sxsw

John Battelle who is behind BattelleMedia is in the unique position to interview Matt Mullenweg not once, but twice this week. The first interview will take place at Signal Austin while the second will be an onstage conversation at South by Southwest discussing the Future Of WordPress. John is asking for people to submit questions for both interviews.

One of the thought provoking questions I would ask is what he thinks about WordPress without him. It’s a question that is possibly impossible for him to answer but I would like to hear his thoughts on which direction he would want WordPress and the non-profit foundation to head if he were to disappear.

The second question which probably wouldn’t be of interest to anyone in the audience is whether Matt actually has any time to just think and reflect about where he’s been and where he wants to go along with the project. I would like him to describe those times of reflection and then talk about the short term and long term future of both Automattic the company as well as the non-profit foundation. While he doesn’t have a crystal ball, I imagine he has plans and goals for 2011 and possibly for 2012. I’d like to know what those are.

I’m just glad they don’t have me on stage interviewing Matt or having a conversation with him because I’d never stop asking questions. That reminds me, it’s about time I have him on the show again.

If you browse around the Automattic About Page, you’ll notice that Matt Mullenwegs official job title is:

As the Chief BBQ Taste Tester of Automattic, Matt travels the world sampling cuisine and comparing it to the gold standard of Texas BBQ.

Of course this is to be taken tongue in cheek but certainly at the SxSW conference this past weekend, Matt was living up to his job title as Automattic and Conjunctured teamed up to have a Texas style BBQ which over 250 people attended. GirlsInTech stopped by and offered desert in the way of cupcakes.

For pictures of the yummy food, check out Andrew Magers post on the ZDNet blog.

All in all, pretty bummed that I didn’t get the chance to go but considering I’m only 25 years old, I can still say “There is always next year“. If you were lucky enough to attend the event, please let me know how it went in the comments.

John Battelle Wants Your Questions

Matt Living Up To His Job Title