I’ve had my personal website for a number of years now and never did much with it.

When my name was Googled, or someone used one of my WordPress plugins, I wanted a place where they could learn more about me and the projects I was working on. But that was about it.

As a self-taught web developer, the internet has been my classroom. I am a strong believer that there are very few questions that cannot be answered with a well-crafted Google search. There are so many great resources today and tons of content creators openly sharing their knowledge to help others. This is one of the things that drew me to the open-source nature of WordPress in 2014. The community surrounding the platform was welcoming and the knowledge needed to work with WordPress was accessible.

I eventually stumbled upon the Genesis Framework, a theme framework for WordPress. Yes, the Genesis themes looked great, but it was the underlying codebase that impressed me. Everything was so well documented and allowed a beginner like me to easily understand what was going on. The Genesis community, similar to WordPress as a whole, offered a wealth of freely available content. I was able to quickly level up my development and design skills from the likes of Bill Erickson, Carrie Dils, Brian Gardner, and Rafal Tomal.

In fact, the design of this site was heavily influenced by Rafal’s work and Brian’s approach to minimalistic design.

Today, WordPress development is getting more complex. Success increasingly requires modern web development skills and fluency in advanced javascript. Gone are the days when you only needed to know HMTL, CSS, and PHP. This transition has decreased the accessibility of WordPress for aspiring self-taught developers. However, the modernization of the platform is necessary and allows WordPress to remain competitive with other heavily marketed companies like Squarespace and Wix.

With so many changes coming to WordPress, and the official documentation struggling to keep up, the need for knowledge sharing in the community is even more important these days.

So, back to the purpose of this website.

Moving forward, I intend to be more diligent about documenting and sharing information that I acquire through my own WordPress education. There are so many exciting developments on the horizon, from full-site editing to the increased adoption of the Gutenberg “Block” Editor. Being successful in this digital arena will require mastery of these new tools and I hope this blog will serve as another community resource. There may also be a few posts on the intersection of WordPress, marketing, and hospitality given my 18+ years in the industry.

Whether this content is useful to a larger audience or not, it’s always just one Google search away.

Thanks for stopping by.