Author Archives: Andrea Middleton

Currently at Reddit, I spent 10 years as a community organizer on the WordPress open source project. I'm also an avid reader, wine enthusiast, and parent of two.

Older Women in the Workplace

Why is it excellent, preferable, to have women over 40, or 50, or 60 in the workplace? Let me count the ways (though the fact that I have to count at all makes me purple). The first one, obviously, is that it’s simply excellent to have a diverse workplace — people who don’t look, think, act, or talk like the boss — and as the data that follow illustrate, women over 40 are dramatically underrepresented in the top tiers of organizations. For another, studies show that women actually do good work. (Although, again, this is something we need to study?) According to a 2012 report by Dow Jones, companies with at least one female senior executive are more likely to succeed than companies that have only men at the top. Venture-based start-ups with five or more women onboard are significantly more successful than those without.

I loved this article about Why We Need Older Women in the Workplace. A lot of who I am today is due to my learning from the powerful women I’ve worked for and with; I hope that I model an approach to work that’s worthy of emulation as well. Though I’ll admit, that like the author, I too feel like I’m “just exhausted and scrambling like everyone else.”

Concerts in Ardenwald Park

Tonight for National Night Out, we went to one of the free summer concerts at our local (really local, like 5 block away) park. The Ardenwald-Johnson Creek Neighborhood Association puts on concerts at the humble and cozy Ardenwald Park every Thursday in August.

My neighbors
More of my neighbors
Baxter gets down
My sister Adrienne and friend Elizabeth
Jared photobomb!
Amelia dancing

It was fun while we were there! Some friends and family joined us, we had a picnic, and the kids ran around like crazy. The only downer was that Amelia threw a huge fit about leaving at the set break (our usual bedtime is around 7, and it was 8 already) and we had a big argument. Well, and also that the kids didn’t eat much and Baxter had repeating tantrums when I cut off the sweets. Can anyone tell me at what age these later evening outdoor events become 100% fun to bring kids to? My munchkins tend to take the break in routine as an excuse to act like jerks, and it makes me not want to do this kind of stuff in the first place, you know?

Well, at least Amelia got to dance a little.

100 days of daily blogging

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Today is the 100th day in a row that I’ve published something on this blog!

I know, right? 🙂

I’ve been blogging with WordPress since about 2006, when I started my wine blog, Wine Scamp. Then I got pregnant and stopped blogging. Then I started again, and got pregnant again and stopped blogging. Except that’s also when I got a job working on the WordPress open source project full time. I was hired to help community organizers make great community events, and have had a blast working with amazing people at Automattic and throughout the WordPress community since 2011.

In late 2014, my friend and colleague Jen Mylo and I wanted to try organizing events for WordPress bloggers, since we saw a need in the community for events that brought together those who use the software (as opposed to those who build the software). We created the Press Publish conference brand/series (we really need to update that page; no new events are forthcoming right now) and organized two pilot events to try out our idea. It was an intense 3-4 months, but lots of fun too.

Organizing a conference for bloggers was very inspirational. I like expressive people. I’m expressive, and I like people who have something to say. I was originally inspired to work for Automattic because of the WordPress mission to democratize publishing, which in my mind means that we’re giving a platform, a megaphone, to anyone with a message. I might not agree with the message, but I do so love the idea of making sure everyone has a voice.

Talking to all these bloggers awakened my hunger to blog. That said, I’m a busy person! I have two kids under 7, a full-time job at Automattic and a husband who also works full-time for an architectural firm. I wanted to blog, but I didn’t know how I was going to fit all that lovely self-expression into my life. Or what I’d be saying. 🙂

That said, I posted to Facebook or Twitter nearly every day (mostly Facebook). Cute pictures of the kids, funny things they said, insights (complaints) about life as a full-time-working-for-an-employer mom of two in these modern times. So I figured: what if I just post all that stuff on my blog instead?

And here you see the results! 🙂 I use the WordPress iOS app every single day: to post, check my stats, approve comments (boy I love comments), see who’s “liking” my posts, etc. I will admit that my posts come out looking a wee bit funny on Facebook aand Twitter, but I will say that the actual experience of putting my thoughts, photos, and feelings out there is about the same whether someone is reading or not. Expressing myself has felt good for the past 100 days. I think I’ll go for 100 more!