This week Tom took part in a really stimulating discussion on the Future of WordPress with WordPress Think Tank. The eight person panel was made up of representatives from some key WordPress agencies and product companies as well as WordPress founder / guru Matt Mullenweg. The WordPress Think Tank was organised and hosted by Troy Dean of WP Elevation via a Google Hangout.
As well as the discussion going on between panelists, there was also plenty of lively debate and questions from listeners via chat; it’s definitely worth reading the chat stream on ThinkTank as well as catching up on the recording. Some of the main themes included: debate on what WordPress is fundamentally about / it’s mission, the needs of WordPress users and how WordPress should respond to competition. It seems that the strong love for WordPress, that was evident throughout the debate on screen and chat, also generates strong opinions. The flexibility and versatility of WordPress engenders a huge variety of viewpoints about how it should develop in the future with contributors coming from many directions. The challenge is going to be how to integrate these ideas or even whether to integrate them and which ones?
Needless to say with such huge scope, it was impossible to reach any specific firm conclusions, however the debate itself was certainly interesting and we eagerly await the next Think Tank episode.