Quick Overview

WPShout kicked off in 2009 and has been bringing a range of free resources, insightful opinion pieces, and useful tutorials ever since. With pieces on everything from the economics of premium themes, to comparison pieces on WordPress hosting services, with a side order of free ebook, screencast tutorials and more besides, it’s well worth your time.

Image based on shout by Krista Baltroka, CC-BY-2.0.

Quick Overview

Post Status is the brain child of Brian Krogsgard, who you recently met in our Code Poet interview. If you’re looking for a short-form blog that shares the best new writing about WordPress — hand picked by Brian or submitted by like-minded readers — with a pinch of context and commentary, you’re not going to be disappointed. Save yourself some time trawling the web and head over there.

Image based on Post-It Art 2 by Chris Friese, CC-BY-2.0.

You have a background in industrial engineering. How did you get into working with WordPress, and have you found that your industrial engineering background has influenced your work with WordPress?

I’ve always been intrigued by the web, but I didn’t give any real consideration to building websites until I was in college at Auburn and thought I had a few good website ideas. They weren’t good ideas, but fortunately I managed to find WordPress in the process of figuring that out. I continued to be fascinated by how easy it was to create a basic website with WordPress, and for a while would periodically tinker with a new idea, but between 2008 and 2010 I was much more focused on my new engineering career.

I started blogging around mid-2010. I was hacking around with my personal website and of course coming up with new ideas. But this time around I realized that I enjoyed making websites more than I believed in any of my ideas for websites. I also realized just how much I liked to write. I got hooked on WordPress and web development in general and never looked back. I spent countless hours reading, tinkering, and blogging so I could learn more and more about WordPress.

Early on, I don’t know that my Industrial Engineering degree did too much to benefit my web endeavors. But now that I am a full-time programmer and consultant, I consistently see the benefits of my Industrial Engineer’s mindset and focus on core business goals in tasks that I perform. Plus, Apple CEO Tim Cook is an IE grad from Auburn, so I feel like that gives me some major street cred, right?

At what point did you realize that you could make a living with WordPress, rather than tinkering with it as a hobby?

By spring 2011, I knew that what I was doing wasn’t going to fulfill my career ambitions. I had found my professional passion, and I started thinking about how I could possibly work on the web full time. I knew little to nothing about professional web development or the WordPress economy, and I certainly didn’t know just how in-demand WordPress developers were.

I thought I was going to have to take an enormous leap of faith and leave a well-paying job with great benefits and become a freelancer. So I just kept building websites for family, friends, and fun to help prepare myself. And then in August 2011, I saw a tweet from one of the largest and oldest web development agencies in the state promoting a full-time position for a WordPress developer. I was shocked, and felt like I must at least send them an email, even though I still didn’t think I was quite “ready.” A week later, I had a job offer in hand from Infomedia to be their lead WordPress developer.

You recently launched Post Status. How do you pitch that to the unawares, and what inspired you to put it together?

I typically define Post Status as a “WordPress News & Links” blog, but really it’s just a short-form blog where I link to things I like while adding a bit of context to the conversation. Also, other people periodically submit posts that they find interesting. I’ve enabled up-voting on the site as a method for visitors to offer additional insight to other readers on whether the linked post is interesting or not.

I put it together simply because I wasn’t satisfied with existing methods for consuming WordPress-related information. I’ve always enjoyed Hacker News for broader tech news aggregation, but it’s still a bit impersonal and obviously not WordPress-centric. I also love the style of the Next Draft newsletter, as it’s a collection of the top ten news items every day, curated by Dave Pell. Dave’s own “voice” really shines in his newsletter, while simultaneously driving me toward the articles he links. My goal is for Post Status to be like a hybrid of the two.

Tell us a bit about the thinking behind how Post Status works, and how you set it up to be as democratic and user-focused as WordPress from the get-go.

I’ve seen a number of WordPress news sites come and go, for a variety of reasons. But most WordPress news comes by way of a blog post anyway, so re-writing longer-form blog posts as “news” is a bit silly in my opinion. So Post Status merely attempts to drive traffic to the source, and add context in as few words as possible to help readers discern whether they want to read the original article.

I rely heavily on user feedback, submissions, and validation (by voting) in order to make Post Status its best. In a perfect world, Post Status would be a go-to resource for anyone interested in WordPress. I want it to be part of people’s daily routine. And I can’t do that alone. If Post Status helps someone’s blog get more attention when they’ve written great content, and also offers a source of quality information to readers that they otherwise may not have found, then we all win.

By day you’re the lead WordPress developer at Infomedia. Can you think of a project you’re particularly proud of having worked on recently? What made it stand out for you?

One of my favorite sites we’ve done at Infomedia is Weld for Birmingham. Weld is a weekly paper in town that has done a great job of balancing print and online media. They have a small staff, but they also encourage community members to start their own blogs on Weld. I love how passionate they are about Birmingham and how focused they are on high quality local journalism.

From a technical perspective, we built a responsive parent theme using the Hybrid Core drop-in framework and a child theme for the blogs in their Multisite network. We’re using a custom post type and Posts 2 Posts so they can relate their online articles to their print issues. During the process of building this site, I discovered just how much advertising technology isn’t keeping up with responsive design.

My talented coworker, David Hickox, is responsible for the beautiful design. Weld is engaged with their online community and they love WordPress. They are a joy to partner with, and the project has been very rewarding personally.

How important has the WordPress community been in getting and keeping you involved with WordPress, and would you encourage others to get involved on some level?

My relationships with other members of the WordPress community are incredibly important to me. I wasn’t hired at Infomedia because I was a proven developer. They took a chance on me, because they were just getting into WordPress, and saw my commitment to staying engaged with the community. I learn every day from many people in the community, and cannot stress enough just how valuable my relationships are. WordPress has a very special community atmosphere, where even the most talented WordPress professionals in the world are approachable and helpful.

My wife jokes with me about my “internet friends,” and I always love when I get to turn an “internet friend” into an “in real life” friend at WordCamps and meetups.

You’ve written about pricing products and services on your blog before. What’s the most important thing that someone just getting started with their WordPress business should keep in mind about pricing, and what do you wish you’d known years ago that you know now?

Clients hire consultants for tasks they can’t handle themselves. Therefore, creative and technical aptitude is assumed from the get-go. Being a great programmer isn’t going to make a client an advocate. Excellent communication skills, complete honesty, and doing what you say you’ll do will make a client an advocate every time. We should price our work based on the value we provide to the client, but we also need to make sure the client will look back on the project as a positive experience as a whole. They will never see the value in our code if we don’t communicate properly and make good on our promises.

As far as more practical pricing tips from some people I really respect, the Code Poet ebook on pricing is exceptionally good. I promise I’m not just saying that because of this interview. Mark, Remkus, and Shane are all top notch members of the community, and it’s very nice of them to share their knowledge and experience.

I certainly wish I knew a few years ago just how in-demand WordPress developers were. When I first thought about making the jump, I didn’t know how many agencies were seeing the popularity of the platform and desperately trying to find talent. I could’ve started working full time with WordPress sooner than I did. You’ll never think you are “ready” as long as you are learning, because you’ll always see things you still don’t know. I tell aspiring developers to just go for it. Start sending emails to local (or remote) companies and give them an honest overview of your skill set. Someone will love to hire you, and then you can learn on the job.

How important would you say it is to provide documentation or training to clients, and what’s in it for the designer-developer itching to move onto the next project?

Unfortunately, building something doesn’t mean the user will automatically know how to use it. Documentation and/or training is pivotal. I talk a bit more about how to offer users help on WP Realm, but in addition to those methods, nothing beats real in-person training. I usually leave training sessions with more personal notes on things I can improve in the UI interface of a particular feature, just from watching them use it for the first time, than items the client requests.

As for what’s in it for the developer, nothing is worse than building a feature that goes unused. And if they don’t know how to use it, why would they?

Tell us about the Happy Theme you designed and shared with the community, and what you learned from the process of putting it together?

The Happy theme started as a project to design and develop a theme I’d release to the public. However, I simultaneously needed a new base theme for our Infomedia client sites. So, Happy hasn’t really become the finished theme I wanted it to be yet, because I focused on creating a base theme first.

On our client sites, we use a forked version of Happy that we’ve consistently iterated. We were in need of a flexible theme that we weren’t afraid to fork when the work necessitated it. Because it’s built on Hybrid Core, that’s easy. The framework lives in the “library” folder, but doesn’t assume anything about the theme markup or specific features. Therefore, we can build most sites as a child theme, but if we need to fork the parent, it’s no problem.

Before long, I’ll finish up the Happy theme the way I initially imagined it, with all the goodness and flexibility of our Infomedia base theme. Then I’ll finally submit it to the repository. In the meantime, patches are welcome!

The biggest thing I’ve learned in theme development so far is that thinking through a theme architecture only goes so far. Nothing beats putting it to the test in the real world to see how both users and other developers will use it. My teammates at Infomedia make for a great test group!

Which three things would you underline as essential to anyone wanting to carve their own place in the competitive WordPress design and development world?

1. Never stop learning. New trends and techniques are always emerging. I often finish a project and immediately want to go back and change something based on a new technique I learned. Read blogs, books, and follow industry folks on Twitter to stay up to date.

2. Blog. We build things for other people every day using WordPress. We need to eat our own dogfood and use WordPress ourselves. I’ve learned so much by blogging consistently, both about how to use WordPress efficiently and just by writing about topics I want to learn about. Also, blogging has helped me get my name out in the community more than anything else I’ve done.

3. Be nice. There are enough inconsiderate people in the world. Follow the golden rule. Treat others how you would want to be treated, whether they are a client, a colleague, or a random person you encounter on the internet. This isn’t always easy, and I often fail, but if we all made a conscious effort to be nice to one another in our daily interactions, the world would be a better place.

How did you first get involved with WordPress, and what brought you there?

I’d started blogging back in the days of hand-crafted HTML, when the blogging crowd was called online journallers. They were like a pack, hunting for the next big breakthrough in making all this easier so we could spend more time writing and less time coding, when we weren’t coders. It was a great, small-knit community, where it seemed everyone knew everyone else.

And back then, there were really very little places to host your own blog for free, or close to it, and forget about a domain name. They were $75 dollars. A year. Essentially for a minor hobby in an age when most businesses didn’t even have a website.

So I went from the five megs of free space my ISP gave everyone (databases were extra), to something called Pitas, and LiveJournal, and eventually Movable Type, because it looked easy enough, it had pretty themes, and there was even a community. With the licensing change of MT 2.6, a lot my friends and I jumped ship. Someone mentioned WordPress as this new up-and-comer. It seemed easier, with a slightly geekier, home-grown community. That appealed to me, as it seemed Six Apart was going more corporate and shunting the one-off bloggers on to their own devices. Of course, shortly after they launched Typepad, but by then I was eyeball deep in WordPress 1.5. It had this cool new templating system, so you could do more with themes than just edit the CSS. Something new for me to figure out and play with.

When did you first get involved with the community side of the project, and what role has it played in your life and work so far?

Fast forward a year or so, and I was involved with a subset of the online journalling community and had connected with a number of homeschoolers writing about their experiences. We were in the middle of homeschooling our three kids (at least the three we had then) so an online support system was crucial for sharing information. It turned out there was a magazine that had started a blog hosting service and a number of homeschoolers rebelled against the advertisers and didn’t want to be associated with that site and their values.

I had an idea; what if someone started a small site for these homeschoolers, that was like the fledgling WordPress.com. I started researching how WordPress.com was built and found the WordPressMU project.

So here I was involved in one community sharing knowledge, and had just found another community struggling to share information about this new software as well, with less people using it. The fact that a large business venture had essentially provided the bulk of the code to start up potential competition just blew my mind.

I saw a number of people in the forums struggling to find answers, and as I was asking I would supply the answers I found and figured out.

It was a really interesting puzzle to sort out, and I was excited to share what I learned. There was near-instant validation and it was immensely gratifying to help others.

You’ve written and co-written several WordPress-focused books. What did you learn from the process and what are you proudest about having shared through them?

The biggest things I learned from the WordPress All-In-One and the great editors at Wiley, was that you can never break down the information too far, and you can never assume the reader is building on what you wrote previously.

They could pick up a book, or my ebooks, and start in the middle, skimming or not even reading. So it’s best to reiterate where needed and just not assume the user has done any of this before. I sometimes forget, but I get reminded quickly enough.

I do see it relating to the years I spent homeschooling, as I have also taught my own kids beginning HTML/CSS skills and basic computer literacy. So often I try to roll back and get in the mindset of teaching my kids again. I also learned there is no such thing as too many screenshots.

My proudest moments I think come from the private emails I get on occasion that start something like “Hi, you don’t know me, we’ve never spoken online or off, but your posts/ebooks/book has helped me so much…”

There was one email in particular where the woman who emailed me started out this way, then went on to say she was also a homeschooling mom and by following my writing wherever it was, she had gained enough knowledge to start freelancing and earn money to provide for her family. I was so blown away, I don’t think I could even reply for a week without finding words.

So I would say I’m most proud that people have been helped that much, that they’ve created their own careers.

What would be your top three tips for effectively documenting something as complex (and potentially mind-numbing) as software?

Somewhat covered above, but included here as well: Do Not Assume. An example is if a user has to FTP something. Yes, you really do have to walk them through FTP or provide a link to the documentation on that.

The second would be to provide clear, cropped screenshots, with explanations for each step. Multiple screenshots are better, rather than one large one with arrows and circles. It’s too confusing for a first-time user.

Try to include exceptions at the end, not where they might occur. They usually serve to confuse more than they help.

And above all edit and re-edit. Get someone else to read it over, and once you find a format that works, stick to it.

Where does documentation most often go awry?

Assuming previous knowledge without referencing it is a biggie. Including too many anecdotes, grammatical errors or just sloppy writing.

Long walls of text are also daunting for the user. The text should be in short, digestible bites. You’re walking the user through a series of steps to complete a particular task. You’re not writing the next best-selling novel.

You’ve been a force of nature when it comes to helping people get to grips with WordPress MU/Multisite. What drew you into this aspect of WordPress and what does every designer/developer need to know about it?

I hope I’ve been more like the coming of spring and less like a hurricane! Just an awareness of what it does and the limitations. I usually tell people it’s like running your own private version of WordPress.com, and when they really grasp that, then it suddenly makes sense.

You really are levelling up your own skill set by knowing what it is, how to enable it and how to just move around the admin area. Even knowing when to use it and when not to use it can be an education in itself.

I’d say now it’s about 98% the same as working with a single instance of WordPress. Just do what you normally would. Mind you, it’s that last 2% that is the tricky bit.

As someone who’s educated your own children and taught yourself a swath of skills, what would you say are the merits of taking a hands-on approach to learning, and what do you think makes learning easier for someone just getting started?

Be fearless! The biggest stopping point I see is that people are afraid they are going to screw it up. Guess what? You probably will. And that is okay. You can set up a practice site and there are ways to recover errors like white screens and fatal errors. It’s a fantastic puzzle and breaking things is how I figured out some of the more intermediate things.

I tell people all the time, I’m not coder. I can read a bit and get the jist of what the code might be doing, but I can’t really write any from scratch, and that’s also okay, because I know how to troubleshoot and how to fix mistakes.

Don’t think of it as a waste, either. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to get WordPressMU up and running. I don’t mean hours here, I mean weeks and multiple false starts.

I easily have a dozen really ugly themes I built from the original Classic WP theme. They will never see the light of day, and I’m not really sure what hard drive they are on. But they were not a waste of time, because I learned a lot about theming, and a ton of CSS.

So enjoy the process, sometimes the finished product is not what you are going for. Think of it as a real learning experience, because it is. There really are no dumb questions, just answers you don’t have.

And if you take a backup, it can always be restored. Set up a second install somewhere and practice on that. Blow it up safely, and have some fun doing it.

The breadth of creative, hands-on things you get up to is mind boggling, from growing your own food, to sewing, to writing books, the list goes on. How far do you rate creativity as an important part of making your way in the world, and do you have any advice for staying creative?

Creativity is hugely important to me. I’ve discovered that I need a creative outlet of some sort, or I’m just not a happy content person. If I don’t have time to stop and just create something, enjoying the creative process, I get a little cranky.

That’s why it’s important to take breaks in the work day, to give your mind a rest. One corner may be working on code problems, but on a creative break, another side of your brain kicks in, giving you a rest. Sometimes while working on a quilt, I’ll suddenly have the answer to a tricky support question even.

Making time for creativeness is also important, even if it is just a mental break to stare off in to the distance. A lot of creativity can be tactile as well, and for some that physical contact and working with your hands make a nice counterpoint to all the digital mental creative work we do. Creating a site that lives on the internet and maybe has a lot of visitors can seem a nebulous at time. But creating something like a quilt? You can see it as well as touch it, feel it, wrap up, and stay warm in it. It’s satisfying in a different way.

I’ve been super into the process of creativity the last few years, after trying multiple disciplines. As a family we tend to dive all in to something and had amassed a crazy amount of arts and crafts supplies, plus a library to match. For the things we tried that we no longer do, I wouldn’t call it a failure at all. Even if my knitting is the crookedest thing you’ve ever seen, I discovered what I did and did not like. Ron, for example, took up stained glass, and at the time I tried it as well. I discovered I have no strength in my hands at all, and the process was too fiddly and exacting for me. He, however, has created beautiful works, and since I at least attempted to learn, I can truly appreciate all the work that went in to even a small piece.

Once you have immersed yourself in a topic, and found what you liked and did not like, you can also see the commonalities with other things you have learned. For instance, I signed up for a handful of online quilting classes. One of them is discussing color theory. Color theory is also used in theme design, and while I’m not a theme designer, having this sort of backing really does help me when I get the odd question thrown at me about suggested color schemes for certain themes, for example.

Noting the similarities and things you can take from one discipline to another is a creative excercise in itself too. I think also if you’re open to being more creative, you start taking a bit more risk and trying new things in your other works. Sometimes things even work out. At least you’re still learning.

I find the entire WordPress project is an exercise in creativity. I think that’s what attracted me, the constant questioning of how could this be improved? What happens if we try this? What about this aesthetic for the admin area? What happens if we do this?

And even if you aren’t a part of the contributing process, there’s still the option for every single site out there to be different from each other, just by the themes and plugins chosen and how the site is arranged.

Even when I’m on a break and listening to my online classes, a part of my brain is noting things like, how is this site laid out? Are things easy to find for a new user? What technology are they using? How is the documentation here set up?

And it’s funny, because the classes I’m taking are laid out very similar to the advice I gave above. So it really is universal.

Tell us about your role with CopyBlogger and what you’re most excited about working on there.

I love my job. I could set that up as an auto-tweet for twice a week, and it easily holds true. I have seen other freelancers wonder aloud about what it would be like taking a “real” job somewhere and for us, it’s been pretty awesome.

I have a lot of autonomy and responsibility for my day-to-day work. It’s super important to me that I can just go do a lot of my job as I see fit, without someone making sure I did it right. I don’t have to fill quotas or show up at particular times. It’s extremely flexible and a great fix. I also find that in a strange way, I’m helping more people.

I think one of my most satisfying moments has been when Brian Gardner has asked me to write up a tutorial for a new theme and other than some small details, basically said to do the bulk of it as I saw fit. To go from someone who saw him emerge at a leader back in the Revolution days to having him trust my judgement is really overwhelming if I stop and think about it. It’s immensely satisfactory, career-wise.

There’s also a sense of teamwork, like we’re all in this together. We do have departments and different product teams, and a support team, but they can occasionally overlap and there’s this sense that what one of us thinks about an issue really matters, and we have to freedom to take the initiative on things under our control.

It’s also remote work like Automattic, so at Copyblogger we really can relate! We have a group Skype chat where we can check in and just maintain contact with each other throughout the day and well into the evening. It goes a long way in cementing relationships.

Also, the witty banter on Twitter between us? So funny. It helps we’re all geeks of one sort or another too.

You do a lot of work with your husband, Ron. What’s the secret of working with your spouse while staying sane? More seriously, how do you make sure the two of you maintain a work-life balance, if such a thing exists?

Ron would say it’s probably headphones.

All kidding aside, I think the biggest difference is that I was used to him being around a lot anyway, because of his former contract work. In talking to many people, they just aren’t used to being around their spouses all week, working or not. Once you get over that hurdle, the rest is not quite as difficult.

Not to say it was easy — we did have to juggle some tasks between us, and figure out how to talk about the work we were doing and be able to offer criticism. There’s a lot of mindfulness in how we speak to each other, and an awareness of who we are, both individually and together.

Sometimes we do tag team some items and he’ll get me to answer some support questions for his free plugins, and there’s a whole conversation we don’t need to have because I’m familiar with it already and I know what to say. Probably a benefit of being married so long and working together.

We did quickly find out our strengths and weaknesses and divided the work accordingly in the beginning. Now that we both work with Copyblogger, a lot of my work doesn’t overlap his, so on really busy days we have to make sure we take those breaks I mentioned above, and also spend some of that time together.

It could be as simple as walking around the block, going to get the mail, or running an errand together and maybe picking up some coffee on the way.

Now we can also take actual days off, instead of being “on” all the time as freelancers. Those days we try and enjoy the family. It’s marvellous.

We’re really lucky.

Finally, which were your top three most worn out tapes for that beautiful beige breadbox of computing the Commodore 64?

Oh, those were the days…patiently waiting for the tape to rewind. And now if a three gig download doesn’t finish in a minute we get cranky.

I admit I had to Google to try and jog my memory a bit, and oh the finds!

Spy vs. Spy — I remembered this one on my own. I spent hours at this, trying not to get blown up and trying to blow the other guy up. And the graphics for them were so similar to the cartoon, I remember thinking it was amazing.

Impossible Mission (omg almost forgot that one!) — a side scroller action packed, avoid-the-shooting-machine-guns game. Tricky! It was so difficult at the time, I can’t remember getting anywhere closer to the end, but I know I got through a few levels.

Little Computer People — I barely remembered it, but I do remember I spent quite a bit of time at it. So funny, because it’s basically a sim game, but very early version. I still play a lot of Sim games, watching people wander around their houses.

It’s funny how my preferences for gaming haven’t changed much, just the hardware and graphics have.

My grandfather introduced me to computers, because he was really into radio and he saw this as an extension of that kind of communication. He’d take me to shareware meetings across town, and that was when I was introduced to the concept of sharing software. Funny, because when I learned WordPress was free and open source, it just made sense to me.

I remember one day I went to my grandparents’ house and Grampy was so excited, he wanted to show me this new computer program. It was for the Commodore, but instead of typing things in to start a program, it was another program to do this for you. And instead of typing you could click images of the programs you had installed. It was going to be huge he said, this type of program could make it easy for everyone to have a computer in their own home.

And just yesterday my granddaughter Izzy was here, using my iPad like a pro. The job she’ll have at my age probably doesn’t exist yet. At some point, I know she’ll learn how to use WordPress.

It’s just in her genes.

Header image based on “My lovely mother” by @fevered, All Rights Reserved.

How did you first get involved with WordPress, and what was it that drew you in?

I started doing front-end design work as a hobby in 2000 — back then, I was working primarily in static HTML (Dreamweaver, FrontPage, et al) and that progressed into working with some of the blogging systems of the time — mostly Movable Type and Greymatter. The b2 blogging platform was in my periphery, but not something I’d ever used before, until a friend of mine brought it to my attention in 2003 under a new name, WordPress. I got the “Try it…you’ll like it!” sales pitch from my friend, so I did. Movable Type was my primary platform at the time, and I was pretty frustrated with the system and having to rebuild all archives anytime I made a change to the templates or CSS…which, today, is not something we can imagine, much less tolerate. I tried WordPress in 2003 and fell in love with the simplicity of it.

How important (or unimportant) has being involved in the WordPress community been for you to date, and how, if at all, has that changed over time?

Though I’ve been a WordPress user since 2003, I didn’t really get involved in the community until around 2006, or so. I was never really used to a platform having a “community” — Movable Type didn’t really have one, certainly not one that extended offline; and none of the other platforms I was using at the time did either. So the whole community thing was a relatively new concept to me, but a very valuable addition to my personal and professional life. Even now, after 10 years, I am sure that I am not AS involved in the community as I would like to be. For me, the biggest challenge is finding the time for volunteering in the areas of the community that interest me.

My primary community involvement revolves around WordCamp and Meetup events because I do enjoy sharing my experiences and knowledge with other users, and on the flipside: learning from those far more skilled than I. I enjoy the give and take those events have to offer. Last year (2012), I think I spoke at a total of 12 WordCamps and four Meetups. My involvement in these events have affected my professional life, as well as my personal life in extremely powerful ways. Professionally, I have made some of my strongest contacts for business and collaboration through these events and, personally, I have made some of the strongest friendships with people — some of whom I consider as close as family.

All in all, I think involvement in the community, on any level, is going to benefit you professionally because there is always something more to learn. Discovering how other developers are using WordPress and finding out what their workflow is has been invaluable to me, as I learn and grow as a developer. I have learned more from the likes of Brad Williams, Cory Miller, Dre Armeda, Mark Jaquith, Michael Torbert, Ryan Duff, Andrea Rennick (and so many more I’m not mentioning) on developing with WordPress and entrepreneurship just by simply listening — either to their official talks, or just general WordPress banter over lunch or drinks. There are folks at these events who really, really know their stuff and the advantage to having access to brains like that is huge. That is one of the many things I do love about the WordPress community is that users, at any level, do have access to the brains of people that really know what they are doing with WordPress. Developers, core commiters, themers, etc., — they are accessible in a way that I’ve not seen in other communities — and that is a very valuable thing.

What challenges did you face when you first set about working professionally with WordPress, and what would you have done differently in retrospect?

I learned WordPress by breaking every WordPress site I could get my hands on — mostly my own. I don’t have any formal (or informal) training in programming, design, development, etc. I just knew I found it fascinating and fun, so I just decided if I just took a leap — feet first! — I would eventually figure it out. I would say the years between 2003-2005 in WordPress, for me, were years of breaking and fixing…and then breaking and fixing. Back then, WordPress core was this big mystical beast that I didn’t understand. It worked, and for that I was grateful — but I didn’t understand it at all. I just went about my way, developing sites on a wing and prayer! I had the front-end design skills down — I could do graphics, I had a solid understanding of HTML markup and I could code up a mean stylesheet, but my first few years in WordPress themes and templates, I was flying by the seat of my pants, and my work definitely reflected that. I should publish the code from some of my early, early work for everyone to have a hearty chuckle at, because it is entertaining to me to go through some of those files.

In retrospect, I would have reversed my process and started out trying my best to understand core. I would have spent more time in the Codex and whatever documentation was available at the time and I would have participated more in the support forums and mailing lists, interacting with other developers to really learn the platform from the ground up. I also would have definitely invested in some practical courses or books on the basics of PHP, MySQL administration and then extended to JavaScript and jQuery. Figuring it out “on the fly” is actually fun (if not sometimes very frustrating), I enjoyed the challenge of it, if I’m honest. However, if I had it to do over again, I would have abandoned my “cowgirl” coding practices and prepared myself with a bit more education and study. Maybe then I could have understood why things were breaking and could probably have saved myself hours of headaches trying to make them work again. Education and knowledge brings confidence to your craft, and I didn’t always have the confidence that I do today.

How has writing books about WordPress informed your design and development practice and vice versa?

Speaking of doing things on the fly! If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I ever imagined myself the author of a suite of books on a software program, my answer would have been a very confident: NO. And yet, today I have four books out. Three of them in multiple editions, at this point. So, I guess life throws curve balls in your direction and sometimes you have to go with it.

When I was first asked, in 2006, if I would be interested in writing a book about WordPress, for new users, I was pretty excited. I knew WordPress pretty well, by then — from a users perspective, at least. The first edition of my first book, WordPress For Dummies, hit the shelves in 2007 and it did well, however the readers of the book wanted more out of it than information and instruction on how to use WordPress to publish content. The reviews started coming in from people wanting to know how to create themes, how to develop plugins and how to use WordPress as a CMS. For the second edition of that book, my editor also wanted me to add more meat to the book, to give readers what they were asking for. This really forced me to step up that education process I spoke of in the previous question. By 2006, I knew themes pretty well and was already doing client projects that involved using WordPress as more than just a blog (eCommerce shops, magazine/media outlets, etc.) — so I needed to put all of that information in the book in a way that was easily consumable by the reader. The second edition came out with chapters on developing your own theme — including a step-by-step walkthrough on creating a theme from scratch using basic template tags and theme practices. That remains the most popular part of the book today, almost seven years later.

That book is currently in its fifth edition, undergoing the sixth as I type. Keeping up with rapid WordPress development in print is not the easiest thing to do and it’s really forced me to keep up to date with ongoing development, changes, new features, deprecated features, etc. I strongly believe this has made me a better developer because now I’m looking at things a lot more closely and critically than I was five or six years ago. Professionally, I’ve improved my ability to advise my clients on best practices and keep them abreast of changes, upgrades, features, etc. I, also, had to really look at my code with a very critical eye and make sure that what I was doing was current and in line with today’s best practices. It was eye opening, humbling, and very valuable to go through that process — but necessary because I needed to make sure that what I was publishing was the most current and best way to get the desired outcome. As a result, my code on my own projects started to improve a great deal — so it benefits me as an author, but also as a developer to be involved in this book project.

Is it the job of a designer/developer to inform or educate their clients as they work together, or is that beyond the call of duty?

I strongly believe that education is a critical piece of client services. It will always depend on the specific project you’re working on, but I don’t think a designer/developer, involved in client services, can get away from educating their clients in one aspect or another when it comes to WordPress. Support is key and it doesn’t matter if you are doing custom work for hire, or if you are in product development; everyone, rightly, expects support. With support, comes education.

I think any developer or designer who says that client education is not their job is in for some pretty tough client relationships.

As a female entrepreneur, have you found any additional challenges along the way in what has been typically perceived as a male-dominated field? Is the WordPress community any different to the tech community at large in that respect?

This issue is brought to my attention on a regular basis, more within the past year, as the topic of inclusivity and diversity is brought more to the forefront, particularly in the area of events and conferences. However, that is about the extent of my experience with being a woman in the WordPress community and the tech community at large — I hear about it. I read about it. I recognize that women in technology have experienced challenges along the way, however I cannot say that I have, personally, nor have I ever really witnessed blatant sexism or harassment in my own corner of the tech world.

I find WordPress, the platform as well as the community, to be filled with progressive types…people who are forward thinkers and people who are not always satisfied with the status quo. I believe that progressive attitude and approach toward development tends to bleed over into other aspects of their personalities and lives, as well — so, without question, it extends to the acceptance that women are as capable and talented as their male counterparts. Other female members of this community may want to weigh in on their experiences — I can only speak to my own and say that if I have ever witnessed a moment’s pause over my gender in this community, I didn’t notice it or it wasn’t brought to my attention. In the WordPress community, at least, it seems like a non-issue, to me. However, that does not mean that we should be happy with maintaining that as status quo. I think the WordPress community is doing much to the effort of keeping it that way and presenting a model to the tech world, at large, on how life should be for women in tech.

I am very grateful to be part of a community that has never made me feel “less than.” I’ve only ever experienced open minds, willingness to teach and to learn and acceptance from both males, and females, alike in my 10 years.

Ok, ok — there was this one time at a very recent WordCamp when I was attending a speakers’ dinner…I introduced myself to a developer (male) and explained what it is I do and got this response: “You develop in and write books about WordPress, AND you’re a WOMAN?? Wow — that’s awesome.” Yeah, I happen to think that’s pretty awesome, too! So, maybe I have experienced a handful of…let’s call them “teaching moments.” But nothing on the scale of some of the things I’ve read about out there — and nothing that couldn’t be resolved by taking some time for a little one-on-one education so the next time that guy runs into a woman developer, he won’t act like he’s seeing a three-headed purple giraffe. If I were a betting woman — I’d bet that guy now has a full grasp of the concept that woman-as-developer != alien life form.

Regarding experiences I’ve read about in other communities, my feeling is this: If you don’t want women to feel different, or awkward, in your community — then don’t treat them differently. I start by making the assumption that open communities are open to anyone willing and wanting to join and I, personally, don’t wait for permission to do so. Don’t treat me with kid gloves. Don’t treat me like an anomaly that needs to be coddled and specially cared for. Don’t offer me special discount pricing for your event just because I’m a woman. Don’t paint my tech books pink or wrap code in butterflies and bows in an effort to help me understand it better. Don’t put me on your speakers’ list to fill a quota — do it because you think I have something to offer the community, because of my skills, talents and experience — not because I wear a bra instead of a jockstrap. Being a woman is not a qualification for a job or a speaking slot, anymore than being a man is. If you tell me you’re filling a quota by having me involved — you’ll find my resignation in your inbox faster than you can say “Girls Rule and Guys Drool.” This isn’t rocket science — it’s about common sense, respect, and decency. Any community, tech or otherwise, that struggles with those three basic human traits have far larger problems than girl germs and cooties.

The WordPress community excels at fostering an open environment and speaks for itself with the amount of very very talented, capable and kickass women involved in the project and community. Ongoing efforts that continue to promote and showcase that is a testament to the open environment that is fostered here and opens the door wide open for women, in fact — anyone from any walk of life, to feel welcomed, accepted, and invited, at any level.

How conscious have you been of positioning yourself and your work, and has that changed over time? Does good work market itself, or is marketing something that needs as much attention as designing and development?

It was in 2004-2005 when I started doing client work in earnest, and in the Fall of 2005 when I quit my full-time job as a Registered Nurse to do client work full time, working from home. Back then, there were but a handful of design shops that were doing WordPress work and word of mouth travelled fast. In those days, I got most of my work based off referrals and having my published work in a portfolio that was accessible to anyone thinking of hiring me were the only marketing I needed to do to keep me busy on a full time basis. That was then…

These days — you can’t spit on the internet without hitting a shop that specializes in WordPress development. The competition is much heavier than it used to be and shops really need to stand out from the other to keep up. That being said, I’ve never been much of a “marketer,” either and today, I still rely on word of mouth and referrals for the primary source of my client work. I think a good body of work does speak for itself — but find it also gives other people something to speak about. Networking works so much better than outright advertisements and old fashioned cold calls. Although, I do have to say that one of the largest projects I was involved with over the past 12 months has come to me as a result of an old fashioned cold call — which is something that was an isolated incident; cold calling is not something I’m fond of doing, nor is it a regular practice of mine.

I have a bit of an advantage over most, however. The books I write are a great marketing vehicle and I get a fair amount of referral work from that. Not every shop or freelancer is going to have the benefit of a book under their belt, so they do have to find their own niche to make a splash in the industry and start people talking and referring projects in their direction. I do find that another benefit of being involved in this community is the networking abilities that are out there. Every shop and freelancer who offers products or custom client work is a source of referral and collaboration. Being involved in the WordPress community is a great marketing tool that people may not have considered, but if I were still a freelancer today; my contacts in the community would probably keep me busy on a full-time basis, so much so that I wouldn’t have time for traditional marketing.

What advice would you give to someone looking to make a career change and get involved more heavily in professional design and development with WordPress?

Three things: education, community, and collaboration.

The education advice goes back to my earlier answer in terms of preparing yourself with the knowledge you need for success. Things are much different for you now in 2013 than they were for me in the early 2000s because WordPress has not only grown as a platform, but the education and resources around WordPress have grown as more and more people use it. Get to know the best practices and integrate them into your workflow so that they become habit and become the rule, rather than the exception. For each theme and each plugin that hits the interwebs, the more best coding practices we have in place, the better WordPress, and the community and users are for it. Use the Theme Check plugin to discover what your theme may be lacking and learn about deprecated functions and how to update them, turn on WP_DEBUG to discover any errors, notices or warnings in your code, read up on the recently published official Theme Guide from WordPress.com, check out the Codex for plugin practices, localize your themes and plugins — I could go on. But learning the best way to go about your work and keeping up with standards will put you on the path of success with your projects.

Getting involved in the WordPress community is also very beneficial for all the reasons I’ve already outlined in this interview: networking, learning, teaching, exposure, etc. Don’t discount how very beneficial it can be to be involved with some of the brightest minds who shape the development and future of the platform you are working with. Getting involved in Trac and helping squash a few bugs can go a long way in your education process, as well as help the platform evolve and grow for everyone’s greater good. Stepping up to speak at a WordCamp or local Meetup will help you meet people who are trying to achieve the same goals you are — these events are great for that.

Finally, collaboration has been a big part of my work for the past several years in this community. Don’t look at your competitors as competitors — rather, look at them as potential opportunities for collaboration, resource and knowledge sharing. I have discovered time and time again that my competitors are not my enemy, as they may be in other industries. On the contrary, some of my most respected peers and closest friends are competitors in this business in one way or another — but we all bring a little something different to the table. I have learned from so many of them, and hopefully vice versa.

What are you most proud of having worked on in your WordPress career to date?

Hands down, the books that I’ve published on WordPress are something that I am particularly proud of, mainly because of the huge amount of effort involved in writing a static book on such a dynamic platform.

Having designed or overseen the design of over 1000 websites now, how has your design process evolved over time and what do you consider to be essential — or inessential — to every job?

A bit about design vs. development — I do both and over the years my process has changed on how I approach both.

When I refer to the “design” of a project, I am referring to the front-end work that goes into it — primarily the graphic design, HTML markup, and CSS. Through the years, design is a never-ending college course for me. I am self-taught, so am accustomed to self-learning, and in design, things are always evolving and changing. I started out as a static HTML designer who did table-based designs and mocked up graphic concepts in PaintShop Pro. These days, I use Photoshop tools for design mockups, I abandoned tables for CSS in 1999. Every day since I started designing is a learning process for me, as I think it’s important for anyone working in this field to keep up with the evolving technology. One of my favorite resource sites for this is Chris Coyier’s CSS-Tricks. More recently, probably within the past two-three years, I’m finding myself doing less and less design and more and more development as clients are approaching me with their design work already completed. I’m still doing some of the front-end CSS and markup work, but in terms of graphic design work, I’m doing so much less of that these days. I think that is either because clients are becoming more and more educated and skilled in areas they didn’t used to be — or my client pool is made up of larger entities who employ in-house designers and agencies that do their branding for them. Probably a little of both.

From a development perspective, I think I described a little of my pain early on in my career in an earlier answer. Over the years, I’ve added new techniques and tools to my workflow that have greatly improved my efficiency and skill. Version Control is not always something that I always employed, for no other reason than the fact that I just didn’t get it and I was always so busy, I didn’t take the time to learn it. Once I got it, I could kick myself for the years that I didn’t use it and now cannot imagine living with out it (big shout out to Brad Williams for knocking me over the head with it until it sunk in). Now, I’m comfortable in both Git and SVN — but I used to read tweets from people like Mark Jaquith and he’d tweet something about “cowboy coders” who code on production sites without using version control…yeah, that was me. These days, I sing the praises of version control and would say to any developer who is not using to make it part of your regular work flow immediately — it is never to late to learn it and employ it and you’ll be happier for it.

You recently decided to merge your company eWebscapes with WebDevStudios. What motivated the change, and what new business affordances are you most excited about now that the wheels are in motion?

Funny thing about WebDevStudios is that, up until very recently, they were always a competitor of mine in the custom WordPress space. Looking back on the earlier question where I discuss competitors being a potential for opportunity and collaboration — this is a good example of that. Brad, Brian, and I met in 2009 at a WordCamp I organized in Chicago, and have been friends since then. Over the years, I always envied the fact that WebDev operated as a team, whereas I primarily operated as an individual who occasionally outsourced to freelancers when the project load got too heavy. I operated eWebscapes like that for almost 12 years and I think it was in 2010 that it began to dawn on me that I could probably accomplish a lot more as part of a team, rather than on my own. Through my experiences collaborating with other shops, like iThemes, for example — I really began to appreciate a team environment of collaboration and cooperation and in 2010, I started to quietly look for a team to either merge with, or join because I could see the benefit. I like the collaboration. I like the ability to bounce ideas off other developers — use them as a resource, and also be a resource for them. I was missing that in my work. Brad, Brian, and I started talking about merging, in earnest in 2012. By then, I was drowning in work at eWebscapes — not only with client projects, but also managing other projects that I had my freelancers working on, as well. The projects I was managing and developing were not small projects — so it was quite a challenge to do it all on my own. Merging my client base with WebDev’s client base is a win for everyone involved and merging talents and resources is, as well. It was probably the best move I could have made and am more than thrilled to have done it…I’m hoping Brad and Brian feel the same way!

We officially merged in January 2013 and have been spending the first couple of months of this year transitioning, which hasn’t been painful at all. In terms of the future — I’m excited at WebDev. Brad and Brian are both brilliant developers, along with every single member of the team. I’m really proud of what they’ve accomplished so far and proud that they are blazing the trail in the area of using WordPress as an application framework, a topic that Brad is speaking on at WordCamp Miami in April 2013. They have developed some pretty amazing apps using WordPress, and BuddyPress, at the core — unfortunately I am not yet able to disclose those projects, and the apps are not currently public, but I can say that I’m excited at what is currently brewing at WebDevStudios, proud to be a part of it and excited to be involved in the development process, as well.

Quick Overview
WP Daily keeps on top of WordPress community news so you don’t have to. Incisive and prolific, WP Daily covers everything WordPress related — from themes to feature news, to WordPress tattoos (yes, you read that right) and reflective commentary. No matter whether you’ve been around WordPress since it was b2/cafelog, or you’ve just downloaded v. 3.5 “Elvin” to take it for a spin, you’ll learn something new at WP Daily.

Image based on “Today is Monday, June 14th” by H. Michael Karshis, CC-BY-2.0

Quick Overview
In addition to running her WordPress content consultancy, Words for WP, Siobhan writes prolifically on a variety of WordPress topics for Smashing Magazine — one of the leading online magazines devoted to all things design and development. From malware affecting WordPress, BuddyPress, writing effective documentation, WordPress trends, and the WordPress economy, you can count on well-researched, clear, concise information you can use to help you do business better when you see Siobhan McKeown’s name in the byline.

Image based on “Broken Glass Shards Urban Exploration” by Steven Depolo, CC-BY-2.0

How did you fall in love with the web?

When I was about 14 my parents moved out of Belfast, N. Ireland, to the countryside surrounding the city. I suspect that this was a way of getting out of the rough area that we lived in. To them it must have offered peace of mind, to me it was hell. I wanted to hang out with my friends but I lived in a place with no bus service, I was too young to drive, and I felt completely trapped.

When we moved in to the new house we got a dial-up connection on our PC. I’m sure people of my generation can remember the excitement of the crackly dial tones of the computer as you logged into AOL for the first time. While I was physically isolated in the countryside of N. Ireland, I could connect to the entire world. It was a pretty liberating feeling. Since then I’ve always loved that feeling of being connected — there are so many possibilities on the internet.

That said, it’s certainly a love-hate relationship. I love it because it gives me freedom to create my own job, to communicate with people all over the world, and be a part of an international community. But sometimes I wish I could just switch it off. I get a definite feeling of mental peace and spaciousness when I am cut off from the web which is becoming more and more infrequent. That probably says more about my own ineffectual willpower than it does about the web though.

Why Words for “WP” (WordPress) in particular?

Writing has always been a huge part of my life. Everyone has something that they are just naturally good at, and for me it has been putting words together. At the same time, I also enjoy tinkering with the internet. I was building websites using WordPress when I saw that James Farmer was looking for bloggers at WPMU.org. I thought why not? And he hired me.

About a year later I interviewed Michael Kimb Jones (of WonderThemes). I was reading his website and there were a few places where the content was incorrect. I pointed this out to him and he said that he had hired a professional copywriter but that he guessed that she wouldn’t necessarily be all that familiar with WordPress. That’s where Words for WP came from. There were no content creators dedicated just to WordPress, and since I’m good at writing and know about WordPress, I thought why not me? I sent out a survey to people I knew in the WordPress community and some came back saying “when can you start?” I knew I was on to something — a whole niche just for me.

Tell us about your most favorite project — what was most challenging about the project, and how did you overcome those challenges?

The work I do gives me the opportunity to work with varied clients on different projects. But if I have to choose one, my favorite project has got to be my ongoing writing gig with Smashing Magazine. I’ve been writing there for about a year now and I still get a thrill whenever a post goes live. This is partly because I love seeing my avatar on Smashing Magazine (somewhere I only dreamed it would be when I started writing on the web), and partly because Smashing Mag is an amazing platform for showcasing the best of the WordPress community. I get to feature people who I know are doing interesting work who may not normally be in the limelight — that is a fantastic feeling.

Another thing I love about Smashing Magazine is that the team there is so supportive. Jeff Starr is a thoughtful editor who always gives useful feedback. And Vitaly Friedman is a big advocate of WordPress — so much so that Smashing Magazine sponsored my trip to the community summit in October.

The most challenging thing about writing for such a high profile blog is maintaining integrity and accuracy. There can be a tendency for standards to slip when writing for the web, and Smashing Magazine does an excellent job of implementing a rigorous editorial process.

The challenge of accuracy arose even before I started at Smashing. I published a blog post on WPMU.org about speeding up WordPress — I’d just researched it from other blog posts. All was going well when Mike Little, one of the founders of WordPress, pointed out that I had got a load of stuff wrong. That was pretty embarrassing — not just to be called out, but called out by a WordPress founder — ouch! It was a really important experience though, as it made me realize that I don’t just produce content for the sake of traffic generation, but I produce content to educate people. I’ve got a responsibility to make sure my content is accurate, both in terms of maintaining my own reputation, and in preventing the spread of misinformation (which the internet is so good at). As a result I became a much better researcher and fact checker, and Mike’s input was instrumental in that. Of course, the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know, and the more cautious I become.

At Smashing Magazine accuracy is even more important since traffic is so much bigger. By being published on Smashing Magazine, an article carries weight and credibility; it’s the writer’s responsibility to live up to that. This is why the majority of my articles are based on interviews and research. My own knowledge is limited, but the knowledge of the entire WordPress community is vast.

A recent article I wrote was on high performance WordPress. This is a topic that I know nothing about — the idea that I could talk about the details of caching is still a little bit crazy. Even though the article was interview-based, I had to ensure that I didn’t lose any of the sense by translating it from developer-speak to article-speak, especially since I was using information from some of the most respected developers in the community. Luckily, by being involved in the WordPress community, I had developers on hand who would read through it for me, and Simon Wheatley (of Code for the People) sanity checked it. Also, the Smashing Magazine editorial process is pretty rigorous, and I asked Jeff to send it to people who knew a lot about high performance. Still, I was incredibly nervous when the article went live and it was a huge relief that I pulled it off.

Tell us about the WordPress.org documentation project. What are the project’s goals? Do you need assistance? If so, and if someone wanted to lend a hand, what’s the best way to get involved?

The WordPress documentation project is really in the process of being defined by the various people involved. Of course, there’s always been people working on WordPress documentation, the Codex is testimony to that, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t scope for further development. Documentation isn’t simply about creating manuals that people learn from, it’s about communicating targeted knowledge so that users can achieve their goals.

When I launched Words for WP, I thought that I’d just be writing documentation for people, but it’s become much more involved than that. Creating documentation is a negotiation between the user interface and the documents. Where possible, the UI should be intuitive enough so that people can achieve what they need, and layers of documentation should support that. The best documentation in the world is no substitute for an impeccable UI.

The biggest challenge that I face when working with WordPress companies — and WordPress.org has the same problem — is that user documentation and developer documentation are mixed together, often in the same format. This is a problem for both groups. Users should only be provided with what they need with additional resources should they want to learn more. Throwing in information about hooks or APIs makes them feel inadequate because often it’s meaningless to them. At the same time, developers have to sift through a bunch of unnecessary information to get to what they need. It’s not surprising that it’s this way. The majority of WordPress products are built by developers and documentation is an afterthought. Developers are not always in touch with what users need.

With WordPress, I’d like to produce targeted documentation and learning material that fits specific use cases. The handbooks project is a great example. The use case here is people who what to contribute to WordPress. We need to provide them with a clear path to get what they need done, minus any additional fluff. Unlike traditional print manuals, we have the luxury of hyperlinks, which we can use to provide people with additional information should they need it. By layering documentation we can say “Hey, this is everything you need to get things done — but if you want to know more, go here.” As well as handbooks for specific contributor groups, we’re working on handbooks for plugin and theme development. These should provide developers with everything they need to develop a plugin or theme to the standards required by the WordPress repositories. At the minute we have around forty volunteers for this project, but we can always do with more. You can go to the make.wordpress.org/docs/ to learn more. And don’t feel that you’ve got to be an expert in a specific area to help out — we’ll also need proofreaders and copyeditors. Close reading of content such as this is a great way to both learn and help out.

Another way to get involved is to help out with the WordPress Codex. Anyone can write the Codex! I’m surprised by how many people I speak to who have no idea that they can edit it. All you need is a WordPress.org account. If you see a typo or an error on the Codex, fix it. If you can’t find a solution to a problem, but you do find it elsewhere, write it up for the Codex. Also, as you might imagine, when a new version of WordPress is released, the Codex needs to be updated. There is a list on the docs blog of things that need to be done — check out the list, fix up the page and tick it off when it’s complete. This is a massive help!

We’re also looking at other ways that the docs team can be helpful — for example, the UI group has been looking at the help tabs in the WordPress Admin Screens. We’d like to investigate how we can improve the content. This seems like a great time to work on it as we can work with UI to make sure we’re creating a fantastic experience for users.

To get involved, just drop by the make.wordpress.org/docs/ blog, stop by the weekly docs chat on Thursday at 2100 UTC in the #wordpress-sfd chat room on the IRC freenode channel, or feel free to message me on Twitter @SiobhanPMcKeown any time. Writing is a great way to learn, and there are people who can help out and mentor you so you won’t feel that you’re on your own.