Community Interview – Weglot

Thomas Fanchin – Community Interview – Weglot

Yoast: [00:00:00] Do you know, the Yoast SEO, plugin, [00:01:00] they’re red, orange, and green feedback bullets that help you optimize your posts for the web. It runs on millions of websites. We tried to make SEO understandable and accessible to everyone.

Nexcess: Oh great. My website crashed. I give up. Don’t give up on your dreams. Jordan, who are you? It’s me. You from the future. Your professional website is not at a reach. You just need Nexcess. With Nexcess managed hosting, you get lightening pass load times built-in performance monitoring and updates, and always awesome support. 24 7 365 for all your projects. Whoa. Yeah.

Weglot: Discover Weglot the simple translation solution for your website. All you have to do is add Weglot to your website, select the languages that you need, and that’s it. Your website is now available in multiple languages.

Bluehost: Who says building an online [00:02:00] store has to be hard with Bluehost website. It’s more than just easy. It’s tell us your thing and smart AI. We’ll take it from there. Easy it’s WooCommerce friendly. So you can add oneof these or swap this for that easy. It’s set up shop in minutes with unlimited products. Easy. Whether you sell boots, books or bowls, it’s create an online store with Bluehost, easy build beyond boundaries with Bluehost.

Yogesh Londhe: So this is, uh, our sponsor [00:03:00] interview with, uh, Thomas Fanchin of weak lot. Emily Hunkler met with Thomas earlier to see what makes me special and why they are committed to the WordPress community and Big Orange Heart.

Emily Hunkler: Hello. We are here for a community interview with one of, uh, Big Orange Heart’s sponsors Weglot.

Emily Hunkler: So we’re very excited today to have Thomas Fanchin here with us as the partnership manager for, Weglot thank you, Thomas, for joining us. It’s great to see you.

Thomas Fenchin: Just so much.

Emily Hunkler: Wonderful. Yeah, let’s jump right into it. So, um, can you talk a little bit about Weglot and how community is important to them? What community means to you all.

Thomas Fenchin: Sure. I mean, originally, uh, Weglot was lunch during WordCamp Paris in 2016, 16. Sorry. So, um, I mean, since then we have supported a lot of WordCamps, meetups, but I’ve met a lot of friends who, uh, [00:04:00] uh, for community and also like a lot of partners and great connection. And they also help us with giving us great feedback.

Thomas Fenchin: Um, which help to be, to try, I mean, at least to build a, one of the best multilingual plugin that it’s available to be on WordPress. And I mean, it’s kind of a, a, it’s really part of our DNA and it’s kind of an extension of, Weglot really.

Emily Hunkler: Yeah, absolutely. That I think that makes sense. And it is so important to remind people, um, that community is about connecting for one part and also about connections, right? Like creating those relationships and nurturing them and exposing yourself to new ones and helping them not only grow yourself, but grow your business, that open doors for you and all of that. It’s, it’s huge. Yeah, absolutely. Um, what are some ways that Weglot that you helped nurture a sense of community internatlly?[00:05:00]

Thomas Fenchin: So that’s a, uh, a really interesting question actually. Uh, I, I think within the team, we do a lot of team meetings and we have like project feedback, for example, where everyone can join us and, uh, give us feedbacks about how we would like a project, whoever you also have, like learning session, where, uh, you can learn about, for example, partnership in community.

Thomas Fenchin: You can learn about WordPress integration and you can learn about empathy, for example. So I believe, uh, uh, this is how we, we actually kind of like build this community, uh, uh, uh, not cheating, but community aware maybe, uh, in the team.

Emily Hunkler: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s, it’s so great to hear. So. Uh, kind of empowering your team members to get involved, to help edge further education, that sort of thing about, about WordPress in general, [00:06:00] about what’s out there and keeping everyone aware and involved and supported and feedback, like you mentioned, is such a big part of that as well.

Emily Hunkler: And knowing how to receive feedback, how to implement feedback, um, how do you give feedback? All of those sorts of things all go into kind of building a productive community, for sure. So that’s awesome. Um, What are some ways you’ve touched on this a little bit already, but what are some other, um, some of those ways that, that Weglot contributes to the WordPress community and the remote community. Are you guys a remote team?

Thomas Fenchin: I mean, part of the team is working remotely like myself. I just moved to one. So we are based in Paris and, but I mean, we, we, we, we do support, like I said, events, meetups, WordCamps, and I feel like just last week we announced, that we are now WordPress Global community sponsor, which means that we are now supporting all the, uh, WordCamps to meetups all around the world, which is awesome. And, [00:07:00] uh, this is, uh, uh, one of the ways that we are actually supporting the community. There’s also the, we do support a lot of resources, podcasts, blogs to help, uh, the community and funds from the community grow.

Thomas Fenchin: And, uh, another way is also, uh, to create, uh, sort of educational content webinars guides about multilingual, and about our area of expertise. Really.

Emily Hunkler: I love that. That’s fantastic. I, I saw that you all were global sponsors, with WordPress as well, so that’s fantastic. Um, that’s, that’s all so great and it is so important to when you have that remote team and recognize the importance of, of, of supporting those people, even though you’re not there and you, you, yourself being one of those remote team members. Right. So, so, you know, firsthand for sure. Um, wonderful. How, what are some ways on that note, especially.

Emily Hunkler: Um, Weglot helps to support their, their teams, um, physical and mental wellbeing.

Thomas Fenchin: I mean, uh, first, uh, like I [00:08:00] said, there’s like a lot of team activities. So, for example, we do like online, uh, chocoholic testing, online cheese testing, and we do a lot of fun activities like escape game. In one time we did an escape game online it was like, uh, awesome. And there’s also like in-person meeting where, uh, for example, every two weeks we meet at a bar and, uh, we have like a time off. Uh, there’s also like what we call, uh, sometimes we go and we’re going to go skiing together for, for example, in the next, like the next few weeks. Uh, the last time we went and we went on a, on a, on a mountain bike, a trail, it was awesome too.

Thomas Fenchin: So, I mean, there’s like, like I said, online activities, uh, physical in-person activities, uh, for remote workers like myself. Uh, we, we, we do have, uh, an mean for everyone. We really, from the team, because everyone is now working remotely, you have like all your [00:09:00] equipments for your home office, but it’s like a sponsored basically by Weglot, so, which mean that you have your screens, your chair, your camera and everything, like for your home office, uh, set up, uh, kind of sponsored by Weglot, which means that, uh, you, you, you can like work at a, at the, at a nice place at home too.

Emily Hunkler: That’s amazing. That’s great. We’re going to have to share if you guys are hiring at the end of this community, this interview. Cause I think you just sold. Everybody’s going to want to work at Weglot. Um, that’s amazing though. That’s fantastic because it also sounds like you all recognize. That wellbeing, mental health and physical health look different for different people, right?

Emily Hunkler: Whether that is getting together personally, and whether it’s, uh, you know, going mountain biking or skiing or meeting at a bar, or whether it’s something that people, other types of people are more comfortable with, like an online meetup and getting together that way and making sure you’re set up to be comfortable in your office at home and that sort of thing.

Emily Hunkler: So that’s, that’s amazing. That sounds like you guys are doing really cool stuff for your team, and it’s awesome to [00:10:00] hear. Um, way to go on that. Uh, let’s see. Is there any to kind of wrap up this interview is, do you, is there any kind of personal anecdote that you could share about your wellness and how it relates to your experience that Weglot?

Thomas Fenchin: Sure. Sure. So, uh, basically like I come from Mauritius, which is like really far away from Paris and France. Uh, it’s like a 12 hour flight and all my family are where my parents are. So, uh, every time, but, uh, I come at the office, uh, I really feel like, um, and I’m happy to be at the office to see my colleagues, my colleagues, and it’s such a, uh, A great feeling to, to, to be able to just like, come at the office and feel like home every time, but your value, your happy. So that’s just like my anecdote and how I, uh, I, uh, I really, uh, feel about Weglot and what we do and the team. Yep.

Emily Hunkler: That’s wonderful. That’s so great to hear, and you can see it in your face. Like when you talk about, you’ve [00:11:00] got a smile about it and, and you, and you can tell that you, you enjoy it. So it’s really wonderful to hear Thomas, thank you so much.

Emily Hunkler: Um, is there anywhere that, um, folks should go if they want to find out more about Weglot, or if you guys are hiring or, you know, what you guys are doing and all that sort of stuff.

Thomas Fenchin: We are actually hiring a, an event manager. Uh, uh, the job is based in Paris. So if you want to actually, uh, uh, join the team, there is that job position that is available in Paris and yep, if you want to find out more about, Weglot, you can just go on our website https://weglot.Com and, uh, you can also reach out to me, uh, if you want on LinkedIn or on social media.

Emily Hunkler: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Thomas. I appreciate your time and recording this interview for the community and thank you. And Weglot so much for being such wonderful sponsors, a Big Orange Heart. We couldn’t do it without you. So have a wonderful day and we’ll, we’ll see you around. Thank you.

Yogesh Londhe: Thank you very much, Emily and Thomas, we could [00:12:00] actually feel Thomas’s, uh, passion and enthusiasm. About the community about Weglot about contributions, everything. So our thanks to our sponsors, Bluehost, Cloudways, GoDaddy Pro, Nexcess, Yoast, and Weglot, please be sure to visit their tent and chat with them you might even win some prizes.

Lax Mariappan: And don’t forget to the photo booth. Like don’t forget to get your photo snapped in the photo booth. Sponsored by Multicollab lab in Dreamhost and tweeted out and spread the word with the hashtag WordFest Live thank you to your, our media partners and our micro sponsors in the community tent in the next hour Cloudways have their are hourly give away. So don’t it.[00:13:00]