Speaker Spotlight: Jason Bagley

Another local WordPress expert has been confirmed as a speaker, Jason Bagley from Whitespace. Jason will host a session on the Developer track. We asked Jason to tell us a bit more about his talk and his thoughts on WordPress.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I’m the co-founder of Whitespace a boutique web design agency. I’ve been using and developing websites with WordPress since version 1.6! Along with Tyler Reed, hosted the first WordCamp in South Africa back in 2008.

Why WordPress?

With around 14-15% of all websites on the internet being powered by WordPress, its a no brainer why I’m a huge WordPress fan.

What are your thoughts on the WordPress community as a whole? And the South African WP community?

WordPress has a really strong community, but its only as strong as the members willing to contribute and users like myself willing to support and pay for the themes, plugins and support services that are being developed. Regarding the SA community? Hosting it’s second WordCamp speaks volumes for the strength of our community.

Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Cape Town?

Having helped organise the first WordCamp in SA with Tyler Reed and thought it would only be appropriate if I put my hand up and offered to talk!

What is your talk going to be about?

I’m going to be talking about Responsive Web Design. The talk won’t be about WordPress, however it is about web design and how its possible to code your site to easily adapt it to the many different screen resolutions, input devices and browsers we have available these days. Its a method that will allow your design to adapt and display beautifully, even on mobile!

What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Cape Town?

I remember the buzz of the previous WordCamp, especially meeting people for the first time in person that I’ve only been conversing online with. For me, It’s about the people attending and getting to meet them all.

What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?

I want designers and developers to start considering and using responsive web design for their upcoming projects.

What is your favourite WordPress theme and/or plugin, and why?

I’m a huge fan of the Tumblog themes from both Obox Themes and WooThemes. For me its about making blogging simpler, quicker and faster.

Share one WP tip

http://wp-snippets.com/

Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do yo u follow?

I’m really good mates with David and Marc Perel from Obox Themes. To have literally watched them from day 1 and turn their company into one of the top premium WP theme companies is really inspirational.

What is the most exciting feature/addition/improvement to WordPress that you have noticed in the last year?

I’m not sure when WP Menus were implemented, but that by far is one of the greatest additions to WP I can remember.

Where do you see WordPress 2 years from now?

As HTML5 starts to become the defacto standard in the next few years, WordPress is going to be one of the CMS’s at the forefront of developing ways to make the powerful features HTML5 available to us in a user and developer friendly way.