Tell us a bit about yourself:
I was born and raised in Brazil and have lived in the US for the past 18 years. I met my wife while attending college in Florida, and we now live in Grand Rapids, Michigan where we are raising our 6 great kids. I have been in software development for 12 years and web development for about 7 years. I have worked as the Web Producer for a large non-profit for the past four years while also starting my own business with a couple of partners. I am neither a WordPress guru, ninja, black-belt, author, or a consultant, and I have been know to forget to capitalize the “P” in WordPress from time-to-time. However, I do use WordPress daily in all areas of my life ranging from personal projects to complex business implementations.
Please share a brief history of your work with WordPress:
I launched my first WordPress blog about 5 years ago when my mother wanted a personal website. It was mind-numbingly easy compared to other web publishing tools out there, so I was sold. I have since launched dozens of WordPress sites and have convinced dozens of people to use WordPress as their CMS. The success story doesn’t end there, many of the sites that I have helped launch and/or migrate have seen significant increases in traffic and in revenue as a direct result of moving to WordPress.
What is your favorite plugin?
I have enjoyed using BuddyPress and wp-ecommerce lately, but I really have a thing for home grown custom plugins.
Tell us about your latest WP project:
I am in the process of releasing a plugin, now called KickPress, to the market which I have been using for the past 18 months on several projects including odb.org, utmost.org, christiancourses.com, discoveryseries.org, getmorestrength.org, and the soon to be released redesign of rbc.org (alpha.rbcministries.org still in alpha) that has many great features that I can’t wait to demonstrate during the session.
What inspires you?
A passion for learning, creativity, and problem solving.
Any tips for people just getting started with using WP?
Don’t be afraid to spend money on a well written premium theme, it will save you a lot of time and hassle.
What do you like about Chicago?
Our family really enjoys making memories in Chicago. My favorite location is the Buckingham Fountain where my wife and I were engaged in ’96, and my favorite adventure was running the Chicago Marathon with my wife in ’03.
What is your idea of success?
Being the best that you can be in your given field.
Why did you choose your topic for WC Chicago?
“Beyond the Theme” describes my WordPress journey over the past few years as I have implemented some very complex corporate web strategies. At the heart of most of these strategies is the need to have WordPress work more like an API centric content repository than a blog. I believe that others will see great value in this topic as well.
What do you hope the attendees will get out of going to your session?
Throughout the talk several real world examples using a WordPress based API will be reviewed so that by the end of the session there will be clear and tangible ways that theme and plugin developers can integrate these simple concepts into their next WordPress project.
Contact information:
@davidscotttufts
