Yoast & Diversity (feat. Samah Nasr)

Speaker 1:

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. How are you?

Michelle Frechette:

I have my voice back.

Allie Nimmons:

[inaudible 00:00:26].

Michelle Frechette:

Last time we talked I was croaking my voice through as much as I could at WordCamp US because talking over the crowds is always challenging, shall we say?

Allie Nimmons:

Yes. Absolutely. Well, yes, you sound beautiful.

Michelle Frechette:

Thank you. I’m super excited right now because we have a special guest and we don’t get guests too often. We sometimes get people to fill in for one or the other of us, but we don’t often have guests where you and I are both on the same call. Neither one of us wanted to step back because we’re so excited to talk to this guest today. So without further ado, I would like to introduce and bring into the conversation Samah Nasr from Yoast. Hi, how are you?

Samah Nasr:

I’m good. How are you lovely ladies? How’s everyone? I wish everyone listening to us is having amazing day.

Allie Nimmons:

Yeah.

Michelle Frechette:

Absolutely. I got to see Samah last week. Allie, I know that you got to see people only through my screen as they walked behind me at WordCamp US. Samah is actually on vacation this week and took time out of her vacation schedule to talk with us today. So thank you so much for taking that time.

Samah Nasr:

Oh, welcome. I will never miss it. It’s a really great honor to be here today and I’m really happy that you invited me and I will never miss it, so I’m really happy to be here.

Michelle Frechette:

Side note, she’s actually in my time zone right now, which made it way easier than if she was at home.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah.

Allie Nimmons:

I didn’t know that.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, I’m still in the states visiting my brother after WordCamp US. But yeah, here the time is much better. Now if I was in the Netherlands it will be like 9:00 PM.

Michelle Frechette:

Exactly. Exactly. So Allie [inaudible 00:02:14]-

Allie Nimmons:

Samah, for people who do not know who you are, who have not interacted with you as we have done, tell us a little bit about what you do at Yoast. What your role is, your title, your responsibilities, your passions, all of that good stuff.

Samah Nasr:

Okay. My name is Samah Nasr. I work as project manager at Yoast, of course in the best team ever, the community team. I’m handling sponsoring requests, also planning for events like WordCamp US, WordCamp Torino. We have WordCamp [inaudible 00:02:47] coming nearby. Also at the same time, I’m responsible for the Yoast Care Fund and Yoast Diversity Fund. My passion is simply WordPress. I’m a really big fan of WordPress and also at the same time I contribute to the [inaudible 00:03:03] team. Yeah, that’s in short sentences, who am I.

Michelle Frechette:

I love it. I have a special place in my heart for your funds, I was a recipient of the Yoast Care funds and I got to nominate Allie Nimmons, who also is a recipient of the Yoast [inaudible 00:03:26] funds. I love it. I love it. I’ve nominated quite a few people through the years. It’s an honor to be able to point to other people’s work and the wonderful things that they’re doing and be able to say, “This person deserves some recognition.” So thank you for doing that.

Samah Nasr:

Oh, thank you. Yeah, Yoast Care Fund is amazing. As you know, the WordPress community is made of thousands of volunteer worldwide and everyone like write and go, they’re participating, or, excuse me, contributing into [inaudible 00:03:58] Team Testing Core. Many volunteers work in WordPress in their own free time or while self-employed. At Yoast we love the open source way and that’s why we started Yoast Care Fund. We really want to celebrate people contribution and we publish their stories and we are really happy about sharing people contribution and stories to encourage hopefully another contributor. Also, at the same time, people will receive $500 as a prize. They can spend it just the way they want it. Per year we have almost a $25,000 budget, almost 50 interview per year. So if someone is hearing us today and they know someone is contributing to WordPress in any team, please nominate them for Yoast Care Fund.

Michelle Frechette:

One of the caveats is, is that can’t be their full-time job, right? So they can’t work for automatic as an inward press, that kind of thing. So it has to be something that they’re doing aside. They can work within the community of course, but that can’t be what their full-time job is.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, the contribution should not be paid. That is one of the only conditions with the Yoast Care Fund that your contribution, you don’t get paid to contribute to WordPress, that you do it on your free time or it’s unpaid job.

Michelle Frechette:

Exactly. So how many people, I’m going to put you on the spot now, how many people have been recipients of both of these funds that you have?

Samah Nasr:

I think over the years we’re talking about more than 100 recipients for the Yoast Care Fund and Yoast Diversity fund. I hopefully we have in the next year much more. For the Yoast Diversity Fund, as you know, during the covid time we didn’t receive a lot of application because Yoast Diversity Fund is simply targeting speakers who want to speak at events and who are from under representative group they can simply apply for Yoast Diversity Fund and we can help them with the travel recommendation, visas, and also even if someone needs a babysitter like single moms, single dad, that also we can help with that. We just want to remove the financial burden. But in Yoast Diversity Fund, it was a little bit less because of COVID time. But we did something really amazing in 2021, we funded six projects around the world. They were targeting to make WordPress more diverse. Now because after now there’s a lot of events, a lot of WordCamps, people applying and we’re really, really happy and honored to help those amazing speakers. At the same time, I hope we get more application in the near future.

Michelle Frechette:

I love it. Absolutely.

Allie Nimmons:

Do you know, Samah, where the impetus for, or the beginning of these projects came from? Do you know if there was a specific event or if there was a specific person, either a recipient or somebody on the Yoast team who started these ideas? Where did this idea come from?

Samah Nasr:

The Yoast Care Fund, the idea came, I started at Yoast in 2018. At that time the Yoast Diversity Fund was running, and at that time I really honestly, I don’t know where’s the start of it. But at Yoast everyone love WordPress and we do a lot of contribution. I think that came with the need of the community to be more diverse. For the Yoast Care Fund, I know it’s from our previous CEO [inaudible 00:07:56], I think Care Fund was created by her and then we carry her message through the years. We work on the fund, we plan it to create the workflow, and we started creating, making questions, the interview and everything. But the idea was created within Yoast team as a whole company. I think if I’m not mistaken, the source or maybe the one who have the idea was [inaudible 00:08:27], if I’m not mistaken.

Allie Nimmons:

Sounds like something she would come up with.

Michelle Frechette:

Definitely, I was going to say the same thing.

Samah Nasr:

She’s an amazing human being. Also I love her and I have fully respect for her and I think, yeah, definitely that could be her. But I’m not really sure about Yoast Diversity Fund, but Yoast Care Fund, yes, she’s the one who came up with the idea.

Michelle Frechette:

I love that there’s almost bragging rights too. When I got the nomination and I was asked to participate, you get this little email with a certificate. I printed that off, I framed it and I hung it in the wall over my computer because I was like, “This is so cool.” So I wanted it to be somewhere where I could remind myself on a daily basis or whenever I look up that the work I do matters, and that other people have recognized that the work I do matters. Because it’s easy to forget that other people benefit sometimes from the work that we do in WordPress and in tech because just our heads down and we’re into it. But to have that recognition or to have that reminder that we matter, it’s kind of that fodder to keep us going. So to remind you, and especially in a remote work environment when there isn’t somebody walking in every day and going, “Hey, can I grab you a cup of coffee?” Or those interactions to have that reminder that the work that you do matters and that other people have seen it’s definitely [inaudible 00:10:02]-

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, I’m really happy to hear that. I start my day all of the time to check the inboxes for Diversity Care Fund at work. I say, “Please someone apply, please.” Because it’s really make us happy. At the end of the day, I think there’s millions and millions of stories in WordPress we love to hear and we love to share them. As you say, Michelle, you are an amazing contributor and you are an amazing human being. It was also our honor to publish your story in our website, you and Ali the same. I’m really big fan of both of you, so it was me [inaudible 00:10:40]-

Michelle Frechette:

Likewise-

Samah Nasr:

Writing an interview. I was like, “Oh my God. Oh my God, that was really awesome.”

Michelle Frechette:

When you get to see people in person after you’ve published their stories and meet them face-to-face at a WordCamp, I’m sure that there’s an excitement there. When I’ve written about somebody or I’ve tweeted them or connected with them and then I get to see them face-to-face, whether it’s an elbow bump or a hug or whatever we’re doing post COVID, it feels good. It’s a nice way to connect with people for sure.

Samah Nasr:

It’s really good. I saw a couple of them in WordCamp Europe and also in WordCamp US in 2023. It was really amazing feeling. For me people come say thank you. Like, no, thank you for being you. Thank you for all of your contribution to WordPress, you’re an awesome human being, and it was our pleasure and honor to share your story. It was inspiring and it’s really amazing. But for me, I always required a hug, I’m a huggy person. I need my hugs, I need my hugs.

Allie Nimmons:

I love these things because it’s so very in the open source ethos of things, given that this is a volunteer community and we are all creating and then turning around and benefiting from this software that we built together. A lot of people are not paid contributors and are doing this for any other number of reasons. So for a company that benefits from the work that is done on WordPress, to turn around and acknowledge those people, it feels very integral to that feeling of if you put something in, you will get something out. It feels very fair in a way. Which I would love for more companies that benefit from WordPress to think more about. I mean that’s kind of where something Five for the Future comes in. But I would love for more companies to think about how can we give back into the community of people who are giving us this software that we are using to build our company and make our livelihood and all that stuff? It just feels very full circle and just wonderful. I love it.

Michelle Frechette:

I think that it almost feels like once you’ve been nominated, you feel almost like a responsibility, but in a good way, to recognize the work of other people too. So after I was nominated, I was like, “Oh my gosh, who could I nominate now? Because I want other people to feel this way and I want other people’s work to be recognized.” So it’s super cool-

Allie Nimmons:

I did the same thing when I got mine. I was like, “I have to now turn it around and fill this form out and think of a couple other people.” I think I went and nominated two or three people. I was like, “I want to share this. I know there are other people who deserve this, and they should be able to have this recognition as well.”

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, that’s amazing.

Michelle Frechette:

It’s more fun when you don’t tell them, and then I get an email from you saying, “Oh, we’ve accepted this person.” I get to go tell them, “Oh, by the way, I nominated you and you’ve won this recognition,” is so super cool. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off.

Samah Nasr:

No, it’s really amazing I’m hearing about it. Hopefully I really hope people to get that we as a company, we are not getting benefit from it. We just want to celebrate the contribution. At the same time, I hope people who’s hearing us now, please Yoast Care Fund, nominate amazing human being who contribute to WordPress. Just share their stories. I hope that I will have 100 application and all of them will be online sharing their experience. That is really my dream to have for the next one years, it’s like 100 interview ready to publish. That will be amazing.

Michelle Frechette:

I like that goal. That’s a good goal.

Samah Nasr:

It’s very high, but I want it. I’m aiming really high.

Allie Nimmons:

Totally. Shoot for the stars.

Michelle Frechette:

I was going to say that, stole my line Allie!

Samah Nasr:

You should help me, so please nominate people.

Michelle Frechette:

I will. I hope our listeners do too, for sure.

Samah Nasr:

Definitely.

Michelle Frechette:

Absolutely. I’m trying to think of other questions I have. I don’t know, I’m having a fan girl moment here having you on the podcast, to be honest.

Samah Nasr:

Me, it’s my first time ever in five years having a talk, so I’m also a little bit nervous. Also I’m a big fan of you and Allie, so both of you are also nervous.

Allie Nimmons:

Love this lovefest.

Michelle Frechette:

All the mutual love, yeah.

Allie Nimmons:

Well I’d love to ask, last week we talked a little bit about the Pride Party WordCamp US, and we talked about that wasn’t the first one. There have been multiple pride parties at events over the past couple of years. Is that anything that you touch or work on or help with is organizing and putting up those particular parties or any of the other kind of pride focused things that Yoast likes to do recently?

Samah Nasr:

Honestly, we could not in … World Camp Europe 2023 of course, we hosted the Pride Party. But for World Camp US we could not do it because the number of the people who were attending were only coming four people from around the world, attending WordCamp US. But definitely would love to do it again. As you know, in Yoast, we are really a … Pride at Yoast, we’re really, really breathing diversity inclusive and also pride. Also at the same time, in WordCamp Asia, we hosted the Pride Party in 2023 at the beginning of the year because we believe in equality and inclusion. Of course, if you check our website, you will notice that Yoast has a company and the COC Netherlands, we are teaming up to write the bar on diversity and inclusion. So there’s a whole blog post about it. Please, the listeners, go check it out. We’re really, really happy to share and make WordPress also more diverse in this way because everyone is welcome to WordPress, everyone.

It’s inclusive. No one is going to be like … Where are you coming from? Who you are, whatever you believe, WordPress and also Yoast as company is very inclusive in this, I hope so, and for WordPress. But for Yoast company, definitely we are very inclusive.

Michelle Frechette:

One of the things that Allie and I talked about earlier, I think it was last year actually now, all of the episodes start to run together after a little while. Like, “When was that one?” But we talked to one of your developers whose name I am absolutely blanking on right now, maybe Allie can help fill in some of the blanks, about the inclusive language part of the Yoast plugin now that you all have. So that was super exciting to have. I bring it up right now just to talk about the fact that you guys are all in. Your company, is all in on WordPress. You’re all in on the diversity and all in on the inclusion.

When we saw that there are few … Okay, I’m not going to lie, there are a lot of things that bring me to tears in this world because I’m an easy crier, but the things that move me to tears in a positive way are things that have to do with inclusion. When I saw that, and then when I saw that y’all were putting it in the free plugin, I just like Allie and I called each other, we were like, “Oh my gosh, they [inaudible 00:18:28] we’re so excited.”

Allie Nimmons:

That was our conversation that we had with Hannah. So I’ll put that in the show notes if anyone’s interested in listening to that previous episode.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah. First of all, I love Hannah and Hannah. She’s one of the people who work in the inclusive language analysis. Yeah, definitely we want to share it with as much people as we can, and that’s why we move it to the Free Virgin. We’re really, really happy and hopefully in the future we move it also to another languages. So that is something I’m really proud of it as a Yoaster, the inclusive language is went for free everyone has access to it, and that was something really makes me proud.

Michelle Frechette:

Then you also had a contributor day from Three Yoasts that anybody was welcome to join as well. Somebody came to me and asked me [inaudible 00:19:24]. He was one of the newest teams in WordPress, one of the make teams. They’re like, “Do you know anybody that would run that session?” I was like, “I’ll do it!” They’re like, “But it’s four in the morning for you, Michelle.” I’m like, “You guys give so much back to so many people, I can get up early one day.” That was so much fun. My only problem was that ended at 10:00 AM and I still had my whole workday ahead of me.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, Yoast contributor days are really amazing. We hosted one, I think last April, and now we’re having a new one and the 4th of October. So I’m asking you now, are you also ready to wake up at the [inaudible 00:20:08]?

Michelle Frechette:

For you, anything. Absolutely. You’re just [inaudible 00:20:11] information.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, thank you.

Michelle Frechette:

I’ll be happy to.

Samah Nasr:

We are running the US contributor days, we purely contribute WordPress, and sometimes it’s fully in line, sometimes it’s hybrid. This one is hybrid and every time we have a fun theme. Last time once we did a spring cleaning, we did bring the lion inside of you and this year theme will be bring your spiritual animal. It’s also, we are having it the 4th of October because it’s animal day and also it’s taco day and the taco, our [inaudible 00:20:51] community team, and it’s also cinnamon roll days. So we’re going to have lunch, it’s tacos and you’re going to have dessert as cinnamon rolls.

Allie Nimmons:

That’s so fun.

Michelle Frechette:

If you’ll save me some Stroop waffles for another WordCamp, I will absolutely be there.

Samah Nasr:

Definitely. Definitely. All of the Stroop waffles, how much you want? For sure.

Michelle Frechette:

They’re so good. If you haven’t had them, Allie, you must try them sometimes.

Allie Nimmons:

Oh no, I love Stroop waffles. They are so exceptional. Speaking of-

Michelle Frechette:

Absolutely.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, go for it.

Allie Nimmons:

I was going to say, speaking of, so that’s coming up you said in October. Is there anything else that’s coming up? Is there anything else that you’re looking forward to that you’re working on that you can tell us about?

Samah Nasr:

We have a lot of planning for events. We have WordCamp Netherlands is coming, WordCamp Germany. Also we have content ED. Of course, this is not related to WordPress, we have also WordCamp Cafe Mendo in Nepal. We are sponsoring and attending one of our remote colleagues is working there, so he’s really an amazing person. He’s going to be from the organizing team. Also there’s a WordCamp Indonesia. We are going to be also there, one of our colleagues, she’s visiting her family and she’ll stay to attend the WordCamp. We have a lot upcoming events, but mainly we’re looking forward for WordCamp Netherlands because it’s going to be nearby, let’s say our [inaudible 00:22:26] headquarter. I think if I’m not mistaken, also internal events. We have a couple of internal events, Yoast Contributor Day is one of them. Also a couple of our colleagues attending other events, but we’re really busy. One of my favorite one I cannot wait for it also is WordPress Accessibility Day. Hannah and I will be attending, and of course we have WordPress Community Day in Rome. We’re really busy.

Allie Nimmons:

Sounds like it.

Samah Nasr:

And we’re really happy about it.

Allie Nimmons:

Wonderful. That’s so exciting.

Michelle Frechette:

I don’t know if you know this, Allie, but the WordCamp Netherlands happens in a zoo.

Samah Nasr:

Yes.

Allie Nimmons:

What? That is so cool.

Michelle Frechette:

I know, right? So cool.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, it’s amazing. It is the best zoo, the whole Netherlands called [inaudible 00:23:23] Zoo. I’m really happy it’s only 10 minutes biking from home-

Michelle Frechette:

Oh, nice.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, and World Camp Netherlands, it’s happening there for the second time. It’s amazing. The community get together. There’s enough space for everyone, and it was fun last year, and I think they made the tour for people you can also have a free access to the zoo. So when you first do the WordCamp, you can go walk around and have fun, so yeah.

Allie Nimmons:

That’s awesome.

Michelle Frechette:

Very cool. Yeah, pretty cool. Allie, that’s all my questions. I don’t know if you have any more questions. But Samah, if you have anything else you want to add, we’re hanging on every word, as they say. So if there’s other things you wanted talk about, we’re open to it.

Samah Nasr:

For me, I just want to say please people, lovely listeners, everywhere, Word [inaudible 00:24:15] contributor, please, I would love to know you. Please feel free to reach at Yoast Care Fund or Yoast Diversity fund, and also we will be announcing soon about Yoast contributor day. It’ll be amazing. Wherever you are, just come join us and contribute to the amazing our WordPress. I’m sorry if I was nervous. Sorry if I talked too fast, and sorry if I say.

Michelle Frechette:

No, it’s all good.

Allie Nimmons:

No, you’re perfect.

Samah Nasr:

It’s my first time.

Michelle Frechette:

I love it. We were Hannah’s first podcast as well. It’s all good. Hopefully we make it easy because it’s just a fun conversation with friends, but I can’t thank you enough for joining us today. You’ve heard it here, folks, if you’re interested, nominate somebody. Please go to, we’ll have all of the links in our show notes, but you can go to the Yoast.com. Just look in their site. They’re pretty, you could even just Google it. I understand, they know SEO pretty well there, so if you just Google, definitely Yoast Care Fund or Diversity Fund, you’re going to find it pretty darn fast. But yeah, we’ll also have the links in our show notes. Go ahead and nominate somebody, make it a surprise because it’s so much fun to be able to tell them fun stuff, but please nominate somebody for that. If you know somebody who’s a speaker at a WordCamp and they need a little assistance to get there, hit up that Yoast Diversity fund. That’s why it exists.

Allie Nimmons:

Absolutely.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, definitely.

Allie Nimmons:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

Samah Nasr:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Also, at the same time, I think my brother is here. Because every time I explain to my brother what I do, sometimes it’s really difficult, but I think he was hearing the whole time, so it’s good that he [inaudible 00:26:01]-

Michelle Frechette:

Oh, good. Wonderful.

Allie Nimmons:

I love it.

Michelle Frechette:

Yeah, that’s awesome. Thank you for joining us today.

Allie Nimmons:

Thank you.

Samah Nasr:

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

This episode was sponsored by the following companies, the Blog Smith. The Blog Smith is a holistic content marketing agency for B2B technology brands that creates data-driven content with a great reader experience. Visit theblogsmith.com to learn more. Thank you so much to our sponsors for this episode. If you’re interested in sponsoring an episode using our database, or just want to say hi, go to underrepresented in tech.com. See you next week.