If Micah Wood couldn’t make being a ninja his full-time job, a WordPress Developer is a strong second-place contender. As an active member of the WordPress community, Micah has been a frequent speaker, co-organizer, and leader of the meetups in the local Georgia community. We sat down to chat with him during WordCamp Europe about his time contributing, community mentors, and why Egypt ranks as his go-to travel destination.
It’s so nice to sit down with you, thank you for taking the time to speak with us Micah!
How did you get started on WordPress?
“My journey started with the internet because I was running a lawn care and martial arts business and I wanted to grow my customer base online. I started learning how to build a website with HTML/CSS and created a static site for my lawn care company. I then decided to learn PHP which helped me create a dynamic website for my martial arts studio that enabled people to login and view their belt level curriculum.
A friend introduced me to WordPress and I moved my dynamic site over to WordPress.”
That’s really cool you ran 2 businesses that led you to WordPress. When you started getting involved with WordPress, how did you become interested in contributing?
“I didn’t contribute for a long time. I was involved with the WordPress community and built things for WordPress, but I officially started contributing to core once I started working at Bluehost.”
What’s your favorite part about contributing?
“My favorite part is talking at WordCamps, helping at meetups, and connecting with people outside of being online. I love to write code, but there’s nothing like a face to face connection.
The coolest thing is that our meetup group has four locations that didn’t exist a few months ago. We started out in a single, central location and have been strategically picking locations around different parts of the county to help serve more of the community interested in WordPress.”
How would you describe working on the contributor team with people who share the same passions as you?
“I’ve been rotating between different teams and it’s been really cool getting to meet people here at WordCamp Europe who I’ve been in contact with, but never met in the US.”
What’s the hardest part about contributing?
“I remember that when I initially started it was challenging to find a place to start when you’re first jumping into a project. If you have something specific you are looking to work on, that can make it easier, but often times you still have to communicate with other team members and make sure you aren’t working on top of each other.”
Along with contributing, you were also apart of the WordCamp Atlanta organizing team, what was your role?
“I was in charge of the schedule for all the speakers who were at the conference.”
There are so many opportunities to work with awesome people in WordPress. What does the word “community,” mean to you?
“Community to me, means people working together. I have found it difficult to plugin to other communities because while they appear to work together, they are more competitive than collaborative. WordPress to me means collaboration over competition.”
Do you have any community heroes or mentors in WordPress?
“At this point, I’d say Jon Desrosiers. He does a great job and I have been impressed with the number of tickets he touches.”
We couldn’t agree with you more, Jon is fantastic! You’ve been involved with WordPress over a decade, how has it impacted your life?
“I remember when I had the lawn care company I worked with spreadsheets and used them to automatically configure what I needed for costs, products, and property estimates. Looking back now, it is obvious that I was hard-wired for programming.
I’ve always been attracted to the business/logistics side of things. Now I get to include those skills in my daily job with WordPress.
I like WordPress because it has made me genuinely enjoy the work I do. I get to create cool things and work with people who enjoy what they do. I’m able to help provide the tools for people from all around the world to accomplish their goals.”
Why do you think Bluehost is the perfect place to WordPress?
“It provides me with an amazing opportunity to connect with people at WordCamps. I’m able to be sponsored and supported financially and that allows me to give back to a community I love.”
As a creative, inspiration is a driving tool for how we express ourselves, what inspires you to create?
“I have lots of ideas and if I don’t do something with some of them, I’ll go crazy.”
If you could create anywhere in the world, where would it be?
“I have not traveled much until recently, but I’d like to go to all the places I have not been to. Egypt, Greece, and Ireland have been places I wanted to visit since childhood. I’ve always wanted to go inside a pyramid, solve the puzzles, and crack the code!”
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us Micah, we look forward to seeing you at future WordCamps!
Bio:
Micah Wood is a WordPress Developer at Bluehost. A professional WordPress developer for over a decade, Micah has worked on sites for Fortune 100 companies, has released over a dozen WordPress plugins, is a frequent speaker at WordCamps, co-organizes the WordPress Gwinnett meetup, is a co-host on the WP Square One podcast and shares his knowledge by blogging on WordPress development topics.
Check Micah out at:
Website: about.me/wpscholar
Twitter:
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