From an Lively Volunteer to a Diversity Advocate

A Director of Community Engagement at StellarWP, a Podcaster in WP Coffee Talk and Audacity Marketing, a Director of Community Relations at Post Status, and a frequent organizer and speaker at WordPress events. To some, that could be the right definition of multi-hyphenates – folks who’ve multiple skills or work a couple of job – but to us, it’s our fellow WordPress enthusiast Michelle Frechette.

It’s useful to be a multi-hyphenate person, as you’ll have additional income streams and better hiring potential because of a more comprehensive skillset. But when not managed well, doing different jobs at the identical time might be stressful.

We wanted to debate this topic with someone who walks the talk, Michelle. Read on to seek out out her insights about bringing impact to your community, and the way she empowers the WordPress community by enabling access for wider audiences while keeping the work-life balance.

Michelle has been energetic in her local people’s activities for a long time, and it has helped her solidify her profession as a community skilled.

“You either construct on things that you simply are required to do, otherwise you construct on things that you simply enjoy,” she says.

She has worked along with her local chamber of commerce, organized community meetups, and was elected as an area school board member. Over time, she has experienced being a pacesetter, a team player, and an informal observer who just watches what’s occurring and has an opinion.

“You’ll learn learn how to either lead or follow. So it’s essential that we now have leaders, but everybody in a gaggle can’t be a pacesetter either,” Michelle says.

This extensive experience has helped her grow to grasp the community ecosystem comprehensively. “When you start working at community and you discover that you simply find it irresistible, you then search for more ways to work locally,” she adds.

And that’s what Michelle does: she keeps finding more ways to make an impact locally she’s a part of. Along with Allie Nimmons, she founded Underrepresented in Tech, a free database that helps underrepresented people – like women of color or individuals with disabilities – find recent opportunities inside the technology ecosystem, specifically WordPress. They’ll use the database to search for jobs, and everybody can use it to seek out talent.

Additionally they have a podcast on the Underrepresented in Tech website, where they speak about how people may also help solve diversity issues every week.

“We’re attempting to type of reduce ableism, racism, and misogyny, all of those things that suppress groups of individuals like us, like Allie and me. We would like to make sure we’re using our voices for good,” Michelle says.

For Michelle, this database continues to be a highlight in her WordPress journey to this point.

And she or he’s not stopping there. On May 2023, Michelle launched WP Speakers, a database of speakers with WordPress-related expertise. This addresses a pain point many WordPress event organizers have felt – finding a speaker.

For Michelle, one fantastic thing about the WordPress community is that everybody comes together around almost anything. When someone knows more about something, they’ll eventually teach any person else about that, helping others understand the topics higher. The cycle will then proceed, as people pass on the knowledge to others.

The lifting-each-other-up spirit also applies to event organization. “When organizing a meetup, you wish to construct the local talent,” she says.

Michelle realized sometimes a gaggle doesn’t have expertise in a certain area they wish to learn, so connecting to people outside of a selected local group could be nice. That’s why she created databases like WP Speakers and Underrepresented in Tech – to herald speakers that may also help everyone’s group grow.

“I feel we perpetuate the flexibility to share and grow not only once we look inside our own local people, but once we also usher in outside speakers to infuse ideas and topics that we may not have any local expertise,” she says. “You never know while you could be helping any person into their next level of experience on something.”

Michelle also loves that within the WordPress community, she might be friends with individuals who work for products just like her day job. “People can work for competing products, but that doesn’t make us enemies – everyone desires to see one another succeed.”

Now what’s the most effective option to start contributing your skills to the WordPress community?

“It’s hard to choose a selected point since it’s like a river with many tributaries. But I feel starting locally is at all times an excellent option to begin,” Michelle suggests.

If no local WordPress community is nearby, then joining Slack or Facebook groups is a option to go.

Michelle also encourages you to go to WordCamps when you will have the prospect. You’ll learn so much while you’re physically in an area with all of the those who are also using WordPress, especially when you’re a part of underrepresented communities.

“I’d never force any person to attend events to be a tokenized representative, because that’s not what representation means. It’s to be inclusive, and include people to have the ability to encourage confidence in other people to do things,” she emphasizes.

For Michelle, being thought to be “an inspiration” feels performative in some ways. However it’s different when someone tells her, “I used to be inspired to hitch this community since you showed me that it might be done.” That shows how people actually do something after seeing what she did, which she finds very rewarding.

“There are more young black women in WordPress because Allie Nimmons exists in WordPress. There are more women in headscarves in WordPress because you’re wearing a head scarf and representing your community and your faith. And I feel that those are very, very essential things.”

Keeping the Balance

Michelle’s long list of current activities, we will’t help but wonder how she keeps the balance between work and living her life to the fullest. Especially within the era of distant working, where the road between work and life might get blurred.

“Yeah, it’s inconceivable to completely disconnect sometimes, right? Especially if something is going on that’s of greater importance,” says Michelle, confirming the struggle to separate work and life.

“But for me, I actually have a cutoff time. I’m often done with work at 5 pm. In fact, there are exceptions. As an illustration, I organize the local meetup for WordPress, so the primary Monday of each month, my night goes until 8:30 pm. My weekends are frequently not work-related, unless I’m doing a podcast on a Saturday morning – but I make certain the whole lot is scheduled,” she explains.

One among her favorite things to do on weekends is driving to a wildlife resort to shoot nature photography. For her, having a creative pursuit is one among the ways to balance work and life.

“Doing photography makes me completely happy. Often, twice a 12 months, I’ll give back to my community by doing a day of photography. The last time was for an animal shelter. My friend dressed up as Santa Claus, and we raised money for the organization by having people photographed with Santa Claus and animals. That was really fun.”

Michelle’s passion for photography also makes way for her WordPress contribution. She’s been contributing to WordPress’ Photo team, and anyone can use her nature photo works through the WordPress Photo Directory.

When you imagine Michelle having an intricate and tedious time management trick to prepare her jam-packed schedule, you then’ll be surprised by her easy toolkit. Her secret sauce is just the combo of her trusty calendar, shared notes, and the habit of texting herself – plus a kick of caffeine.

“First, coffee, before I even activate the pc,” Michelle says. “Then it’s so much about my calendar. So long as I actually have a to-do list on the calendar and stick with it to this point, I can ensure I’m getting accomplishments done.”

The shared notes fit well when she’s working with other people, resembling when co-authoring a blog post or coaching a client. It lets Michelle and her clients or collaborators have a look at the identical notes, streamlining the working process. This echoes the interconnected nature of the WordPress ecosystem, where seamless experiences are key.

“It’s nice to have something that’s just very quick to examine, and in your phone,” she argues. Michelle also synced her notes on all her devices, so she will be able to access them anywhere.

She uses notes to gather her ideas, too. “Each time I provide you with a subject to submit for an event or WordCamps, I write it out, fully flush it there. So if I actually have to, I can pull out the text and use it at any time,” she elaborates.

As for self-texting, Michelle uses this method to save lots of links to examine out for later. “This fashion, I can remind myself to have a look at the web sites. I also text myself links to funny stuff,” Michelle laughs.

Michelle’s resourceful methods turn into proof that modern problems don’t at all times require super-complex solutions – it’s the simplicity that allows the versatile application across the dynamic WordPress landscape, indeed.