“Democratize publishing” remains one of the most inspiring calls to action in all of open source software. It rings true for me personally because figuring out how to wield WordPress to publish quickly and freely set me on my unexpected path as a web developer.
In the nearly two decades since I first got up and running with the Famous Five-Minute Installation I’ve seen the “democratize publishing” mission reflected just as much, if not moreso, in the community of WordPress than in the software itself. From the high-quality sessions, to the Happiness Bar, to the Hallway track, the people of WordPress raise the bar for what websites can be by lowering the barrier to entry.
At this year’s WordCamp MSP we’ll have at our booth a few Pantheon locals eager to chat about anything and everything WordPress related, but in particular:
- Dan Ficker, a Staff Customer Success Engineer who lives in St. Paul, loves to discuss how to improve backend PHP performance in a WordPress application.
- Amber Thompson, a Senior Technology Solutions Consultant from Minneapolis, is eager to talk about how to leverage developer tools to level up your WebOps maturity.
- And me, Steve Persch, Director of Developer Relations, I’ll be coming over from the southside of Minneapolis, looking to chat with anyone leveraging AI to make their programming work more efficient.
My short drive on highways 62 and 77 will be faster, but perhaps less enjoyable than my first trip to a WordCamp MSP in 2016 which I made on a motorcycle coming up from Milwaukee. A few years later the vibrant scene of professional web development in the Twin Cities brought me here permanently. I, and all of Pantheon, are proud to support local events like WordCamp MSP.
See you at MOA!
Steve Persch
Director, Developer Relations at Pantheon