Interview

WordPress Community Interview With Blessing Mpofu and James van der Hoven

Posted on Monday, November 28th, 2016 at 9:14 am by John Parkinson

I am publishing two interviews this week because, well, basically I screwed up. I have been randomly choosing people to contact after looking at recent WordCamp sites. I was looking at the WordCamp Cape Town 2016 website and I just happened to contact Blessing and James within a few hours of each other. They both replied that they would be happy to chat.

Blessing Mpofu

Blessing works as a Team Director and Digital Media Manager. He also blogs about inspiration and leadership at blessing.im. On his blog About page, Blessing states the following – “You haven’t led until you lead people who, in a sense, don’t really have to follow you, but do so by choice”.

Blessing is also working toward his degree in Theology.

You may notice a slightly different format to the video. Blessing wanted to use a video conferencing service called Zoom. It worked great! It looks like each person on the “call” can record their own video. There are some other nice options as well.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/11/28/wordpress-community-interview-with-blessing-mpofu/

James van der Hoven

James is the owner of Vane Digital and gave a talk at WordCamp Cape Town 2016 titled “Integrating OroCRM into WooCommerce”. He leads a team who are “capable of implementing the best performing ecommerce solutions for our clients and to ensure the smooth integration and automation of their business processes“.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/11/28/wordpress-community-interview-with-james-van-der-hoven/

More videos from WordCamp Cape Town 2016 can be seen here.

WordPress Community Interview Series – Global WordPress Translation Day 2

Posted on Monday, November 14th, 2016 at 3:52 am by John Parkinson

It was a stupid idea. Contact several groups who were involved in the Global WordPress Translation Day 2, record Skype video calls and splice them all together. Stupid.

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to like the idea. Finally after a week or two of thinking it over I contacted Petya Raykovska of the Polyglots Team and asked if she had any issues with the idea. She was actually excited about it and gave me her blessing.

I began to collect information from the Polyglots Team page on make.wordpress.org. After I had randomly picked 25 teams, I contacted them and asked if they would be interested in doing a quick Skype video call , which would be eventually published on WordPress.TV.

I created a list of the teams that I had contacted and also had maps that I marked up to show the contacts, cities and timezones.

The translation event started at 00:00 UTC on Saturday, November 12th. For me, that converted to Friday evening at 7:00 PM EST. I started my first interview at 10:00 PM EST and recorded the last one at 8:30 AM EST. I was able to connect with 16 teams or individuals. This was short of the 25 I had contacted but confusion on my part about time zones led to a few being missed.

I got to talk with some great people and actually was able to spend some time chatting with 2 people who are on the WPTV Team, Pascal Casier and Olegs Belousovs.

I split the interviews into 2 parts which are a about 50 minutes in length.

I want to thank everybody that I was able to talk with Friday night and Saturday morning. AND I need to apologize to the teams that I was not able to connect with during this fantastic event!

Part 1

http://wordpress.tv/2016/11/13/wordpress-community-interview-global-wordpress-translation-day-part-1/

Part 2

http://wordpress.tv/2016/11/13/wordpress-community-interview-global-wordpress-translation-day-part-2/

For more interviews on WordPress TV click HERE.

WordPress Community Interview With Troy Dean

Posted on Monday, November 7th, 2016 at 9:34 am by John Parkinson

Troy Dean had submitted a testimonial video to WordPress TV a few weeks ago. I thought it was very well done and interesting, so I did a C&C (contact and connect) and the result is the video interview below.

Troy resides in Melbourne, Australia and is the Director of Cool and co-founder at Video User Manuals Pty Ltd. Video User Manual is a video tutorial plug-in to teach clients how to use WordPress. He is also co-founded WP Elevation, the world’s first business accelerator program for WordPress consultants. He is a regular speaker at WordCamps.

Troy talks about the WordPress Community and gives tips for first time speakers. We also discuss issues facing the volunteers at WordCamps who are setting up video cameras to record sessions.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/11/07/wordpress-community-interview-with-troy-dean/

For more WordPress Community Interviews click HERE.

WordPress Community Interview With Sanjeev Mishra

Posted on Monday, October 31st, 2016 at 9:19 am by John Parkinson

I happened to run across a blog article titled 25 Things I Learnt as an Organizer of a WordCamp. It was written by Sanjeev Mishra and was about his experience organizing WordCamp Nasik 2016.

He is the founder of WebFanzine Media which is the parent company of the largest WordPress carousel portal named SliderVilla and most popular documentation plugin named Documentor. He is also the founder of PurposeThemes, the largest multi-author WordPress theme review portal with 2,000+ premium and free themes. He is active in several WordPress Meetup groups.

We talk about WordCamps that are organized in India and the WordPress Community. We discussed Tier II, III and IV cities that refers not only to the size of a city but also the available technology and professionals in the area.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/10/31/wordpress-community-interview-with-sanjeev-mishra/

To see more interviews like this, click HERE.

WordPress Community Interview With Dmitry Mayorov

Posted on Monday, October 24th, 2016 at 9:09 am by John Parkinson

Dmitry Mayorov resides in Moscow, Russia and is a developer and solo practitioner. He said he used to refer to himself as a freelancer but changed after listening to Brian Krogsgard make reference to “solo practitioner” in his Post Status podcast.

Dmitry was the lead organizer for WordCamp Moscow 2016 and is a member of the Moscow WordPress Community Meetup Group.

We discuss WordCamps, the WordPress Community and the Global WordPress Translation Day which takes place on November 12th, 2016.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/10/24/wordpress-community-interview-with-dmitry-mayorov/

WordPress Community Interview With Adam Silver and Kyle Maurer

Posted on Sunday, October 16th, 2016 at 11:59 pm by John Parkinson

If you were looking for an example of a close friendship that was created from being involved in the WordPress Community, look no further.

Adam Silver resides near Los Angeles, California. He is the creator of the KitchensinkWP podcast, a semi-retired professional photographer….. husband (18 years) and father of 3 kids. Adam was the lead organizer for WordCamp Los Angeles 2016.

Kyle Maurer resides in Jackson, Michigan with his wife, Ashley and is a co-fonder of Real Big Marketing. The firm uses WordPress to solve complicated issues for clients. He is the host of the WP Roundtable hangout. Kyle was the lead organizer for WordCamp Ann Arbor 2016.

The two met at WordCamp Dayton 2015 and the rest, as they say, is history. They have combined their talents and have given joint presentations which were very unique. A Rap Battle, a Political Debate and most recently a Super Hero versus a Villain, all being delivered in a humorous manner but still teaching lessons about various aspects of WordPress.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/10/16/wordpress-community-interview-with-adam-silver-and-kyle-maurer/

WordPress Community Interview With Varvara Lyalyagina

Posted on Monday, October 10th, 2016 at 8:54 am by John Parkinson

Varvara Lyalyagina is a WordPress user who resides in St. Petersburg, Russia. She attended her first WordCamp in Moscow with the intent of finding someone to help her with a website. She found that help and so much more. Varvara decided to apply to speak at WordCamp Moscow 2016. You can see her presentation here.

She specializes in helping people setup their blog or websites.

It is easy to see how excited Varvara is about being involved in WordPress. She talks about her first experience of meeting people at a WordCamp and how she is involved in the WordPress Community in St. Petersburg. Varvara said that the local community is in the early planning stages of having a WordCamp in that city.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/10/10/wordpress-community-interview-with-varvara-lyalyagina/

For more great videos go to WordPress TV.

WordPress Community Interview With Caspar Hübinger

Posted on Monday, October 3rd, 2016 at 7:17 am by John Parkinson

Caspar Hübinger is a web developer and is on the support team for WP Rocket with WP Media. He has attended WordPress Meetups, helped organize WordCamps and is active in the German WordPress Community.

We discuss the upcoming Global WordPress Translation Day which will take place on Saturday, November 12, 2016. If you would like to help with this project or watch the live sessions and ask questions. You can sign up here.

This was actually our second attempt for the interview. During our first chat, I neglected to check some settings. The audio was fine but the video was subpar. Caspar graciously agreed that another chat was needed and it turned out great.

Many thanks to Caspar. As has been the case on most of these interviews, it took a few weeks to get together but (to me) it was well worth the wait.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/10/03/wordpress-community-interview-with-caspar-hubinger/

WordPress Community Interview With Doc Pop

Posted on Monday, September 26th, 2016 at 8:18 am by John Parkinson

Doc Pop (not his real name) is a Jack of all trades, a musician, artist, dramatic yo-yoist, and video game designer-wizard. He does the weekly WordPress News Drop at Torque. These are one or two minute videos talking about news in the WordPress world. I had been watching these for several months and finally decided to take a chance and contacted Doc about doing this interview. I honestly don’t know why I worry about being refused. The response and positive feedback is amazing!

Doc talks about his work at Torque (which includes the Torque Toons), attending WordCamps and creating videos.

http://wordpress.tv/2016/09/26/wordpress-community-interview-with-doc-pop/

To say that I get pumped up when I do these interviews is an understatement. I always learn something new about this Community that we are involved in.

WordPress Community Interview With Daniel J. Lewis

Posted on Monday, September 19th, 2016 at 10:20 am by John Parkinson

Daniel J. Lewis has a passion for podcasting and for helping others in their podcasting endeavors. It is easy to get caught up in his enthusiasm. I feel fortunate to have been able to chat with him for a few minutes.

I thought it might be interesting to interview somebody who uses WordPress to leverage their business.

He is an Internet entrepreneur, award-winning podcaster, podcast consultant and has been the keynote speaker at several conferences.

Near the end of the interview, Daniel discusses his search for a plugin to meet certain needs and the steps he used to find what he needed. It is worth listening to.

With Daniel being a professional, I was somewhat hesitant to interview him as I feel that I have a lot of room for improvement as far as my podcasting skills. But like all of the other interviews, he was eager to talk about his profession and was a gracious guest!

http://wordpress.tv/2016/09/19/wordpress-community-interview-series-with-daniel-j-lewis/