WordCamp is a conference that focuses on everything WordPress. WordCamps are informal, community-organized events that are put together by WordPress users like you. Everyone from casual users to core developers participate, share ideas, and get to know each other. WordCamps are open to WordPress.com and WordPress.org users alike.What is the name of your company and can you tell us something about yourself?
My company is Evolution Web Development, aka Evo. I was a traditional art director/print designer for about 15 years before dabbling in web design in 1995. I started Evo about 11-1/2 years ago with a partner who left to do something else after a couple of years. I took on another partner who did all the programming and database development, complementing my focus on design. When she decided to do something else a few years ago, I had already been fooling around with WordPress and was beginning to understand what a powerful CMS platform it could be. And I really like being a solo designer/developer: no company meetings, and I get to keep all the money.
Can you tell us why you love WordPress?
Love is a very strong word 😉 What I like most about WordPress is that it allows someone who is primarily a designer (like me) to learn some relatively simple coding techniques and offer clients a completely customized, easy to use CMS. I also like the tons of support and information available on the Codex, Stack Exchange, and developer blog posts.
Finally, I love that WordPress is emerging as the clear winner in open source CMS (sorry Joomla, Drupal, EE developers). I’m getting calls and jobs now because I offer sites on WordPress and have a track record of implementing business sites on the platform. A couple of years ago I had to work hard to sell WordPress as a CMS platform to skeptical people who viewed it primarily as a blog engine. And as recently as 3 years ago, it was primarily a blog engine; but that’s changed rapidly and profoundly since then.
What is your topic for WordCamp?
I’m going to talk about using Custom Fields (CF) and Custom Post Types (CPT) to create a customized CMS. I’m always surprised at the number of WordPress developers who just don’t use CPT at all, and who use CF with the standard out-of-the-box UI. In my opinion, WordPress without CPT and without a more user-friendly UI for CF really isn’t much of a CMS. Is that enough acronyms?
What do you hope attendees learn from your session?
I hope the designers and developers who attend leave with an understanding that a CMS is more than just having a text editor. Because I had experience with other CMS platforms prior to working with WordPress, I understood that the key to being a good CMS platform is the ability to minimize “styling” and to display pieces of data in consistent and functional formats on the website. That understanding is what drove me to figure out how to accomplish that with WordPress.
How do you use WP in your business?
Evo is all-WordPress-all-the-time. I don’t do static sites anymore, and am rarely asked to. I think the expectations about what a website should do for a business or organization – and how it should operate in terms of maintenance and ease-of-use – fits in perfectly with WordPress’ approach. And I think that’s why WordPress is growing so much more rapidly than its competitors.
