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WordCamp Bristol 2017 preview: Tammie Lister and Kayleigh Thorpe

8 May 2017

Stuart

Continuing on from our first preview of WordCamp Bristol, today we speak to two more presentors at WordCamp Bristol 2017. Take it away, Tammie Lister and our very own, Kayleigh Thorpe. WordCamp Bristol is held this weekend, May 13 and 14th on the scenic Bristol harbourside at Watershed Media Centre.


Tammie Lister

 

1) Tell us a little about yourself

I am an experience designer at Automattic. I also am a contributor to the design team and in other areas on the WordPress project. I currently live on the midlands, but being from the South West I am really excited to see a WordCamp there and attend WordCamp Bristol.

2) Can you give us a sneak peak into your talk, and what attendees should be able to take away from it

Sure, I am going to be talking about ‘People Source’. It is about how we need to see the people beyond the code, beyond the screens. We have a really special community and this talk celebrates that. I also hope to give some guidance on what we can do better, to see and respect the people in our community.

3) As a speaker at WordCamp I imagine WordPress features in your life in at least some small way. What’s your WordPress journey, where has WordPress taken you. That third question, feel free to take in any fashion you like, figuratively or literally.

WordPress has literally taken me around the world. I came to it for blogging after I was attempting (and mostly failing) to maintain my own CMS. I rapidly realised WordPress meant I could focus on the blogging at the time. Over a few years I began contributing, this turned into career designing communities using BuddyPress as a freelancer. I really enjoyed that specialisation. I got to speak at WordCamps and from that become a speaker at conferences outside of WordPress.

After many years freelance, I was ready for a change. During my trial at Automattic, I was part of the organising team for the first WordCamp Europe then, along with writing a book on BuddyPress themes – it was hectic but I got in and my career there began. Three and a bit years later, I am really enjoying focusing on how I can make using WordPress a better experience, in whatever way I can.

Contribution wise I try and focus within the design team, I also am a co-organiser of WordCamp Brighton – 18th – 20th August https://2017.brighton.wordcamp.org/. I am really excited about the second WordCamp there, I recently moved away from the area and its a great community there.


Kayleigh Thorpe

1) Tell us a little about yourself

My name is Kayleigh, I am a WordPress Support Specialist here at 34SP.com.

I enjoy working with WordPress and meeting members of the community. I have spoken a couple of times now about my adventures with WordPress from a support aspect. I am hoping to talk a little more this time about how I use WordPress myself and my experiences based on that.

2) Can you give us a sneak peak into your talk, and what attendees should be able to take away from it

As we all know images can cause a great amount of load on your site. My talk aims to inform and advise listeners of some of the ways they can reduce that load. Particularly for gallery-heavy websites I hope to offer some tips on how they can optimise their files for the web, whilst maintaining image quality. I will be talking about gallery plugins, what themes go best with image heavy sites and sharing some personal “dos” and “don’ts” I like to stick to when creating gallery websites in WordPress.

3) As a speaker at WordCamp I imagine WordPress features in your life in at least some small way. What’s your WordPress journey, where has WordPress taken you. That third question, feel free to take in any fashion you like, figuratively or literally.

I stumbled across WordPress when I saw looking at one-click installers my hosting provided. I’d always kept a personal blog to throw my ramblings at but it was all coded in HTML and I was looking for something with a little more of a user interface.

I had tried a few other CMS options before, but WordPress stood out to me as being easily the most user-friendly, whilst having the documentation I needed back then to help me make my own edits to my site. I’ve been using WordPress ever since, and spent a lot of time tinkering and working with it. I’ve learnt a lot about the platform over the years both from personal and professional usage, and it’s been great fun.

Stuart

Stuart

Hi! I am the the co-founder of 34SP.com and Business Development Director; I've been at this hosting lark for more than twenty two years, ulp.. I oversee multiple areas of our business to ensure 34SP.com products and services are meeting our customer's needs. You can get in touch over on LinkedIn or replying to any of most posts. In my spare time I am exceptionally interested in food and drink, I run several food website and am a multi-award winning, food and drink writer.