As we navigate the new terrain of hosting a 100% online event for 2020, we are excited to announce our keynote, who is an experienced speaker and a familiar face to past WordCamp Kent attendees. This year’s keynote speaker is Steve Grunwell!
Steve is a Senior Software Engineer at Liquid Web, working primarily on the Managed WordPress and WooCommerce platforms. Specializing in WordPress and web application development, he has a passion for teaching and contributing back to the development community through speaking, blogging and open-source work.
Get to know Steve in our Q & A below, in which he shares more about his background and what inspired his keynote session, “The World Beyond WordPress.”
Q: How did you get your start with WordPress?
A: My first development job was at a small agency, and we took great pride in building custom content management systems for clients. While it was a great way to learn, there was an awful lot of code copied between projects, and this was an environment where package management was non-existent and version control was a foreign concept.
One client came to us and wanted a blog, and had heard about this tool called “WordPress.” We decided to give it a whirl, and though I absolutely butchered the site, I was a huge fan of not having to rewrite everything from scratch. When I moved to a larger agency a few months later, I quickly became the go-to on WordPress-related issues after I published my first plugin, which then snowballed into more plugins, blogging, and eventually speaking.
Q: What got you interested in speaking?
A: I have a theatre background, so being on stage isn’t really a big deal. I had also wanted to be a teacher for some time during high school, so when I realized I could teach one session at a time and get to travel I was all over it.
| Q: WordCamp Kent is going online this year! How do you think it will differ and/or be the same as the regular live events? A: I’m saddened that I won’t be able to visit my favorite Kent haunts, but taking WordCamp Kent online also opens up a whole host of new opportunities: travel costs are no longer a factor, which means WordCamp Kent can host attendees from all over the world. I’m especially interested to see what this does to the speaker pool, since it’s usually very focused on Ohio, Michigan, and Western Pennsylvania.Overall, it’ll be a far different experience, but I’m excited to see how it all goes. Who knows? WordCamp Kent 2020 could serve as a template for a whole string of virtual WordCamps moving forward! Q: With your experience as a speaker, what is special about the WordPress/WordCamp audience? A: WordCamps generally have a more “please, inspire me” attitude about them. At more technical conferences, I often have this nagging “is this going to give people enough value to justify their ticket/travel costs?” voice in my head, but WordCamps are typically more relaxed. I obviously still want to make my talk(s) worth the price of admission, but I know I’m also likely going to have at least a few “I’m not a developer, but the topic seemed interesting” attendees in even my (very development-focused) talks. Q: What inspired the topic of your keynote session? A: For too long, I’ve heard developers in the WordPress ecosystem be surprised to hear about the larger PHP community, but I’m the developer today because I’ve looked beyond the gates of WordPress. I’m a developer who happens to write PHP and work in WordPress, I’m not a “WordPress developer” or even a “PHP developer.” The same goes for those in other specialties: An SEO specialist should know not just how to make WordPress do something, but also see what the larger ecosystem is doing (and, if Wix is doing something that WordPress isn’t, let’s build it!). WooCommerce shop owners aren’t just competing against the other WooCommerce sites, they have to contend with stores on Shopify, Squarespace, and every other eCommerce platform. WordPress is simply a tool that helps us get where we want to go. The more we can learn from the larger communities surrounding our areas of expertise, the further we can go together. |
Thanks to Steve for sharing more about himself and his background. We are looking forward to hearing from all of our speakers at our virtual conference, May 30-31! If you’re interested in being a speaker, you can apply by April 17th.
Tickets are available now – we hope you’ll join us for a weekend of learning and networking from afar. Be among the first 150 to register to be a part of our swag order!