WordPress has been a part of my life for nearly 9 years. This particular blog was created for a class I taught on free and easy website creation at my alma mater. I demonstrated Weebly, Wix, and Google Sites, but I spent the majority of time focused WordPress. I outlined the differences between WordPress.com and a self-hosted site running the software available from WordPress.org.
I’m very proud to say I now work at Automattic, the company that manages WordPress.com. Okay, it’s actually been sine last August and I’m just now getting into regular blogging.
WordPress was the solution to a problem I was having. I knew basic HTML and some CSS and had used those skills to create sites for sharing my artwork. If I wanted to make a change on one page, say the footer, I needed to make it on all of them. And there was no real easy solution to making galleries on a static HTML site. I started doing some reading and found WordPress and gave it a shot. I’ve lost count of the number of sites I’ve created for friends, clients, and myself, but it’s something that I truly love.
I work on a product called Jetpack, though not as a developer. I often test new releases, help with marketing materials, and, more recently, send merchandise to events around the world. Jetpack is another product I’ve used for years and it’s been fascinating to see the internal workings. The short explanation of what Jetpack does (a question I get frequently) is bridge the two versions of WordPress to add functionality to your self-hosted site.
I’m looking forward to seeing what the future holds with this job. I certainly never expected to be here, but I’m glad that I am!
TV show referenced: Read All About It!
Stephen Quirk 