In this episode, Allie and Michelle provide you with 8 resolutions you can commit to in 2023. Each one will help you move make this year much more focused on diversity, equity and inclusion!
Show Notes:
- Enough with the woke stuff: and other racist speech you can unlearn (Nyasha Green, MasterWP)
- A Diverse WordPress Twitter list
- Harmful Language You May Be Using
- The New Yoast Inclusivity Feature (ft. Hannah W.)
- Details about the Yoast Inclusivity Feature
Episode Transcript
Allie Nimmons:
Welcome to the Underrepresented In Tech podcast, hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented In Tech is a free database built with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech overall.
Michelle Frechette:
Hi, Allie.
Allie Nimmons:
Hi, Michelle in 2023.
Michelle Frechette:
2023, Happy New Year.
Allie Nimmons:
Happy New Year. [inaudible 00:00:25] This is our first time…
Michelle Frechette:
I hope you had good holidays.
Allie Nimmons:
I did. I had lots of super lazy unstressful holidays. I feel like the holidays can be so great, but they’re always twinged by that bit of stress of, “I have to shop or I have to go travel or host people,” or whatever. And we made the conscious decision to be super minimal with gifts and to not travel, to not have people over, to just be super lazy. And it was perfect.
Michelle Frechette:
Nice. I was stressed. I was sick. I had COVID leading up to the holidays. Luckily I tested negative the Thursday before Christmas, so I could still get together with some of my family, but my daughter was in a really bad situation in Buffalo as far as the snow and things go. They had to vacate their home.
Allie Nimmons:
It’s so dangerous.
Michelle Frechette:
It was. Luckily they had somebody about a block and a half away that they could stay with for four days and bring their dog and bring their cat. But even the stress of, “Is my car going to get hit by a snowplow?” Which turned out not to be a big deal because the snowplows couldn’t get through, right? So it took forever. But people died. It was tragic. And I would love to talk more about how racism and politics really disadvantages people. This isn’t what our topic is today, but just for people to think about this, and we could talk about this more next week, but snowplows typically under plow areas that are historically Black areas, are predominantly Black and Hispanic areas. So people who are in those areas are disadvantaged about being able to get out, get help, go to the store, do those things when there’s a storm like that. And I wasn’t aware of that, so I learned a lot through this.
I think we could talk about a lot of that in another episode, but if your street is nicely plowed, you probably are not in an area that’s affected in the same way. But politics really comes into play a lot when it comes to how services are distributed through a city. And I learned a lot that way. A lot of people died and it was tragic and… Unfortunate is not even the right word. It was tragic. It was underserved, it was tragic and there were a lot of tears. But anyway, other than that, my daughter did survive through. I am very grateful for the fact that all they lost was perishable food and nothing worse.
Allie Nimmons:
Good.
Michelle Frechette:
And that we were able to get together last Saturday on New Year’s Eve to celebrate Christmas together. And we did have a nice time together. So I’m not complaining, I’m just highlighting that it wasn’t as good a holidays for everybody as it was for some of us. But I did come to you with a topic for today, and that is New Year’s resolutions that we think businesses in tech should be making. So we’re going to give you a list of the resolutions that your company should have for 2023 and going forward. So this [inaudible 00:03:28] resolutions-
Allie Nimmons:
And not even companies, individuals as well, I think.
Michelle Frechette:
Right. Yes, people in tech.
Allie Nimmons:
If you’re a freelancer or people within tech, from the individual level up.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. And honestly, this is not even just people in tech, people in general should have most of these, but since we talk about underrepresented in tech-
Allie Nimmons:
But we know our audience.
Michelle Frechette:
We know our audience. That’s right. So if you are in tech especially, we would like you to consider adding the following resolutions to your 2023. And these should not come as a surprise to anybody because basically we’re looking at two years worth of episodes that we have pulled some of our best topics from. So the first one-
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. This is all review basically.
Michelle Frechette:
That’s right. If you were paying attention, you should pass the test. So I’ll pick the first one was let’s remove woke from our vocabulary as it talks about inclusion, diversity, equity, all of those things. No more woke. The only thing you should ever use woke is you were asleep this morning, you woke up, and now you’re starting your day.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, it’s a verb, not a noun.
Michelle Frechette:
That is the only correct [inaudible 00:04:39] of woke.
Allie Nimmons:
Or it’s a verb, not a…
Michelle Frechette:
Adjective.
Allie Nimmons:
Adjective, thank you.
Michelle Frechette:
Yes, exactly. So remove woke, stop saying woke. Our friend Nyasha over at MasterWP has a whole article about not using woke. And I think that we can tag that in the show notes if you want to go back and re-read that. But let’s take woke out of the vocabulary.
Allie Nimmons:
Totally.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. I love hearing Allie tip tip tap on her keyboard during because it means that she’s taking the notes that I will not remember to do later. So thank you Allie, for being our scribe.
Allie Nimmons:
You’re welcome.
Michelle Frechette:
What’s first up on your list?
Allie Nimmons:
Okay, so the first one up on my list is a very actionable thing to do. So Michelle started with something not to do, and I’m going to go into something to do, right? Which is to update your about page, make sure that your mission is up there. Make sure that any DEI statements that you have or accessibility statements or pledges that you have are up there and make sure that you’re actually showing the people who are on your team because one of the biggest red flags for people who come to your website to learn about your services, learn about your business, or even maybe even more importantly, who are looking at your site thinking, “Oh, I want to apply to work here,” they’re going to go to your about page. That’s where they’re going to learn about who you are.
That’s like your living room, right? And so if your living room has a couch and a TV in it and that’s it, they’re going to be like, “Well, this is weird. What are you hiding? What are you not saying?” And that about page is such a powerful way to display the diversity that’s already on your team or display the diversity that you are committed to creating on your team. So I would say, go look at your about page and if it’s dusty and old and sparse and doesn’t show you off in a very good light, spend some time to update it.
Michelle Frechette:
Agreed. I think that’s a great one. That’s absolutely actionable. You can finish that by end of day. I mean, you could seriously-
Allie Nimmons:
You could do that while you’re listening to the podcast.
Michelle Frechette:
That’s right.
Allie Nimmons:
Multitask.
Michelle Frechette:
And then send it to us and we will say, “Congratulations. Yay, we’re proud of you.”
Allie Nimmons:
Yay. Oh my gosh, yes. When I post this on Twitter, tag us in your about pages, and let us see the work that you’ve done.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, we’d love to see that. Mine, I actually went with a, “I will not,” and, “No more,” on my list. So I have all the negatives. It’s like you have the positives. But when somebody says, “You don’t have a lot of diversity on your team.” Don’t say, “Well, anyone can apply. I don’t understand why minority groups aren’t applying because anybody’s welcome to apply.” That is not the same. Having an application out there that anyone can apply to, you didn’t see it, but I just made air quotes, anyone can apply to, does not mean that you are doing any diversity and inclusive hiring and recruiting. So don’t-
Allie Nimmons:
That goes for events too.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. So anyone can apply to speak, anyone can apply to work here, anybody could apply to organize, is not the same as seeking diversity and recruiting for diversity and inclusion. So make sure that you are doing the work, not just giving us lip service about it.
Allie Nimmons:
Love that.
Michelle Frechette:
Yep. Allie gave me the thumbs up. You can’t see that either, but that’s okay.
Allie Nimmons:
Cool. So my next one is also a positive thing, an actionable thing to do as you’re mindlessly scrolling through your social media, whether that is Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn or one of the new cool kids on the block like Mastodon, be aware of the ratio of the types of people that you’re following, right? If everyone you’re following and interacting with are people that look like you or have the same job as you or do the same things as you, you’re creating a bubble for yourself. And so I know that sometimes I will think I’m following someone because I see a lot of their posts in my feed because maybe the people that I follow like or retweet from them, but that’s not the same as actually following that person. So be mindful of who you’re actually following and whose content you’re ingesting and then regurgitating because that’s how social media works.
And look for more diverse people to follow. And diversity doesn’t just mean, “Oh, well I’m white, so I’m going to follow this black person.” It means like, “Well, I’m a developer, so maybe I’ll follow this person who’s a designer.” Or, “I live in the US and so I’m going to follow this person who lives in Thailand,” or whatever. Try to find people who are doing different things and looking at the world differently from you and follow those people if you agree with the things that they have to say, because then you’re just going to get more of that and good stuff.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. My next one-
Allie Nimmons:
Oh I do have a diverse people in WordPress Twitter list that I can also put in the show notes so people can get a head start on that.
Michelle Frechette:
I think that’d be great.
Allie Nimmons:
Tippy tap, tippy tap.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. Yeah, so we could follow those lists. That’d be great. I don’t do lists. I need to start doing some lists. I don’t know why I don’t do lists at all.
Allie Nimmons:
I have that one that I have for reasons like this. I update it maybe, I don’t know, monthly or every two months or so. Occasionally I get added to a list and then I remember that the list feature works, and then I immediately forget because… I don’t know.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. First time I got added to a list, I was like, “What is this?”
Allie Nimmons:
“That’s weird.”
Michelle Frechette:
“And why?” Yeah. Anyway, we also had an episode, I don’t remember, I’m always like, “Oh, it was like last month,” but it was probably four months ago now where we talked about racist, ableist, and sexist language, mostly racist language that people aren’t even aware that they’re using. And I’m conscious of it now. So it’s no secret that I am a TikTok addict because I live alone and that’s my social outlet. But I follow a bunch of realtors and when the realtors are going through houses and apartments, they will often talk about either the master bedroom or the primary bedroom. And so those people who say primary bedroom or largest bedroom, I have great respect for because they are consciously removing racist language from their vocabulary. And so things like that, white labeling, white listing, things like that that you might not be aware of are definitely things that can creep into language and have an effect on people who are aware.
So if I’m aware that you’re using racist language, whether you are or not, immediately I am put off by whatever follows that language. And so are a lot of other people. So make sure that you are eliminating those things. If we could put the link to that episode of the show notes too, that’d be awesome, Allie. We want to make it easy for you. So we will put things in, visit our show notes, just go to underrepresentedintech.com, find this episode, and we will have the links for all of those different things in there.
Allie Nimmons:
Totally.
Michelle Frechette:
So removing that language makes you more aware of the other people that are following you and more inclusive and more inclusive language is absolutely something that will help you and make other people more comfortable in your presence.
Allie Nimmons:
Totally. Yeah, I love that advice because there’s so many ways to… I want to say woke-ify, but we’re not using that. So whatever the alternative is for that, your language, I remember watching a YouTube video where the person started the video instead of saying, “Hey guys or ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls,” they said, “Guys and gals and non-binary pals.” And I was like, “That’s really cute.” And I looked in the comments and there were so many people who were like, “I’m nonbinary and I feel like I want to cry because I feel so appreciated-
Michelle Frechette:
Included.
Allie Nimmons:
… and seen and included.” And it’s like you can only do more good when you are being more inclusive because someone who does identify as a male or a female or a guy or girl or man or woman or whatever is still included in that. You said, “Guys, gals,” but you also said, “Non-binary pals.” It’s kind of a tongue twister.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, for sure.
Allie Nimmons:
So it’s just a way to be more inclusive. And I think the primary bedroom thing, you noticed that and I’m sure if you were looking for a house and you noticed that a real estate agent said that that might be a little tick in the pro column for maybe working with that person or looking at that house as like, “Okay, this is a person that understands inclusivity and is mindful of what it is that they’re doing and mindful of their job and their work.” That means things to people and it’s worth doing.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. Yeah. People refer to the master bedroom but they’ll also refer to the master bath. When I say to people like, “Oh, it’s in my en suite bathroom.”
Allie Nimmons:
Whoa.
Michelle Frechette:
Right? And it makes my condo sound so posh.
Allie Nimmons:
So much fancier.
Michelle Frechette:
The en suite bathroom, yes.
Allie Nimmons:
En suite, oh my gosh. That’s so fun.
Michelle Frechette:
What’s your next one?
Allie Nimmons:
So my next two actually are stops or negative like, “Stop doing this.” So the next one is to stop using diversity, equity, and inclusion, those words, as interchangeable for each other. So we use the acronym DEI a lot for diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is fine because they’re very related ideas and they’re related conversations, but they’re not at all the same thing, right? So diversity is lots of different kinds of things, right? So you can’t see, but I have art on the back of my wall which is lots of different colored dots. And when I think of diversity, that’s what I think of is a bunch of stuff all together but they all look different. Equity is fairness, making sure that if somebody is at a disadvantage, they’re given what they need to have the same advantage as the person next to them. So they’re not given the same thing, but they are given different things so that they can have the same experience.
Inclusion is making sure that you are looking for the people on the outside and bringing them into the inside, which is tough because it forces you to acknowledge that there are people on the outside. I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck is when they like to believe that, “Well, things are so inclusive as it is, and everyone’s a big happy family as it is.” That’s not true. There are always going to be people on the fringes who could stand to be pulled deeper into the community, the team, whatever that might be.
Michelle Frechette:
Right. And if I could add to that, diversity hiring just means that you’ve increased the numbers. Inclusive hiring means there’s no tokenization because you’re actually including people. And when you talk about those three things, I think about when I was in business school, the three-legged stool, everybody talks about the three-legged stool. So what makes up the legs of the three-legged stool with belonging being the seat on top of it too. So when you have the DEIB, you’ve got the whole shebang.
Allie Nimmons:
And we haven’t even talked about accessibility. That’s a related thing. But, to me, that goes into technical stuff and there’s so much other stuff in there, we won’t talk about it.
Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, for sure.
Allie Nimmons:
For now, the focus, your resolution should be, “When I think about DEI, I’m going to think of those as three very separate efforts. Three very separate things.”
Michelle Frechette:
Yes, absolutely. My next one is that saying, “Well, I have a black or I have a disabled or I have a trans friend,” doesn’t mean you are not racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, et cetera. “I have a trans friend,” doesn’t mean you’re not transphobic. “Oh, my daughter’s black.” Yeah, my daughter is black. Does that mean that I can’t be racist? No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t mean that at all.
Allie Nimmons:
It doesn’t give you a free pass to say whatever you want.
Michelle Frechette:
Right. I mean, I’ve still never been invited to the picnic and to the cookout, right?
Allie Nimmons:
The fact that you said picnic is so funny.
Michelle Frechette:
I’m so white, I can’t help it. But I was like, “Ah.” Anyway.
Allie Nimmons:
No, that was a perfect example.
Michelle Frechette:
My daughter also always tells me, “Mom, salt is not a spice.”
Allie Nimmons:
Not a seasoning. I love that. Maybe you were invited to the cookout, but you went to the picnic instead.= by accident.
Michelle Frechette:
I’ve never actually had an invitation, but I’m just saying, yeah, I said the wrong thing.
Allie Nimmons:
That was really funny.
Michelle Frechette:
Your reaction was great. But it stands true just because I dated a black guy once or, “Oh, I have a friend in a wheelchair,” it doesn’t mean that you’re not ableist, it doesn’t mean that you’re not transphobic, it doesn’t mean you’re not racist. So stop equating knowing people from underrepresented groups to mean that you are not in any way, shape, or form displaying bad language or displaying bad actions.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. I mean, being friends with you for as long as we’ve been friends has made me realize not necessarily how ableist I am, but how much I unintentionally benefit from… What am I trying to say? How much I benefit from not being in a wheelchair, the privilege that I have interacting with you-
Michelle Frechette:
More advantages.
Allie Nimmons:
And it’s not something I ever really thought about before being friends with you and spending time with you. So I’m never going to go to someone and say, “Well, I’m not ableist because one of my really close friends uses a scooter.” But it helps me to grow as a person and to understand those privileges and to advocate for you and people like you and so on. So I think that’s, because I’m so perfect, I think that’s a better way of looking at it. “Yes, I have a black friend or I have a trans friend and learning about their experience has made me maybe less transphobic,” but we all still have our biases and we all still have our crap that we deal with, that we have to unlearn and all of that kind of stuff. So yeah, I like that one a lot.
Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. What’s your next one?
Allie Nimmons:
So my next one, it kind of ties in a little bit actually to yours, is stop making excuses for other people when other people do things that maybe are sexist or racist or transphobic or if they say something that’s wrong, even if it’s an accident, if it’s misinformed because there’s a huge gray area of people in tech that I’ve encountered who say really messed up stuff sometimes. And it’s not because they have malicious intent, it’s not because they’re going out of their way to try to hurt people, they don’t know or they’re ignorant or whatever.
And you have people coming out and defending them and saying, “Well, they didn’t mean it. And so they don’t deserve to be corrected or they don’t deserve to be called out or called in for that.” But that’s not how we learn. Growth happens after discomfort. I always think of a caterpillar coming out of a butterfly. If the caterpillar was super comfortable in that cocoon, it would never come out. It comes out because it’s too tight and it’s too uncomfortable and it has to break free. So let your friends, let your coworkers, be uncomfortable sometimes because that’s how they’re going to learn. And you can support people as they learn, but you also have to sometimes give some tough love of, “That was wrong, that was incorrect. Here’s why,” if you want to take the time to explain that to them, but let this be the year that we don’t try to just come to people’s defense and say, “Well, they’re a really good person and they didn’t mean it.” That’s irrelevant to the fact that they might have hurt someone. So it’s not making excuses for people just because they’re your friends.
Michelle Frechette:
Which actually leads into my next one as well, which is if somebody gives you feedback about something you’ve said or done or an attitude, accept it and do better. So, for example, if I tell you that something you’ve just said or done is ableist as somebody who is disabled, you should probably believe me. You know what I mean? And then you should, instead of making excuses for yourself or saying, “I didn’t mean it or it was just a joke,” or whatever.
Allie Nimmons:
It was just a joke is…
Michelle Frechette:
Horrible.
Allie Nimmons:
Really gets on my nerves, really gets on my nerves because it’s never just a joke. All jokes have a root of truth to them, which is why they’re funny. So that one gets on my nerves. Sorry to interrupt you, but that’s a…
Michelle Frechette:
No, that’s okay. And especially fatphobic comments like that. So one of the last vestiges of acceptable things to make fun of is people who carry extra weight like I do because, “Oh, well, she could control it.” Well, yes and no. If I could just drop the weight and be skinny, don’t you think I would, right? It’s not as easy as people say, “Oh, I woke up today and just decided to stop eating.” There’s so much to it. And so it’s not where you can just be like, if I say to you, “That was really insensitive.” “Oh, it’s just a joke. I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Or, “Don’t be offended, but… ” “Oh, I didn’t mean any offense.” Yeah, you did, like, “No offense, but… ” Means you’re about to say something offensive.
Allie Nimmons:
You’re about to say something offensive.
Michelle Frechette:
But [inaudible 00:22:34], there’s no excuse for it.
Allie Nimmons:
I’m offended already. I don’t understand what’s funny. If somebody were to make a fat joke, it’s like, “Okay, explain to me why that’s actually funny.” To me, jokes at other people’s expense whether it’s a joke about being fat or the whole women are like this and men are like that, all of those jokes, I don’t get why they’re funny. I don’t see-
Michelle Frechette:
Because they’re not.
Allie Nimmons:
To me it’s the lowest form of humor is just taking pot shots because I think people laugh when they’re uncomfortable a lot. And so if somebody were to make a fat joke in front of me, I might laugh out of discomfort of like, “Well, that’s bizarre.” And I’ve done that before to people of, “Explain to me why you think that’s funny,” because really it’s just racist. And if you think it’s funny because you think racism is funny, then we can’t be friends.
Michelle Frechette:
That’s an issue. Yeah, absolutely. There’s a woman I follow on TikTok, I’m probably not going to say her name properly, but it’s Soogia, S-O-O-G-I-A. And she is an Asian creator who talks about food a lot and calls out people who misbehave about food. So, for example, somebody bought a durian, which is a fruit.
Allie Nimmons:
Durian, mm-hmm.
Michelle Frechette:
Which is a fruit out of Asia. Yeah, durian.
Allie Nimmons:
I think it’s durian.
Michelle Frechette:
Durian, okay. And lots of videos of people trying it and making faces and pretending they’re going to throw up and how awful it is. And all that does really is show that you aren’t accepting of the fact that other people enjoy this food. I don’t particularly care for sushi. That’s not something that I like, I don’t like the seaweed part of it to be honest. But I’m not making videos talking about how it’s disgusting because it’s not disgusting. It’s just not my personal taste. And there’s food I make that other people don’t care for. And that’s okay. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t have to go out of your way to make a video talking about how awful it is.
Allie Nimmons:
To make other people feel bad about it, yeah.
Michelle Frechette:
Right, exactly. I saw a compilation of funny animal videos the other day, and one of them was somebody says, as they’re opening the refrigerator, “Do you want Chinese food?” And they open the refrigerator and the cat jumps out and they thought that was hysterical. And immediately I scrolled to the next thing because I’m like, “If that’s your idea of humor, grow up, and learn to behave properly in the world.” And if somebody says to you, “That was really racist.” You don’t double down and go, “It was just funny. It just was meant as a joke,” because it’s not funny to a huge percentage of the world. And I’m not just talking about Asian people. It’s not funny to me and I’m not Asian. So think about what you’re about to say and when somebody does give you that feedback, accept it and do better.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, those are all of mine. I mean, I feel like we could just read through all of our old episodes and be like, “Do this, do that.”
Michelle Frechette:
Those are all the ones I wrote down too. Yeah.
Allie Nimmons:
But those, I think, were the strongest ones. And looking back at the previous year and looking ahead, those were the ones that really came to mind as, “These are the things I would love to see changed moving forward.”
Michelle Frechette:
So if you’re making strides in your personal life, if you’re making strides as a business, and you have things that you’d like us to talk about or you’d like to discuss with us privately or on Twitter or wherever, we are really open to having those conversations. We love ideas, we love to hear of ways that people are doing better. So if you see a company that’s doing a great job, especially in the tech community. I’m forgetting words today. We would love to hear about it. And we come a lot of the time with instruction and ways to talk about doing better, we would actually love this year to showcase some ways that companies and individuals are doing better so that we can say, “It isn’t all bad out there<” right?
And one more plug for our database. We haven’t talked about the database in a little while. If you are an underrepresented group, and there’s a whole bunch of ways that you could be in an underrepresented group, go to underrepresentedintech.com, find our database, enter the database. If you’re looking to increase the inclusion and diversity in your projects, whether it’s a podcast, a blog, an event, or within the hiring within your company, you can search the database there as well to find underrepresented people who can really contribute in amazing and positive rich ways to your projects and to your work.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, absolutely. I’m super excited. So we’ve now had this database for a couple years and it’s doing really well. I’m trying to look right now to see how many people are in the database and if we can set a goal for ourselves, a resolution for ourselves, to raise that number by the end of the year, obviously with wonderful and qualified and appropriate people, not just adding people for the sake of it. But I am opening [inaudible 00:27:46]-
Michelle Frechette:
And if you’re already in there or you are not underrepresented but you know underrepresented people that could really contribute well and might be interested, share the opportunity with them. Don’t sign anybody up, let them sign themselves up, but send them a link and suggest that they might be somebody that could benefit from sharing within other organizations.
Allie Nimmons:
So as of right now, we have 170 people in the database.
Michelle Frechette:
Amazing.
Allie Nimmons:
It’s actually more than I thought it was. I would love to grow that number to, I think, 250.
Michelle Frechette:
300.
Allie Nimmons:
300, even better. I was-
Michelle Frechette:
300 by the end of the year.
Allie Nimmons:
300 by the end of the year. I totally think we could do that. That’s doubling the amount of people. I think that’s definitely possible, especially, and I should make this announcement as well, the amazing, amazing people at Yoast had, last year, sponsored a good chunk of my time to be able to work on the podcast, to work on the database, and I had a fantastic talk with Mr. Taco at the end of last year and they’ve agreed to sponsor me for an entire other year.
And so we have all kinds of amazing things coming that I’m going to be able to actually really dedicate time to work on, getting more people into this database, getting people to know about the database. We’ve got our newsletter, which has been doing great. So yeah, we’re working really hard. We’re going to keep working hard this year for everyone on this brand and all of our goals and whatnot. But I did want to give a quick shout out and thank you to the folks at Yoast for investing in us because investing in time is really impactful and validating. So thanks.
Michelle Frechette:
Did you know that they just put that inclusive language part in the free version of Yoast? So that is [inaudible 00:29:39]-
Allie Nimmons:
I’m linking that in the show notes.
Michelle Frechette:
Yep. No longer a part of the premium plugin. You can get the inclusive language turned on within the free version of Yoast now, just update to the most recent version and start making sure that you are being more inclusive in your language.
Allie Nimmons:
I’ll link in the show notes too to the episode where we talked about that tool if you want to learn more. And link to the-
Michelle Frechette:
Perfect, with Hannah over at Yoast.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, because it was originally in the premium version, which we all agreed was like, “It’s cool that it exists, but it should be accessible to everyone,” and now it is.
Michelle Frechette:
Everybody. It is.
Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, that’s really exciting.
Michelle Frechette:
I love that decision. Absolutely. Well, to everybody out there, if you’ve hung in with us this far, we appreciate you. We hope you have a wonderful 2023, and that this year brings you health, happiness, and prosperity, as well as inclusion, diversity, equity, and belonging.
Allie Nimmons:
Quite so. Alrighty. We’ll see you next week.
Michelle Frechette:
Bye.
Allie Nimmons:
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