Speaker Interview: Joe Casabona

In the run up to WordCamp Lancaster, we will be featuring some of our speakers here on the website.

  • Joe Casabona

    How and when did you get started with WordPress?

    My freshman year of college (2003-04), my friend Steve Mekosh introduced me to this new blogging platform called WordPress. I checked it out and really liked. From there I started to play around with it, implementing it on my own blog first then doing some pilot programs with freelance clients I had. Around 2006-2007 I really started to push WordPress as a service since it was maturing, transforming from a blogging platform to a CMS. Now, it’s my go-to solution 🙂

    If you’ve attended WordCamp Lancaster before, what’s your fondest memory of it? If not, what do you like most about WordCamps?

    So either during or after the speaker party, several of us got together in a room off to the side and sat around a table drinking scotch and talking shop. It was pretty mellow but really cool – got to bond with a lot of cool folks that night!

    What do you hope attendees will take away from your talk?

    Attendees should come away have a bit more empathy for their students or clients, being more mindful of making learning WordPress seem “so easy anyone could do it.” They should also have some good tips on how they can teach WordPress in a classroom or workshop

    What are you currently learning?

    Aside from refining my workshops (and ultimately making my talk better!) I’m really focusing on Javascript. It’s something I was hunkering down on before WCUS and the State of the Word confirmed for me that I was on the right track. I’m pretty partial to Angular at this point, but I want to learn JS at it’s core.

    Do you know what a stroopie is? No googling.

    I do not!

    …

    I googled it :X

    What did you do during the blizzard?

    We didn’t get a lot of snow up in Scranton and I was pretty bummed about it! My car was in a garage, I had no place to go, and I live downtown. It was perfect personal conditions for a blizzard. I wish we got more than a dusting.

    Where can we find you online?

    I’m jcasabona on most social networks (include Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), my personal website is http://casabona.org and my new venture where I host WordPress Workshops is http://wpinonemonth.com

Joe Casabona‘s session is titled Have Empathy when Teaching WordPress. View the full schedule.

WordCamp Lancaster will be held on March 5th with Contributor Day on March 6th. Get your ticket today.