Nick Pelton – 
Nick is a Founding Partner and the Director of Development at WerkPress. Nick has spent his whole career creating for the Internet. His ability to problem solve has led to a serious depth of knowledge in interactive software development and design.
Before Westwerk, Nick spent time at several full-service agencies working with a diverse set of brands, including Sanus, Best Buy, Walmart and CostCo. Extending his nerdy pursuits out of the office, Nick keeps himself busy by attending meet-ups, geocaching, playing strategy games and discussing technology.
Nick will be presenting Simple CSS Modifications Using Inspector & Intro to Child Themes for Foundation Friday.
Interview with Nick:
Why do you use WordPress?
From a technical perspective there are many things about WordPress that are lacking, but trying many other platforms over the years I can say it bar far the easiest platform for clients to understand.
What do you like best about WordCamps?
The willingness to share knowledge. I learn so much at every WordCamp I attend.
What is your favorite tip or resource for a new WordPress user?
Become a Google ninja and there is nothing you can’t learn.
What is a common problem you see in WordPress sites, and how would you avoid it?
External dependancies. To many times I’ve had to fix poorly written themes because they forget/assume/don’t care that external libraries like jQuery regularly get updates. Never link to a external “latest” version of a script, you’re just asking for your site to break. Pick a fixed version and set a local fallback incase the hosted version fails.
How do you stay up to date with new information about WordPress?
Twitter, WP-Daily, Google, Reading a lot.
Share an example of a really great (creative, cool, unusual) use of WordPress you’ve seen recently.
http://crowdfavorite.com/capsule/ It’s a Single Page App written in JS using WordPress as the data backend. I feel the web is going this direction and WordPress as an application platform is becoming more feasible.
Do you have any advice for a person who’s building a business around WordPress design/development?
Service. If you want to be successful, you need to have happy clients who refer you. This is true for any service based business.