Summary
AI Cedric
The conversation introduces Laura Sacco, a longtime member of the WordPress community and a familiar presence at WordCamp Europe. Although Laura describes herself as shy and initially hesitant to appear on the podcast because of her spoken English, her extensive involvement with WordCamp Europe has connected her with people throughout the international WordPress community. She and Bud first met at WordCamp Europe in Athens, where Laura was a speaker team lead and helped prepare Bud for his presentation about using low vision as a tool for teaching WordPress. Laura recalls the talk as particularly meaningful because it gave attendees a firsthand perspective on living with a disability that is not always visible.
Before entering the WordPress world, Laura spent roughly 30 years working in Italy’s social-services sector. Her career included living and working with children experiencing family or economic difficulties, helping care for them while they awaited adoption or a possible return to their families. She later moved into management, became president of a social cooperative, trained nonprofit managers, and worked on social-innovation projects. After having her two children, her career began shifting toward communications and brand identity, including helping create an early static HTML website. That transition eventually provided a bridge between her decades of social work and her later career in technology.
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Laura’s life in Italy remains an important part of the conversation. She lives near Susa, a historic town in Piedmont close to the French border, and enthusiastically recommends Turin, the Langhe wine region, and Susa to visitors looking beyond Italy’s best-known destinations. She also enjoys cooking and baking traditional Italian foods, including handmade pasta, lasagna, pizza, and bread, and maintains an Italian food blog called Orto in Pentola. Travel has often been connected to WordCamp Europe rather than tourism for its own sake, giving her opportunities to spend additional time in cities such as Paris, Porto, Athens, Barcelona, and Kraków. Her visit to Auschwitz and especially Birkenau after WordCamp Europe in Kraków left a profound impression on her.
WordPress ultimately became much more than a professional change for Laura. She describes organizing WordCamp Europe as almost addictive because of the opportunity to work internationally, meet people, and eventually turn those relationships into friendships. In 2018 she began working for Yoast as a support agent and remained there for seven years. Just as importantly, WordPress transformed her confidence in speaking English. Although Italian schools taught her English grammar and reading, she says they did not prepare her for real conversations. Working with international WordPress teams became her “gym” for actually speaking the language, teaching her that successful communication matters more than perfect pronunciation or vocabulary.
The interview closes by showing how closely Laura’s professional and personal worlds have become intertwined. She talks about her interest in Spanish and Latin American literature, her hope of practicing Spanish at a future WordCamp Europe in Málaga, and her experience living through the COVID lockdown in rural Italy. While isolation was easier because her family had outdoor space, she was exceptionally busy supporting Yoast customers and helping a local nonprofit communicate rapidly changing COVID regulations to social cooperatives serving vulnerable people. Across her stories about social work, family, food, language, travel, and WordPress, a consistent theme emerges: Laura has spent much of her life connecting with and helping other people. WordPress gave her a new international setting in which to continue doing much the same thing.
What’s Laura Up To? Find Out At The WP World