Josh Broton Interview

Josh Broton is speaking on WordPress + React: A Match Made in Heaven at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

The last two years, a much higher percentage of my time has been spent writing JavaScript instead of pure WordPress themes. I missed the sanity of the WordPress admin, but not the PHP requirement for the front-end. This topic allows me to combine two of my favorite technologies.

How do you “create intention” in your job, career, or life?

Every decision I face, I make 100% sure that I understand and can express WHY I do what I do. Sometimes the answer is simple, like “The money is good.” But being a dad has changed me so much. Simple decisions are now looked through the lens of, “How will this improve the lives of my daughters”, and “what life lesson with this teach them.” It’s weird and scary and awesome.

If you were a WordPress Plugin, what Plugin would you be and why?

Advanced Custom Fields Pro. It does a bunch of stuff really well, and people still use it for a bunch of other stuff that it has no business doing, but they’ve figured out how to make it.

If you were not doing your current job, what profession would you be in and why?

A geologist. South Dakota has some of the most interesting geology in the country, and I find it fascinating.

What professional and/or research resource(s) can’t you live without?

Axel Rauschmayer’s JavaScript blog (http://www.2ality.com/) is my weekly goto for advanced JS and ES6 information.

Amy Gebhardt Interview

Amy Gebhardt is speaking on From Junior to Senior: Why we Teach at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

I’ve been teaching with Girl Develop It Minneapolis for over a year now. I love the idea of teaching people how to code and bringing more brilliant diversity into the industry and into my teams. I noticed recently how very different my patience level is while I’m actually at work working with my colleagues, both junior and senior. I’m in “teaching mode” at a GDI class, but when it comes to my day job, I’m in “coding mode”. Finding the love for teaching while at work has been challenging—but it is necessary. My motivation for this talk came from the fact that companies and developers—myself included—are fearful of that junior dev hire, of what it will “cost” us to bring them into our teams. In reality, we should be leaping at the chance. After all, we have the opportunity to teach someone to live and breath our code base before anyone else’s.

How do you “create intention” in your job, career, or life?

As developers, it’s easy to simply go “through the motions”—we can quickly become these little coding monkeys and build whatever thing it is that we need to in that moment. This “monkey” feeling is not sustainable. We spend way too much of our lives “working” to do something that is anything less than brilliant. Creating intention, for me, is about being on a team and finding joy in working on a solution to a problem that is truly challenging, but one that, at the end of the day, you can sit back and be genuinely proud of.

If you were a WordPress Plugin, what Plugin would you be and why?

Probably something that would share a random, motivational, cheesy message—something similar to the random Slack greetings. I like the idea of being something that makes someone’s day a bit brighter.

If you were not doing your current job, what profession would you be in and why?

I would most definitely be a camp counselor of some sort, being outside, working with kids, playing silly icebreaker games, etc. I did this for a few years in high school and absolutely loved it.

What professional and/or research resource(s) can’t you live without?

Stack Overflow.Caffeine.People.

Reid Peifer Interview

Reid Peifer is speaking on Beyond The Loop at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

WordPress is extremely effective at managing and presenting content in a certain ways, and it can be challenging to break out of those molds — if you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. I’d love to see us as a community help WP evolve to solve different kinds of problems more effectively, and use the tools that WP already provides to solve familiar problems more uniquely.

How do you “create intention” in your job, career, or life?

We’re really big on intention at Modern Tribe. Our leadership team retreats 4 times a year where we kick off with by asking the question “Is the business still taking you where you want to go?” We also don’t position work/life as oppositional concepts — work is just one of many pieces that make up a life, ideally with all of them intentionally lived.

If you were a WordPress Plugin, what Plugin would you be and why?

The Image Widget — everyone’s worth 10,000 words.

If you were not doing your current job, what profession would you be in and why?

I’d run a burrito & beer shop. Though the plan isn’t to do that instead of my current job, just expand our reach to include tubular food product.

What professional and/or research resource(s) can’t you live without?

I tend to be a book reader more than web surfer when it comes to learning (I might be one of the few who is sad about the death of the modern book store. Browsing design books online sucks).

Travis Totz Interview

Travis Totz is speaking on Defining a Clear Path at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

As designers we often forget about answering the simple questions before we embark on a design project. I’ve seen this happen throughout my career, and by answering simple questions like: what am I actually setting out to create here? …can truly be the difference between a successful project that helps my clients succeed, or one that creates a mess of a project.

How do you “create intention” in your job, career, or life?

I think the most simple way to help create intention in your entirety of life is by living a life that you love. This clears your mind to be intentional throughout your career and creates that balance between work-life and life-life.

If you were a WordPress Plugin, what Plugin would you be and why?

Gravity Forms. Because it is seriously well loved and beautifully well done, and I know that being well loved as a plugin would be a wonderful feeling.

If you were not doing your current job, what profession would you be in and why?

If I was smart enough I would love to be an astrophysicist. Because understanding more about the birth, life and death of stars, planets, galaxies, and other objects in the universe is absolutely fascinating to me. (And Neil deGrasse Tyson is my hero!)

What professional and/or research resource(s) can’t you live without?

Designspiration, Pinterest, Awwwards, old turn of the century design books, and my co-workers at Modern Tribe.

Eryn O’Neil Interview

Eryn O’Neil is speaking on Programmers Can UX Too: Avoiding the Programmer’s User Interface at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

With more and more of the world running on computers, and with users demanding more and more mature interfaces, developers can’t rest on “good enough” any more. I am really excited to help WordCamp attendees learn how to make better software and happier users.

How do you “create intention” in your job, career, or life?

I always try to keep the big picture in mind: Who needs what I’m building? What do they need it to do? What real problems faced by real people am I solving? It’s easy to get detached from the end-product if you start seeing our job as a series of technical challenges, but knowing your users goals helps keep the work meaningful.

If you were a WordPress Plugin, what Plugin would you be and why?

Disable Comments, because the internet doesn’t need another comment section.

If you were not doing your current job, what profession would you be in and why?

My “other job” is teaching blues dance, a partnered social dance that was the precursor to swing dancing. If I were in a tragic accident where I lost my ability to type and sit for hours, but somehow could still dance, you’d find me in a blues bar.

What professional and/or research resource(s) can’t you live without?

Twitter. Would we have an industry without Twitter? #unrecognizable