Kyle Maurer –

Kyle will be presenting Shortcode Shenanigans on Friday in the Foundation Friday 201 track

Kyle Maurer is the co-founder of and lead developer for Real Big Marketing. He has been developing websites since 2009 and is passionate about WordPress as a CMS and development platform.

Working with WordPress multisite, developing plugins, creating complicated websites for small businesses and attending WordPress Meetups and WordCamps are among Kyle’s favorite things. Bacon is also nice.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
I use WordPress because I haven’t encountered a website related project yet that I can’t handle with it, because it has a thriving user base and is very well supported, because the WP community is the freaking bomb, and most of all because people pay me for doing this.

For a more eloquent explanation, refer to my origin story on my wordpress.org profile.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
If you come to this WordCamp I’ll give you a bazillion dollars and I won’t kidnap your dog.

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
Nothing beats the plugin projects. Unfortunately my true favorites are not quite complete yet. Hopefully some of them will be ready to go live by the time WordCamp Chicago rolls around.

Other than that, I published a couple little plugins last fall for things like enhancing Google Adwords campaigns and showing Christmas song lyrics in the wp-admin. Plus I’ve made tons of websites.

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Try not to think of code as a four letter word but rather something that can really empower you. As much as you don’t want to mess with code, your clients want to even less and will pay you well to do it for them. Embrace this reality. Learn to do it right.

Also, follow coding best practices, study the codex, attend WordCamps, focus on quality, raise your prices, don’t hire anyone you’d have a hard time firing, use contracts with every client, don’t do drugs, wear your seat belt at all times, listen to Bob Marley, help out on the .org support forums

Don’t fear the code.
Don’t settle for mediocrity.
Immerse yourself in WP.
Say yes to things you have no clue how to do.
Vote for Pedro.
Wear your seat belts.
Eat more bacon.
Talk to Chris Lema.
Buy a really comfortable office chair.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
Do I have to choose just one? Yes? How about no? Ok. I’m gonna just ignore that.

The codex
make.wordpress.org
ManageWP.org
ChrisLema.com
CSS-Tricks.com
PippinsPlugins.com
Twitter
Local meetups

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
I play guitar. Does anything else really matter? If you walked up to me and said “Hey, Kyle. You want some of this free beer?” I would most likely say “Yes”.

Joshua Alexander –

Joshua will be presenting Plugins and Dashboard on Friday in the Foundation Friday 101 track.

I own a small development company in the SW Burbs of Chicago that caters to other agencies. We do custom WP work such as theme development, plugins, and modifications for other tech companies.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
WordPress is flexible and the open source nature and the community make it all worth while. The people you meet in this community are awesome and that really does help in the development and growth that WordPress sees.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
Its a great group of people to network with. For the techie crowd its great to have others that understand our language. For the non-techies its a great way to realize the technology that is available and a place to pickup techie people for your organization.

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
I’m doing more web based application development now so that has been an interesting development for me at least.

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Come out to the WordCamp you can talk to those that are already running businesses in the industry. You’ll find that the community is very friendly and helpful to making sure you can get going the right way and can provide help if needed.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
I’d have to say github because of the broad code you can get and use there. Although I’ll throw a plugin for Desktop Server from ServerPress as well for local development environments.

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
Non WordPress related I’m an advocate for Autism Awareness I personally have PDD-NOS which is a form of Autism and try to break the stereotypes of what people see on television about us.

Ian Wilson –

Ian will be presenting Understanding WordPress Filters and Actions on Friday in the Foundation Friday 301 track

In past lives Ian has been a lead developer, lead designer, and Huffington Post guest blogger (among other things). Currently he runs design & code agency build/create alongside business partner Eric Lynch.

As a self taught developer, Ian started using WordPress in 2007, and immediately started looking for ways to better exploit its then more blog-oriented functionality for content management. Since then he has built a business around providing clients with WordPress powered sites that meld design and code into a seamless, intuitive, user experience.

Interview:

Why do you use WordPress?
I use WordPress because it makes for a better experience for my users, period. I love the community, and I love developing for it, but at the end of the day it’s about providing the best and easiest to use product for my clients, and WordPress allows me to do that.

What would you say to convince someone to attend a WordCamp?
Inspiration is a necessary part of life, and for me there’s little more inspiring than getting together with folks that share the same interests and problems and seeing how they tackle the same work you do. It opens up whole new ways of looking at your work.

Those little breakthroughs are what make WordCamp such a great investment in your professional skills, and loads of fun to boot!

What is your favorite WordPress project you have worked on recently?
We’ve been working on running more of our business on WordPress, and to that end I’ve been developing a CRM plugin. Basically just taking our sales process and turning into something that runs entirely on WordPress- from contact entry, to generating proposals, to reporting on close rates. If it turns out good we’ll probably release it as a premium plugin on our forthcoming plugin/theme shop.

Do you have any advice for someone looking to start or grow a WordPress based business?
Network, network, network. The WordPress community is amazing, leverage that to your advantage and you’re off to a great start. Focus on making sites that your clients aren’t afraid to use- they’ll be less likely to get broken over simple updates. Then either they can update their own site, which they’ll love you for, or you’ll at least make it easier on yourself to do the maintenance work.

What is your favorite WordPress-related resource?
The WordPress Codex! I swear I still use it all the time as a reference, few documentation repositories are as up to date and useful.

Tell us something awesome about yourself that is not WordPress related
I’ve been getting into making curry lately and it has been a complete revelation. I try to eat low carb a lot of the time, which sometimes means eating a lot of the same types of food over and over again. Curry has changed all that, so at least on a personal level, I think it’s pretty awesome.