Best way to learn is to ask, and who better to ask than those who have experience. Get business advice from WordPress entrepreneurs, hear how they cope with hiring, company and customer acquisition and work life balance. Find out what they like to do in their spare time, what inspired them, and how they think the WordPress community will evolve. Ask direct questions about your work problems and get a personalized response from someone who has come across the same issues. How? Well come and join a fantastic project on ManageWP.org, that supports knowledge sharing and giving back to the WordPress community.

AMA ManageWP.org

What is AMA?

It is good to rub, and polish our brain against that of others.

This was once said by the French philosopher, Montaigne, who believed that it was criminal not to share your knowledge. AMA (Ask me anything) is an opportunity to rub your brain weekly against WordPress influencers from all over the world. Like Montaigne, who encouraged people to share, AMA aims to raise the bar on openness by inviting WordPress professionals to contribute 8 hours of their day so that readers can ask them literally anything.

AMA was started back in 2015, and the first person who dared to reveal all was Vladimir Prelovac founder of ManageWP, and also the founder of the project. The beauty of being involved in an open source community is the availability of information and communication, and this is something that Vladimir wanted to continue to promote. AMA offers also a great opportunity to get to know other members of the WordPress community.

Did you know that Brian Krogsgard “loves every aspect of telling stories”, and wants to introduce a job board to Post Status. Mario Peshev’s main “challenge with hiring was the higher monthly income that he had to guarantee in order to pay salaries”, and Troy Dean claims that “the number one thing he ever did to generate leads is to speak at conferences, meet ups or any other live event”.

How does it work?

An AMA open discussion takes place every Wednesday for 8 hours a day. The timing depends entirely on the AMAer, who in his or her timezone picks what hours they are available. So, you need to keep your eyes peeled not to miss the start. All of the AMAers usually pick hours that have some overlap between US and EU timezones, so it doesn’t matter where you are you will be able to join in. All you need is an active account on ManageWP.org.

Each week ManageWP.org features a new AMAer and they try to invite people with different backgrounds, so that all of us get an opportunity to talk to an expert from our field. Looking back through the past 3 seasons, there has been a range of designers, developers, WordPress business founders, operation managers, data analysts, marketing experts and many more.

AMA ManageWP.org

When does it start and how can I get involved?

Next season will be the fourth season, and it starts on March 8. The list of participants will be available publicly in February on ManageWP.org, and there you will also be able to see what dates the AMAers are on. It’s not too late if you are interested in taking part as an AMAer. All you need to do is send an email, and let the ManageWP org team know you would like to participate. If you are as excited as me about being able to ask lots of questions, then make sure you take a look at the AMA calendar when it’s out and mark the days that you don’t want to miss. A great tip is to prepare some questions to ask, and don’t hold back, there have been some funny and interesting questions in the past.

AMA ManageWP.org

What should I ask the AMAers?

Remember there is no such thing as a stupid question. All questions are valid, and if you don’t ask them maybe someone else will. Here are some examples of past questions to get you thinking.

  • What are some tough lessons (or lessons you’ve learned the hard way) in your rise to global domination? – to Tom Willmot
  • What do you look for in an acquisition and what’s the basic process like? – to Gabe Mays
  • Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck? – to Jake Goldman, Gabe Mays and Tom Willmot
  • In your opinion, what is the biggest danger to WordPress in the future? –  to Luca Sartoni

As you can see, there are no rules to the type of questions you can ask, so take the opportunity to ask what you always wanted.

See you next season!

As a final thought remember that each AMAers brings something unique to the table, so each week is different. Expect to be amazed, surprised, delighted and amused! The more people get involved the more fun it becomes, so spread the word and see you all March 8 for a big season starter.

About Nevena Tomovic

Nevena works in PR and digital marketing. She speaks Italian, German, English and Serbian. Apart from being a quintessential bookworm, she is a covert adrenaline junkie. She enjoys heli skiing, ice hockey, aerial gymnastics, traveling, reading and writing.