Perspectives With Josepha Haden Chomphosy  🔗 **Source:** [Perspectives With Josepha Haden Chomphosy](https://share.snipd.com/episode/df599244-10dd-4a63-9999-f271d782c0e9) ## Highlights - **Ecosystem Thinking Explained With Streets And Storefronts** - Ecosystem thinking frames extensible products as communities with roads, bridges, and storefronts that let others discover and build on them. - Josepha uses the everyday street/storefront metaphor to make systems thinking tangible at a dinner-party level. Transcript: Jonathan Josefa, how would you explain like what ecosystem thinking is to someone if you're at like a dinner party? Josepha Haden Chomphosy Oh, my dinner party pitch for ecosystem thinking. I've had to do this a lot recently. And so on the one hand, you have like this concept of ecosystem thinking. And on the other hand, you have this concept of systems thinking. And systems thinking is a little bit more understandable in my experience, just because like people understand that to have any sufficiently large, complex organization, you have To have some systems to make sure it works. Like if you've got a train, you need some rails, you need some tracks. But for ecosystem thinking, you then can kind of back your way into it from there and say, like, if you have this product that is extensible, that you can build on, that you can do things With, you also have to have a way for people to figure out that it exists, what to do with it, how to do things with it, where they can create services, what holes there are, what gaps there Are in the infrastructure that exists, and sort of bring around this whole concept of the roads and bridges of what you're working on. And like the roads and bridges and applying that to whatever sort of product or company you have that you're working with, I think is an easy to grasp thing. Most of us live on a street. Most of us have to get on public transit at some point. ([Time 0:04:24](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b3eaab59-4fc5-4f9d-9ce8-0da021fbde48)) - **Design Foundations Let Others Build Future Genius** - Ecosystem design both reduces dependence on single experts and creates fertile ground for others to innovate beyond the original vision. - Josepha emphasizes defining foundational elements so future contributors can create unexpected value. Transcript: Jonathan So for someone who might be building a product on the open web, whether it's open source or proprietary, from your lens and experience, what's the relevance or importance of ecosystem Thinking? There's so many things you have to do to build a product. Where does ecosystem thinking come into it? Josepha Haden Chomphosy Yeah, the relevance of ecosystem building and thinking through systems as you go is to make sure that one, anyone who comes to use your product or take part in your services, they don't Have to know exactly the right person to get the best answer for something. But on the other hand, it also gives you an opportunity to make fertile ground for other more brilliant people than you to do things that you hadn't imagined yet. And so knowing what the foundational elements are certainly can help you to, I don't know, make space for future genius. That sounds so wild when I say that. ([Time 0:06:07](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9282565a-009c-40f7-8802-11defe0f7eb5)) - **From WordPress Fishbowl To Ten Year City Planning** - Josepha moved from leading WordPress to serving on a city council and found planning horizons shift to five- to ten-year cycles. - That municipal lens forced her to track partner timelines, land use, and funding far ahead of single-product timelines. Transcript: Josepha Haden Chomphosy I am currently hanging around in municipal government. I'm getting very involved in... Hold on, hold on. Luke Sorry, for an Australian here, what's a municipal government? Josepha Haden Chomphosy So I'm on my city council. I was appointed and then elected to the governing body for the city. And so we have staff that does a lot of like the enforcement of rules and regulations. But then we have a city council that pulls together policy and advises on, not advises, sets the plan for the city. So that's what I've been doing. Luke And how do you enact thinking in that role? Josepha Haden Chomphosy Yeah. So on the one hand, a lot of it is sort of there by default because the infrastructure has to exist for a city to exist. It's rare that you have a city that's just like, we're here now. We used to be a farm and now we're town. Although my town just had its 75th birthday on July 2nd. And so young by United States standards, I suppose, and global standards. Yeah. But I think that what really became crystal clear for me as I started doing this work was that there is nothing that a city is planning to do. There's nothing that a large organization like this is planning to do that started planning two months ago and definitely is going to get done in the next two months. Like everything is on a five-year cycle,-year cycle, 10-year cycle. And so like similar to the ecosystem you left. Exactly. You have to not only like always be looking ahead to what might come in the future, which trying to predict the future for anything is obviously hard. But then also being fully aware of any partnering group that you're going to have to work with, also what's on the horizon for them for the next 10 years. And so like, that's anyone that needs to partner from a land perspective or from a financial perspective and just know like, are you going to have more money for the following types things In the future? Is that a thing that we can also then have some of the money of? Is that land that you're using going to be a thing that we need in the near future so that we can, you know, move utilities around, things like that. And it really has made me have a really wide lens that I don't think that I really had before, just because like when you're leading WordPress, like you're the only WordPress in town. ([Time 0:07:29](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a8eda047-d58d-48e4-837f-22057441a53e)) - **Influence Over Control In Complex Ecosystems** - Influence matters more than control; ecosystems require balancing diverse incentives (public, private, philanthropic) rather than dictating outcomes. - Josepha argues identify the top three predictable wants and trade-offs to steer collective decisions like infrastructure or amenities. Transcript: Jonathan So the reason why I ask what's top of mind for me, it's interesting to there's this there's this incentives piece within ecosystem thinking. And at least what I've always found intriguing about it is like, sure, you could take an approach where you're trying to control and like this is how it's going to happen. And this is this is where it's going to go. But because there's all these different parties all these different incentives for for any number of reasons there might be like a large business that wants to relocate or locate into It maybe they grew up there like there's all sorts of reasons that are outside of your control and when i think about like an ecosystem it seems to be so much more about like understanding Its shape and what are the key parts and like understanding like how it works interacts and ultimately the focus at least in my head is on how do you influence its growth but at the end of The day you can't force it you can't predict what's going to happen you can try to look ahead and i'm curious like you're you're in it i'm like this is something that i just i think about But you lived it for a long time in the wordpress space you're now looking at through another lens municipal government when you, like, there's all these different parties that have Interests in it. How do you think about the role of those who are, like, responsible for that ecosystem and how they relate to their influence on it? Or, yeah, like, it's like that question of like influence versus control. Like where do you sit on that? Josepha Haden Chomphosy Yes, your circle of influence versus your circle of control. Always an important thing to know. Yeah, so one of the things that is really different with what I'm doing at the moment is the incentive structure in general. Like there are incentives in open source that are so rooted in impact, right? Like having the right set of people with the right mindset who care about the right future of something really matters. And so it's a collective incentive system. But the incentive structures that exist here are almost entirely monetary and not always all your money, right? So you have public money, you have private money, and then you have philanthropic money. Those are the three kind of areas where you can get some leverage in any project that you're working on. And so finding ways to make sure that it is enticing enough as an incentive to bring in businesses that are like what you want, right? What you want your storefronts to be filled with, while also making sure that everybody who is living in your city also wants those businesses there and also wants their money to go to Those businesses. And it is a really hard sell. I say often that potholes are not partisan. I'm not here to figure out how anybody is aligning on our biggest like political issues. But there are things that we always can predict from a future perspective. And I know that I said that like four or five years ago in WordPress, like these are the things that we always know people will want more of. We should try to aim for getting those really good. And like for a city, like they want more amenities, they want fewer crappy streets, and they want better schools and parks for their kids. Like that's what you always are going to be able to tell. ([Time 0:11:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c09a12ea-29b9-4ee0-8d65-016347df49e2)) - **Prioritize Security Speed And Ease For WordPress** - Aim ecosystem improvements at three predictable outcomes: security, speed, and ease of use. - Josepha defines 'easy' as clear discovery of base capabilities, visible distance to a preferred future, and doable paths to get there. Transcript: Luke So for us living over here in WordPress land, what do you think those nonpartisan issues are that we can all get behind? Because I it's safe to say there has been a little political strife over in our part of the world. Josepha Haden Chomphosy I've heard. I've heard. Yeah, I think that the three things that are always predictable for the future of WordPress are that people who are building or building apps on top of WordPress would like it to be more Secure, both from like a core perspective and everything that you can bolt onto core. Like both of those need to be secure. I think they always want it to be fast, sometimes not faster, just not any slower is going to count as well. And then also easy to use. And that's not in an easy to use, like, I have my scissors and I know how to use my scissors way. But easy as in, like, I know exactly what I wanted to do. I was able to figure out the gaps to what would make that possible. And then it was easy for me to get it done. And the get it done part is negotiable. Like you personally can do it. You can vibe code it using your favorite GPT. You can pay somebody. It doesn't matter. Just like the question is from an ecosystem perspective, again, like, is it easy for people to tell what comes in the basic bits? Is it easy to tell how far away their preferred future is? And is it easy for them to get there? ([Time 0:15:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/65e73cdf-ea3f-4ac1-9324-4c57cb1afb69)) - **Activity Is Not The Same As Progress In Open Source** - It's hard for outsiders to judge progress in open source because visible activity doesn't map cleanly to ecosystem outcomes. - Jonathan notes AI work is prominent, but the community struggles to measure whether it advances security, speed, or usability. Transcript: Luke So secure, fast, and easy to use. Jonathan, I have a question to you. Do you think WordPress is making progress in that direction? Is it becoming more secure and faster and easier to use? Jonathan I don't know. As a constituent. Shouldn't you know? Right. You would think. Josepha Haden Chomphosy Oh, as a constituent, yeah. Jonathan Right. But as someone who, like one of the things that I think it's an important moment for this ecosystem, I'm noticing, and Luke continues to give me a hard time about it that i'm doing less With wordpress and more with like just static sites i'm taking things off of wordpress i'm in this moment we've been talking about like over the arc of this season of like it feels temporary And there's this part of me that's like oh i'm expecting that wordpress is going to get easier to use and like more. Well, I don't generally think that much about the security side of it. For better or for worse, I've sort of taken for granted that, oh, it's pretty secure. And the and the performance I do care about. But we're in this moment right now, as I'm listening and thinking about it, that I'm not sure that those, I don't see explicit evidence that those remain like key priorities, right? Right now we're trying to figure out where does AI fit into this stuff? And like, are we making that, I suppose, like easy to use? But it's unclear to me. And when I think about it, I see this tension between what in a proprietary ecosystem become like, you know, you're either paying attention to these things and trying to guide and influence Them or you're not. And then open source, it's like, well, who is doing that? And like, how do you measure whether that's being effective or not? And there's a lot of like, what's interesting to work on is kind of what gets the attention. And we're not necessarily connecting that to like, how is that impacting the ecosystem? There's a lot of good work that happens. It's just hard to to know, like, you know, how at least as an observer, if you're not in it all the time, like, is this is this taking us? Yeah. So, yeah, as someone who has a vested interest from a personal and professional perspective in the WordPress space, it's a bit painful to me that I don't know the answer to that. There's a lot of activity. There's a lot of things that are happening. ([Time 0:16:57](https://share.snipd.com/snip/05a89436-557c-4549-963a-4e55e6c728aa)) - **Letting Streets Fail First Saves Millions** - In municipal maintenance decisions, sometimes letting a failing street fully fail before full reconstruction is the most efficient use of limited funds. - Josepha describes the political difficulty of telling residents it'll cost more if you fix it piecemeal now. Transcript: Josepha Haden Chomphosy And we have people who are saying, we want to be prepared for whatever is coming up in the future. And so like, we also need to be forward thinking about how to solve our problems moving forward. And that is like one of the hardest things when you are thinking about how to build and maintain any ecosystem, or if you already have an ecosystem that's up and running, just how to make It more efficient. Like it is so difficult to have to look at, for instance, right now in my city, we have a number of streets that are absolutely failing because this town was built in 1939 before there were Laws. And so we just kind of like put concrete on the dirt and that's not how you build a road. And now there are also rules about how you build roads. A lot of those streets are really close to like full on failure. And having the conversation with people who live on those streets about, okay, if it's a year away from failure anyway, let's let it fully fail so that we can have the most benefit out Of the two, three million dollars that it's going to take to make that happen. Like no one enjoys the reality of an ecosystem maintenance moment when you're like, the best choice right now is to let that break completely and then we'll fix it. Like that is the least comfortable exchange that you ever have to work your way through. But also it is the smartest use of time and money. And isn't that terrible when people are like, look, I can see the dirt in my street where my child is playing. And you have to say, yes, I know. And also, it's going to cost more money if we don't let it fail first. ([Time 0:22:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/161a9d27-2c5c-4d23-988c-941d616afd36)) - **Public Toilets Are The Boring Essentials You Notice Last** - 'Public toilets' are a metaphor for boring but essential infrastructure people notice only when missing. - Josepha says these invisible needs must be identified and prioritized or an influx (users or visitors) quickly creates problems. Transcript: Jonathan Right. But you notice, people would notice if they weren't there. Like that's something that becomes an issue like pretty quickly, right? Where it's like, ah, we'll get to that. We'll deal with that later. And suddenly you have an influx of people and you don't have facilities for it. It's going to become a problem. What's the public toilets of the WordPress world? That's what I want to know. Josepha Haden Chomphosy Gosh, what were the public toilets when I first brought that up? Gosh, I can't remember what it was, but I do remember that I met a bunch, all of a sudden, of like long tenured old WordPress people at the time. This was 10 years ago. And they're like, now listen, you. And I was like, yeah, I get it. I would hate me too. ([Time 0:27:11](https://share.snipd.com/snip/6608f7e7-a0d4-4224-9e25-9399ed72a069)) - **External Tech Shocks Trigger Local NIMBY Dynamics** - Big external events (like data centers) trigger strong local reactions because change threatens why residents chose their community. - Josepha calls out the classic NIMBY dynamic: people see a problem abstractly but can't connect why proposed changes benefit them. Transcript: Jonathan Because when it first came up to me locally, I was positive. Oh, cool. Data centers, I like data centers, and it's going to bring some opportunities to the area, et cetera. And then I was surprised to see these like strong negative reactions from folks. And I looked into it a bit and, um, okay, there's some interesting points. It's hard for me to evaluate like how legitimate the concerns are about the water usage, et cetera. But I think it's a, it's a good example where, yeah, I can see how in an ecosystem you're going to have people, whether they're accurate or not, are going to have big feelings about things. And that seems like that's an important thing to navigate. In open source, it's something that I think it's a bit counterintuitive because if you pay attention to the loudest voices, then it can seem like you're making progress. But from my perspective, I feel like you could end up missing the bathrooms, so to speak. You could end up missing some core things that need to be addressed. And when I think about the data center's example, I don't actually have a strong enough, I don't know whether it's a good thing or not. Because what I hear people say is not near me. I'm like, well, where then? And um it's like you're just kind of like punting this like throwing out this problem like someone else needs to deal with this and versus uh which seems like the path of least resistance I'm curious for if you have any thoughts on on that like through the lens of your experience the the not in my backyard attitude of things that we have to do to make progress? Yeah. Josepha Haden Chomphosy You're asking the easy questions 30 minutes in. Good job. Yeah, gosh. ([Time 0:28:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/5e68651b-aa03-48ae-9960-34a5821a7aaf)) - **Kids On E-Bikes Expose Policy And Cultural Gaps** - E-mobility (e-bikes, scooters) creates safety issues because inexperienced kids travel at unsafe speeds without prior walking/cycling experience. - Josepha links policy, rules, enforcement training, and long-term cultural changes (get kids walking) as a combined solution. Transcript: Josepha Haden Chomphosy Because, one, I am absolutely 100% in favor of assistive technologies that help people have equal experiences. I am a recent adult return to bicycling, and I don't want to get stuck on a hill. So I have an e-bike that I use, so I never have to worry about being stuck on a hill. My husband, when we first started doing this, was just on a leg-powered bike. That was very brave of him, considering I had a powered bike. And there are e-scooters, which are a real problem. There are all of these mobility devices that are borderline ungoverned. And you don't want to take them away from the people who need them or use them as primary transportation. But you also don't want to leave them ungoverned and run into the issues that we keep seeing around the U.S., which is a lot of child mortality incidents, which, to say it less politically, Kids dying on these things. Partially, and here's where it all feels like everything I've ever done in open source. So partially the answer is about the rules. And partially the answer is helping people who are enforcing the rules know what they're looking for in the way of what's good and what's bad, what behavior we want to incentivize versus The behavior we want to disincentivize. But also the long-term solution is getting more kids walking, which sounds crazy, but it is because people who are on two feet, people who are on two wheels, people who are on four wheels Are all part of traffic. And if your first experience of being a going fast enough to harm yourself part of traffic is on an e-bike that will go 40 miles an hour, then that is actually incredibly dangerous. It's going too fast for you to make the decisions that you have to make to be a safe part of traffic. And you didn't have any experiences with it prior to that. And so like we need to get kids walking on streets so they know how traffic flows and how to do it safely and when to look across streets and not always, by the way. And then like have the basic knowledge so that that is in their bodies and memory before they're going 40 miles an hour with nothing around them and then before they are in cars. ([Time 0:32:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4fe78e71-5751-4a8a-b06e-e84943e0f82f)) - **Start Systems Thinking With Brave New Work** - If you need a practical primer on systems and organizational design, read Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan. - Josepha recommends it as a clear entry point for applying systems thinking when you have more than a few stakeholders. Transcript: Josepha Haden Chomphosy So for one, if you have no idea, if you've been listening to us now for 35 minutes and do not have any idea what we mean by ecosystems thinking or systems thinking. Number one, my elevator pitch did not work. Number two, read the book Brave New Work. It is by Aaron Dignan, probably saying his name wrong. It's fine. It's very easy to find. And it's a pretty steep curve to figuring out what's going on there, but it's written in a way that it makes it first clear that systems thinking can apply to any sufficiently complex Organization and then also helps you to understand what sufficiently complex means. And in general, it means like if you have more than four stakeholders, if you have more than four different appearing types of people involved in your thing, that's complicated, which Feels like a really low threshold, but is also basically, basically true. And so I think that's a great place to start. ([Time 0:37:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/3ee5309a-7619-423e-b243-93e72b24eda7)) - **Opt Into AI Where It Adds Value And Opt Out Where It Harms** - Josepha uses AI selectively: she employs it for summaries and diffs but opts out for search and safety-critical information. - She balances usefulness (speed) with trust and the risk of fabricated or narrow results from AI platforms. Transcript: Josepha Haden Chomphosy Like it's required for people to use it. I hate that. Luke No, just ever stop. I want to disagree with you. Can I disagree with you? Okay. Of course. We have agency. We can choose. I really, I've heard you say that. Sorry. I've heard other people say that a lot and that it's a, it's a requisite where you're just sticking your head in the sand. You got to keep up with the times or you'll be left behind. And that, that feels so wrong to me because I, I want to, I want to say, no, we, we can, if we don't like it, we can choose to reject this. And I have like a feeling, it's a gut feeling. I can't actually give you facts and figures as to why, but I have a feeling that the people who are a bit slower on AI will turn out to be more employable, more useful, more valuable, and Just generally a lot more connected, both to their community. I don't mean connected in an internet sort of sense, but to themselves, to their family, to their community. Yeah. I feel maybe grounded is the word. So I just want to push back against this idea that it's a requirement. What do you think? Josepha Haden Chomphosy So I use AI in specific cases and very plainly opt out of AI in others. And because I agree, like there are areas where using it as a tool to accomplish a task makes sense. And there are also areas where I think it cheapens your experience of doing the thing. Luke Like cycling instead of walking. Yes, yes. Josepha Haden Chomphosy Like cycling instead of walking or like using one of these overpowered e-bikes versus one that just has like general support so that you never get stuck or whatever. Luke I didn't mean to be anti-cycle then. Sorry. Jonathan What would it be like, for instance, the difference between like walking through a park versus like speeding through a park? If the purpose is just to get to the end faster, sure, the bike is great. But if the purpose is actually doing... Or surface roads versus highways. Yes. I appreciate you. Like in the movie Cars, right? Luke You this metaphor far beyond where it was meant to go. We're going to get there. But that's okay. To get off. Josepha Haden Chomphosy Yeah, I mean, so I absolutely do use AI sometimes on a long read to tell me if it's worth me actually reading it. But I don't use it to read it and like then spout information from it because I don't trust that. But like if it gives me a summary where I'm like, that seems like that's useful. I will then go read that. I've done that. I do not use AI in my search at all in my search engine choices. I've opted out of that entirely because I feel like the majority of the world's internet experience is like a Facebook portal and an Instagram portal. And I like to see more of it than that, you know. And so I am, and also they're very easy to trick. I'm looking for like things where I definitely want to make sure that the statistics are not made up or the safety and health elements that I'm looking at are as accurate to whatever study I can find. So like I opt out of it in those cases. But, you know, there are areas where like put these two things together and find the differences, like a diff checker for my writing because, you know, I'm a prolific writer over the Years. Like that's really helpful so that I don't have to personally go through and be like, did I already say that? I said this 10,000 times. Was this one of the 10,000 times? Like that is helpful. ([Time 0:40:44](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1e39940b-9c68-4bad-bb92-1e67605ad27d)) - **Centralized Resources Are Necessary For Decentralized Projects** - Large decentralized projects need some centralized resources to scale and to serve passive users who won't actively participate. - Josepha says centralization is uncomfortable for open source, but necessary to make things efficient and comprehensible to billions of users. Transcript: Josepha Haden Chomphosy I'm going to answer an underlying part of this question first that applies to both of these contexts, which is that open source and cities are currently experiencing this issue with Being able to get information to people, but also being able to get information back from them. It is so hard to hear the people that you're working for right now. True and open source. Like, while I was the ED, I, so much of my time was begging people for opinions and begging people for information, like clear information that went with their feelings. And, and gathering folks together to just listen to them talk to each other, because they're more honest with each other than they are with, in my case now, their city government. But at the time, with me, like my very presence made people slightly less honest. And so when we look at like a centralized thing that is happening to something that was meant to be decentralized, on the one hand, no one likes this answer. And WordPress didn't like it when I started doing it either. But if you want to get much further than you were when I got there, you have to have some centralized resources just to make it all make sense. And also for efficiency's sake. Luke The plug-in directory is a great example of that. Josepha Haden Chomphosy Yeah. And it's super uncomfortable, especially for open source. It's really uncomfortable for people who find themselves in a democracy because it's not a direct democracy in a lot of cases, but like in our city, we would absolutely love it if people Would show up to our town hall meetings and just be like, I don't love that my taxes go to parks. And then we could figure that out, right? I was desperate half the time in WordPress for someone to show up and not only be like, I hate this thing, but then say, because of this, just tell me, tell me the because. If you say that everyone you're talking to is hating that thing because of the color of that button, tell me how many everyones and tell me what the better button might be. And I'll see if we can make those things work out. But like, decentralized nature of things is also in a situation like this, entropy, which can be a catastrophic state for a large organization. Like, I don't know, I don't know much about the movement of information in WordPress at the moment, but I do know that like, if you're looking at 43% of the web, that is a ridiculously huge Number of people that are actively engaged in the thing that you are working on and passively experiencing the thing that you're working on. And like my, our next frontier was getting to those passive people because we had made a tent for them and still couldn't get them. And so, like, the question of how to keep the decentralized value, the value proposition that that brings, while also making it easier to accomplish tasks on behalf of those opinions Is a really, really complicated proposition. ([Time 0:48:34](https://share.snipd.com/snip/272daae3-21ec-4560-a3ab-33a49c195dbf)) - **Josepha's Contact Info And The Hidden Cost Of Publishing** - To reach Josepha, she prefers Blue Sky, Threads, or LinkedIn and maintains josepha.blog (currently bread recipes). - She notes publishing is deceptively hard and that public output hides the expensive final mile of work. Transcript: Josepha Haden Chomphosy Oh, gosh, if you want to get in contact with me, you can pop over on Blue Sky. I hang out over there a little bit. I'm a little bit over on threads. It's just Joseph Hayden, like you've always known me. I'm less on Twitter these days. But yeah, those are my normal places. If any of you have me on LinkedIn, you can also send me a message over there anytime. Jonathan And are you writing? You have a josepha.blog. Is that, what's the, do you have a site? Josepha Haden Chomphosy I do have josepha.blog at the moment. It's like bread. It's my recipes for bread, which is not as interesting as the other things that I've written. But, um, I do have a lot of things that I am writing. Um, and gosh, let me tell you, publishing stuff is not easy. ([Time 0:52:25](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d4015364-3e68-4253-b3d9-568dad26f58d))