as I can remember, I had a, an Amiga in the corner and um, buy my first website was built on my school districts, a Unix server. Um, and it was, I think it would have been around that same timeframe. I have 93, 94 and I can, I can still picture my first site to this day. It had a, had a great big picture of my third grade class picture and a picture of my mom and a picture of my dad and then like a link to a web crawler and then like a link to like a, I think it was like the NASA a photography website. Um, and it was, it was horrendous. They had blinks and scrolls and all kinds of things. Um, and I’m pretty sure that I had a, a set the permissions to seven, seven, seven because I couldn’t figure out how else to make it show up on the Internet. I’m looking at it in mosaic. So it, it really does, it touches a nerve for me anytime we talk about, um, early childhood computer science because if I hadn’t had that leg up when I was growing up, but you know, I wouldn’t be where I am now.

 

Definitely. And I remember I got Lego Mindstorms, the original one back when you had to do like coding coding when it was less user friendly and kind of all that stuff. So Sandy, what do you recommend the parents that may be on by a kids camp? But their kids are interested in tech. I know that there’s lots of stuff on the market now. Like there’s the Harry Potter wand coding thing and I know that you can learn Java script using Minecraft and you see all these products and different websites like hour of code and things. So what do you recommend to parents that are trying to get their kids involved in technology but maybe don’t know where to start?

 

Absolutely. So I feel like there’s a lot more options now than there was even two years ago, which is absolutely amazing. But, uh, for us in our home, uh, what we have used has actually been Code Academy for one and code.org as another. And really it depends on the age of your child. So if your child is an elementary schooler, code.org is definitely the way to go. If you have a middle schooler, codeacademy.com is the way to go. And if you have a high schooler, um, looking at options like treehouse or code school, uh, something that’s definitely more closer to the collegiate level is where I would go. Um, but also if you’re just talking about like the logic behind coding, which is a good place to start. There is a kit for an iPad called an Osmo. And I don’t know if you guys have heard of this before, but basically what this does is it projects, it’s a little projector that sits on top of the IPAD and it has a stand and it projects onto the table for as  young as preschoolers. And there’s different apps and different games that you can play and it teaches the logic behind object oriented coding. Uh, so your javascript and PHP and stuff like that, but it gets them thinking in that logical brain. Even as young as I want to say, the youngest they recommend is close to like 14, 15 months. So really getting them started early is the best way to do it, but it’s never too late to get started either. Um, and there’s a lot of options for adults out there, especially like coursera.com and stuff like that.

 

Yeah. And if you are playing with wordpress and you are trying to build your first wordpress site and you don’t know where to host it, uh, there’s a lot of good options. But of course you go to BoldGrid.com and get a free forever cloud wordpress site if you just kind of want to play around with different things before you pay for a hosting account. So you’re doing some stuff with green geeks this year to expand your reach with Kip camp kids camp. Can you talk about that a little bit?

 

Sure. So basically, um, how it’s working is they’re taking on the expense of my, my travel when I need to go train new people. So I’m not traveling necessarily to go do these kids programs in other cities. Um, but what I am doing is as I’m traveling to teach other communities how to start their own programs. So while I’ll be in, Raleigh in a couple of weekends at Word Camp Raleigh, I’m going to be teaching the local community, uh, all about kids programming. They’re going to have, I think they got like 10 or 12 students signed up at the moment. And so I’ll be able to, with a low turnout, um, really show how to do these events and then they can morph them to how it’s going to fit best for their community. Uh, because you know, long term we’re not, we’re not trying to just do a something for the kids to do while at word camp type of activities. The longterm goal here is to get wordpress even into the schools. So, you know, we want to make sure there’s lots of options and that there’s a way for each community to Morph it for their needs.

 

Excellent. and all the links that Sandy’s mentioning that were mentioning social profiles, uh, different, uh, groups and stuff will be linked in the show notes on bulletproof.com so you can go there for all of you are hyperlinking needs. So we always like to ask guests, Sandy, you know, like a funny or favorite word camp story. So it doesn’t have to involve me, although, uh, I sure plenty do for better or for worse. But what is a kind of an experience that really sticks out on the recently or maybe in the past and at word camp or other events that, uh, you’d like to share?

 

Oh man, there’s so many of them. I think for me the biggest thing that sticks out through all of my different word camp experiences is going to be, and it’s not really funny. It’s, it’s definitely more just community driven. Um, but it’s actually this last camp in Miami. Um, we ran into several situations this past weekend or this, yeah, it was last weekend, this past weekend. That literally were totally beyond our control. Um, Internet being down issues and uh, just people being sick, you know, speakers not showing up, things like that happen. Like that’s, that’s the nature of dealing with human beings and being at word camp. Um, I think what out to me the most about it is how the community just stepped up. Um, you know, it’s one of those things where when you’re in the trenches and you’re at an event and things go really wrong, having the entire community around you do literally dropping what they’re doing go, what can I do to help make it better? Um, and I think it really goes to show that this is a family and we’re not just going to these events and saying hi and saying bye we stay in contact with people. We’re constantly checking up on people. Um, this is a second family and I think it’s really important for people to realize that when they get involved with wordpress and the wordpress community and even other open source communities, that they’re being adopted into a family and we’re there for each other through thick and thin.

 

I would definitely agree with that. My wife Kayla has said that we have more friends in Orlando then we have at home and they’re all open source and wordpress friends and we go to trader Sam’s all the time and things like that. So I definitely will agree with that because my job is full time going to these community events and you develop relationships that you’d not necessarily planned on but really influence all aspects of your life.

 

Yeah. It’s even gotten to the point where there are certain people in the community that my son’s like, it’s crazy uncle so and so. And I’m like, they’re not really your uncle. And he’s like, I know, but they kind of are, you know. And one more story just because it just came to mind. Um, in Orlando this past year, I had sent my son on an errand to go to the green room to pick up some stuff for kids camp. And one of the community members literally stopped him in his tracks and was like, what do you think you’re doing? And I’m not even kidding. My son like almost stopped and like started to be like, oh my goodness. But then he realized who he was talking to and I’m not even kidding. They just started cracking up laughing. So like literally, when I say family, I mean like you get to know these people so well that your kids get to know them so well and you kind of communally take care of each other’s kids and it just becomes this, I don’t know how to put it into words. It is absolutely amazing to know that my kid can just run around my local kids camp because everybody knows him. And he knows to listen to everybody if that makes sense.

 

The old adage is that it takes a village but the wordpress and the open source community is a global village and it’s amazing to have that kind of comradery with people.

 

Absolutely. It’s the global village and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

 

Awesome. So Sandy, how can people follow you, a kids camp, your uh, your business if you want to plug that, um, online social accounts, all that good stuff.

 

Absolutely. So I am the, I am a cofounder and CEO of data driven labs we’re a digital analytics firm, I’m based out of Orlando, Florida. And so with that, uh, you can find me datadrivenlabs.io. Um, and on top of all of that I’m in Orlando, so I have Disney annual passes. So I have an Instagram account that is at Florida Sun Adventures. We cover a lot about Disney and a lot about, not Disney but all about Florida. And I’m personally, I’m at SandyEdwards.me Sandy Edwards. Dot. Me. And uh, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at sun sand design.

 

Excellent. And if you want to talk with Sandy outside of all of those channels, if that’s not enough choice, says she is a member of our BoldGrid Team Oragne Facebook Group and Jesse. How do people team orange.

 

That is at facebook.com/groups/BGTeamOrange.

 

And how do people follow us on social?

 

Check us out on Twitter @BoldGrid and on Facebook at facebook.com/boldgrid

 

And our blog is at [inaudible] dot com and there’s also the show notes where all the links and transcripts of this and all of our episodes will be listed. So I just want to thank you so much, Sandy, for your time and joining us today.

 

Of course, anytime.

 

Some, and we’ll see you again next Wednesday at 12 o’clock central. Thank you.