Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the cadence beat. I have no idea what episode it is. It's been a while, but it's time to get the band back together, right?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we're back together.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: How you guys doing?
[00:00:13] Speaker B: This is so fun.
Doing good.
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Excellent, Ben.
[00:00:18] Speaker C: Doing good and excited today to have a special guest, Kathy, on this is not like, kathy join cadence again. This is like, we asked Kathy to come and be our special guest, and then since it's like us, it's like, hey, Kathy, will you actually just run this podcast, too? Because I'm so good at it.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So good at clicking that record button. I'm exceptionally good at that.
Any opportunity to come and hang out with you guys, you know, I'm going to say yes. How could I say no? It's the cadence beat. It's like one of my favorite things to hate to do or was. But I am so happy to be here as a guest and share some of the fun things I've been doing away from cadence, even though I'm watching you all from afar.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. I think you have a lot of good insight that I think our listeners were really going to enjoy hearing from you today. But before we jump into that and us asking you to tell us all your smarts, I think it's probably worth, like, it's been a while since we've been on this podcast. It's worth giving a little bit of update, like, what's going on in the cadence world, what we're working on. What's some of the exciting stuff? I'll just say, like, we're in the process of a lot of fun new stuff. We released AI this year, and there's a lot more coming. Like, the initial release of AI was like, finally got this out. It's been a lot to get the credit system to work. It's been a lot to get the whole, like, structure in place, and now we're finally getting to build on that and do a lot more interesting things. We had to lay that foundation. Our design library went from 300 patterns. It's now over 650. And just like that, growth has allowed us to get a lot more specific in the way that we're doing patterns. We're getting a lot better at patterns. We've, you know, found some of the things that weren't working as well, and we're trying to get rid of those patterns and get better patterns in and organize that better. So there's a lot of fun stuff happening there and with how we're going to use patterns, how we're going to use AI and patterns. So here's what we're currently working on. I'm very excited to, like, officially announce this publicly. We were building white label and it will be out why this month?
[00:02:25] Speaker A: This month, like, finally.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: We finally can do a live stream where we don't have people commenting on the side. Like, it's white label coming. It's white label coming. It has nothing to do with what we're talking about. People have been asking for this for a long time, so I also am very excited.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: We're going to have to get a new inside joke because it's been the inside joke since, like, you first ended up on like an ithemes training with Nathan. You know, it's been happening for like, ever.
[00:02:56] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. So it's going to be its own plugin because we're going to allow you to white label cadence blocks as well as cadence theme. So if you're not using cadence theme and you wanted to use cadence blocks, you'll be able to white label that as well. So it's its own plugin, which you'll also be able to white label. There'll be some cool things, so, like starter templates included.
You'll be able to disable cadence AI entirely from that white label dashboard and then hide that dashboard to all your users. So that's exciting. And that will be out this month. That's like a stamp. It's going to happen.
I was actually demoing some of that very often. I don't know, mildly terrifying to do that, but yes, it's going to happen. I was demoing it some this week. So that's something new exciting coming. We've been working on this big project for quite a while. It's been a vision of mine for a long time, and that's advanced navigation and advanced headers as a block slash builder inside of WordPress. So currently the cadence theme allows you to build a cool header that is through the customizer. We're taking a lot of the technology behind that, or just even the ways in which that works and putting that into the Gutenberg editor down the road. If you ever decide to build full site editing, you'll have that kind of full header capabilities with an advanced nav capabilities where you can do icons in your navigation and you can do mega menus and you can style things, dropdowns, all that kind of stuff in a lot more interesting ways than what is currently possible.
So we're thinking about this as both a block that is going to exist inside of your blocks. You put in a page whatever. And also as a builder, something that you'll be able to go into under cadence and do like add a header and then apply that header. And just even having the conversations of like how does all of the dynamic settings that we're used to exist inside of a full site editing experience where you're basically doing things based on template and not based on like a customizer setting, but then also like kind of allowing both and you couldn't go into a page and change things in the header for that page, that kind of stuff. So that is getting a lot of traction.
We keep doing this, we keep building the most advanced block and thus we keep pushing our limits. In the last year we did the form block and we did the advanced query loop, which is a huge block in terms of it has custom indexing so you can do ajax filtering and stuff like that. It could basically be its own plugin in and of itself with custom templating and all that. Now we're moving into this advanced header, advanced navigation stuff. So solving a lot of the bigger how you're using WordPress, especially as we go into the future when I'm not 100% convinced that full site editing will be what everyone defaults to in the future uses as a norm. Obviously it's WordPress's default, but there's still a lot of really, really good reasons to not use full site editing.
I don't have a site where I use full site editing, but that's obviously still something we're going to support. We're going to keep working toward.
Advanced header and navigation is a crucial part of that, allowing you to have sticker headers and stuff. Another thing we're doing AI related is with pages right now AI has been starter templates and in the design library you can have AI content. Now we have a wizard we're building that will actually allow you to build a custom page with custom context. You'll be able to say exactly what you want about this page and it'll be a two step process where the AI will come back and say here's your page structure that we think makes sense. You'll be able to edit that and then you'll get handed a series of designs based on that page structure. So like if you've got hero testimonials, you know, call to action, that kind of stuff, you'll build that structure first with the AI's help. Then you'll get designs. You'll pick a design that you like based on that structure, and then you'll get content that the AI will build. So it's going to be really, really useful for all the custom pages that like you want to build on your website. And that's coming soon. Like we're, we've made a lot of progress on that.
A couple of things on note, giving you this like huge sales pitch here, but like I'm also like excited about all what we're doing and we haven't had a lot of, of space to talk about it. So a big thing is we're adding more dynamic content with third party plugins and things like the events calendar Learndash Woocommerce where you'll be able to do more custom query loop templates. So you'll be able to use our advanced query loop to do really custom things with the events calendar or woocommerce where you're wanting to show products in a unique way but still pull in dynamically certain things about that product so you can create some interesting layouts with the advanced query loop block and custom templating. So we've done a ton of work on how the advanced query loop works. We've improved it a lot. If you're following the changelogs over the last three months, there's been a ton of work there to make it work better with woocommerce and just be more useful. We're doing more with dynamic content in that sense, then the last thing I'll mention is that starter templates, when we released the AI version of that, it was just six styles essentially, where you had some dynamic content, pretty static feeling and pretty limited in terms of pages. We're in the process right now of doubling the amount of pages that gets created in all of those styles. Our goal is to get to, certainly this year to get to 30 different styles, but we have like twelve in the works right now that we're going to get out pretty quickly. And with those styles we're making the actual page content a little bit more dynamic. Where we've added this idea of cycles. So that way when you're building, going through the wizard and saying this is what my company does, there's now a cycles. And that cycles allows you to say, like I want to sell products or I'm trying to blog, I'm trying to increase my subscribers, that kind of thing. And then we're going to do more with those starter templates based on what you're selecting. So big brain dump for me in terms of like here's what's happening at cadence. It's, it's exciting. We've got some stuff coming that I'm really excited to get in everyone's hand, and we've been doing a lot that I think is really, really interesting and exciting.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Very cool. So my.
Can I just rave about a couple of things? I heard things that I am looking forward to the most.
I can't wait to see what the query loop can do with courses, building courses myself, and got a bunch of cool things coming. I can't wait to tell you guys about them later. But being able to, of course, I'm using learndash and I'm using cadence, so I can't wait to see how I can play those things out because I've got, like, all of this knowledge and I have all of these mini types of courses that I would like to just have one lesson for. Like, I I do the lesson once, but it can get pulled into multiple different courses that way. Is that something I can do dynamically?
[00:10:05] Speaker C: Yeah. You'd be able to do something like that.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Awesome. That sounds exciting. That sounds so exciting. And then I love what you're talking about in terms of really having AI help you with a goal, first of all, like, asking somebody, hey, what are you really trying to do with this? Because a lot of times people are building and they're like, okay, well, I saw this other competitor doing it this way, and so they're in this mindset of, well, I'm trying to create this thing, but they're not necessarily putting themselves in the mindset of what am I really trying to accomplish with that? So the fact that you're taking that to the next level to really get into the mind of the person who's building out that site, that is super exciting to me.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Cool. I'm really excited about the future of what we're trying to do. For sure.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
I'm watching from afar all of the things that are coming. I don't get to play with stuff as much as I used to have an excuse to quite so much anymore. But I am excited with where cadence is going. You still. You guys are still doing the work that I love, recommending you to anyone and everyone. So I'm. I'm still wearing my cadence shirt for those who are listening. I am showing that I am wearing my cadence shirt for this momentous occasion. So exciting. All kinds of exciting news and white label. You know, tons of people are going.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: To be excited about that.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: That's so cool. And, Hannah, there's a couple updates.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. A couple updates from a marketing perspective, ones that we've changed a little bit. How we do emails. We used to send out a weekly newsletter. Now we do. Still a weekly email, but one is a product update email. So you'll just get, like, basically every product that we have, every update that happened that week, whether it's just fixes, enhancements, features, whatever, that's what that email is focused on. And then the next week, you'll get a newsletter that has things like our blog post, things like what's coming, stuff like that. So that's been kind of fun to, like, mix that up a bit.
And then something way more exciting is that we just launched a TikTok account, which feels like we should have done that a long time ago, but here we are, and I don't know if you guys have heard us talk about sailor. Saylor works with us. She's one of our devs, and she's probably the best person on our team. She makes every meeting ten times more fun. I mean, we all just sit around and, like, can't wait for Sailor to give an answer because we're like, what's sailor gonna say? Because it's. We don't. I don't think her life is real. She's just a funny girl. We love her anyway, she is, like, running with this inspiration, and she is basically running our TikTok account. We're calling it sailors version instead of Taylor's.
Um, and it's awesome. You definitely want to follow. It's, like, the kind of content that you actually want to see. So, yeah, follow her. TikTok Cajun.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: Yeah, she is. Saylor is just awesome. So I was probably one of the very first followers because I knew she was up to this, and she is, you know, because it's like TikTok for Tuck. It's hard. Like, what are you going to be? You know? I know, I know. There's the excel person, there's the. This chief excel officer or whatever, and she does a great job doing, like, excel tips and stuff on TikTok, but I could never think of, like, okay, how can I? It's. The screens are so little. Like, how am I going to show how to do something with cadence on this? But she is. She's doing it not only showing helpful tips of ways to get more out of cadence, but also just kind of adding some personality and making things super fun. I love it. So y'all need to go see Saylor's version.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
She's awesome. One of the funniest people I know. And you won't be disappointed to watch some of her videos and see some of her humor because it's great.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: She needs to come on the podcast here. She needs to.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I know we do.
It's a great idea.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: She would be great.
Cool.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: So our special guest today, Kathy, tell us about what you're doing and how that relates to people who are building businesses and all that kind of stuff.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it doesn't just relate to people who are building businesses, but it relates to everything. I mean, what I've learned from. So the company I'm working with now, motivation code. Motivation code is an assessment. It's based on, like, six decades worth of research about motivational science. I don't know all of the history that well. All I know is where it's where it is today. And they've taken all of this research about motivation, and they have an assessment that is based on your stories. It's not a either or. It's like, do you like coffee or do you like tea? This is like, tell us about a time in which you found fulfillment in a job you did and an experience you had, something that happened at school. There's four different stories that you tell, so everything's based on your story, and then it uses AI to pull out keywords and whatnot, and it comes back and it tells you what motivates you. It tells you what your motivational dimensions are. There's eight different motivational dimensions. And so when I first took it, it came back and told me that I was a visionary as my primary motivational dimension, and then my secondary is influencer, and my third is achiever. And when I had those three together, I'm like, oh, that explains so much about me and what I do and how I get. Other people like to jump on to cadence, amplify, hey, let's do this big, huge thing that, you know, I don't. I just, like, have a vision of, like, we should try something like this and influence other people. Like, Hannah, hey, let's go do this thing. It explained a lot about me. I'm very impressed with the technology as I have sat with understanding my own motivational dimensions and how I'm fulfilled in the things that I do. Like, I'm not so fulfilled with project management or a plan necessarily. I like to just have the vision. It's like, okay, let's get all the pieces together. But other people are really motivated when they've got Asana in front of them and the plan is all laid out, and they're just, like, rubbing their hands with joy. That is not me. So it really helped me understand, like, who I am, how I work, how working on the cadence project was, like, inspiring to me because it did give me, there's so much vision, Ben, especially, that you bring to what WordPress can do. It was inspiring to me, and being able to go out there and influence other people to have an empowering experience with the product, I was all for that. So when I took the assessment and then was approached to, hey, why don't you create content that inspires other people to find out what really motivates them? You know, the CEO of Boeing isn't necessarily going to sit down and build a site with cadence. But if the CEO of Boeing can sit down with motivation code and understand how he or she is motivated, understand how their people are motivated, how entire teams play off each other, there's even parts of the assessment that can say, like, this whole team is full of visionaries. Where's the person with Asana? We need someone who's got some kind of organization on this team, and so you can restructure teams that way. So there's so much power to it. It just kind of was like, you know, something I could not say no to, to be able to have that kind of impact for a visionary like myself. It just. It sang to me. So right now, motivation code is the full assessment, I think is like, $89. I should know off the top of my head how much the full assembly assessment is. There's a mini assessment.
[00:17:46] Speaker C: 79.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Is it? 79?
[00:17:49] Speaker C: I'm on the website right now. 79.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. And if you use the code Zant 20, you can get 20% off on that. There you go.
You heard it here first. And there's a. If you just want to get a high level view, if you're just curious, there's a $19 assessment that'll at least give you an idea of your. Of your motivational dimension of, like, how. How you're wired. It won't go that in. The report's pretty in depth. I think I sent you one bun that I took a while back. It's more in depth now that they're constantly evolving the product. So you can take the test now and then, like, log in in six months, and your report might have additional information and guidance for you. The team is amazing. So I'm like, I've been really happy, like, learning with the people who are there. And it's a newer assessment. It's a newer product. It's very different than, like, a Myers Briggs or an enneagram, which are also great tools to help understand yourself. But this one really looks at what motivates you, what fulfills you, helps you make better decisions about your life because you know who you are. And the more data you have about yourself, the better you can say, okay, I know that this job that's going to put me in front of Asana all day is not going to make me happy. You can make those kinds of decisions and it helps, like just looking over, over my life and some of the decisions I've made of like, oh, okay, I understand that I was trying to key into that part of myself. I didn't know it at the time, but now everything makes sense. So it's all about self knowledge and just self actualization. Understanding yourself better. Now, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're building a business and you're here because you're building sites for other people, knowing how you're motivated helps you structure your day better, helps you communicate better with clients. If you're managing a small team, especially a team of creative people who are building websites, managing creative people can be incredibly difficult because you have to give them tons of freedom to really like, run and play with ideas. Understanding how people are motivated, you are more able to meet your people where they're at and communicate in a language that resonates with them so that you can be a better leader. So this is all about just making better leaders and better humans and happier people. So how do I say no to that? Right?
[00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's. You've sold me.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
I think it's really fascinating too, because it's using AI to allow you to tell it, your story, not just answer questions. That's fascinating. I'm going to like, sit down and type out something that happened to me and then it's going to be able to assess. That is a really cool way to do it. I'm, my wife and I are like, and most of my family, my parents from when I was little, we always have been into like the personality tests and all of that stuff. Super into Enneagram. And so it's a constant conversation of like just throwing out there in the world, like, oh yeah, I'm an eight or I'm a two. And that being like a normal sentence and there's so much context and then information that gets passed with that. So another one that is focused on motivation, I think is fascinating and I think could be really insightful for people. So having done it and being a part of the team, what do you feel like are the biggest wins that people like, discover in this process of, like, is it, like, for you? Obviously, it's understanding, like, what kind of job you should work, kind of in the sense. But, like, what are some of the other wins or some of the other stories that you've heard?
[00:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah, there's. There's one organization that took their entire team. They went, they did a retreat. They did the M code, the motivation code together, and got to see how everybody else on the team, I mean, it's really helpful, especially, you know, teams. Not everybody's going to think the same way. You're going to have different personalities, different motivations, and to be able to really, like, empathize with other people and, like, okay, someone, we've got a driver over here, and this person is incredibly motivated when things are, you know, everybody's feet are to the fire and we've got an insurmountable obstacle ahead, and they're going to drive the whole team and motivate everybody to get across the line. Like that kind of. We've got one of those. Okay, now that explains why that person acts this way in this certain circle. You know, it just gives you more empathy on a team, which is really important because it's not all about just, you know, one person. And I think for leaders especially, we do a lot of talking about leadership, and I've really been inspired by this whole idea of servant based leadership, that leaders are not there to fulfill their ego because they're CEO or whatever. They're there to be of service to the people on the team, because great things happen when a leader can step back and say, I believe in you, I know you can do this, but in order to really do that, they have to know who that person is. They have to know that, you know, you don't want to try to empower, let's say, an achiever. An achiever is someone who's, like, very motivated by recognition. They want to achieve things, and they want to be told, look at that great thing that you've done. They really want that kind of recognition. But they are also very driven to do something rather on their own. They can be very independent. So you can see that, you know, a leader might need to know that this person is independently driven.
So if you say, oh, wow, you did such a great job being a team player on this, well, you're not speaking to that person's motivational dimension. So they'll be like, wow, they really don't know me. They don't understand who I am, what am I doing on this team? So it helps you just, you know, cater your knowledge to who that person is and then reward them in a way that they feel satiated by that reward, that they feel fulfilled, that who they really are is being recognized and is being celebrated for the contributions that they're making to an organization. So those types of stories are the ones that are really interesting. But I think the greatest impact that we're going to see with motivation code is as more organizations bring it in, because, really, every organization is looking for greater productivity, greater team fulfillment. They want to keep their high performers so their high performers aren't, like, looking for a better option where they're going to feel more fulfilled. You want to retain those high performers. So every organization is looking for that. So if you can better understand who those people are and help them find fulfillment in your organization, it's going to stop turnover. It's going to increase productivity, increase fulfillment, and attract better people into an organization. So as more and more people start figuring this out, that motivation code is a key, that those data points are going to help leaders make better decisions. We're going to have happier people working in teams.
There's my sales pitch.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: I love it. It sounds like we've got our. Our family reunion activity done.
[00:24:52] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: All our families.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Yep. It is so helpful. Like, obviously, in huge teams, but also, like, in family dynamics.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: In our family, like, our parents couldn't be more opposite. So understanding, like, each other's fears and each other's motivations has been so helpful and, like, allowing them to connect. And then the same thing with all seven of us kids, we are all across the spectrum with just, like, our personalities and how we do things. And so, like Ben said, just these personality things have been so helpful. So I'm super intrigued by this, and I do actually think that we're all going to do it, but I could totally see how, like, in a team perspective, like, I I would love to even, like, take this to the birth center and, like, have all the midwives do it and just kind of. Yeah, we're all just wired so differently, and, yeah, it's hard to. To see that sometimes because you're like.
[00:25:43] Speaker C: Why don't you think, like, I think, I imagine for. For someone who's not on a team taking something like this and understanding, like, what they should get off their plate, whether it's, like, farm it out to a different service or whatever, like, that could be really helpful in terms of, like, I know I should be focusing on this. I get fulfillment. Thus, I'm gonna bring. I'm gonna come to it with more passion and energy. These are the things I don't. These are things I need to figure out how to get either someone else to do or, you know, whatever. Even for someone who's not on a team, that could be really helpful.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Oh, completely, completely. Especially if, like, you're just starting out solopreneur and you're, you know, starting to get your momentum going, really honing in on who you are, what fulfills you. You know, that leverage. You know, when you're. When you're trying to develop momentum, you have to leverage.
It's like building a new habit. You know, you're going from an old way of doing things to a new way. It's, like, takes so much more energy. So if you're not leveraging who you really are, it can be so much more challenging.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that's awesome.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: How's the group going? The group is still pretty. I'm still in there. I try to answer questions when I can. Still pretty active.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Our Facebook group is so active, it's amazing. I'm, like, waiting for it to slow down, and it hasn't, and it's awesome. And I don't spend enough time in there, but every time I'm in there, I'm like, oh, it. It's like. It really is self sustaining. It's amazing how, like, our core cadence people just are just in there all the time answering questions. I'm so impressed by just our cadence users, and, yeah, the community is beautiful. You also get haters. You get.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: It's.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: That's always shocking to me, too, when people are just rude. It, like, baffles me. But. But for the most part, it's a really, like, beautiful, thriving community, I think.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I logged in this morning, and nine people. Nine new people. Welcome to Cadence. So it's still growing. There's still people I love to see. I'm on Twitter a lot, and I see a lot of people who are having. Having a good time building sites with cadence and finding a lot of success there, and a lot of people still having that experience of, like, I want to try full site editing. I really want to give it a go, but, gosh, I just got to get this out the door. I just have to get this done, and Cadence is the thing that's going to do it for me. And so they're. They're sticking with cadence, which I love to see, because it's all about empowerment. It's about helping people build more effective sites more quickly than ever before. And I'm so excited about all the AI tools. I don't even recognize the starter template plugin. We're just like, well, hello. Guess we're using the AI for this.
So it's great.
[00:28:23] Speaker B: It's super fun.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Well, I guess we can wrap it up. I can hang up my cadence shirt for maybe the next time I can come by and.
[00:28:31] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: And visit y'all. And we'll have to make a new.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Excuse for the next one.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
And our special guest is Kathy. Again, we'll just keep bringing you on.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: I do have some cool stuff happening. I will not. I cannot talk about it yet, but I will leave that as a cliffhanger that when I have a new thing launching, I will bring it to the cadence beat. Maybe I can announce it here because it's good. It's Cade. It's got all kinds of fun things to it. I'll tell you guys afterwards. But, yeah.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: I can't wait.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: Anyway, so we'll have the number on the episode as it gets published on the site, of course. And you will find this on YouTube. You will find this on Spotify. You'll find it wherever you listen or watch podcasts. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And on behalf of the cadence team and the special guest, thanks for being here.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Bye, guys. Thanks.
