{"id":1302,"date":"2015-03-11T12:28:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T17:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2015.stlouis.wordcamp.org\/?p=1302"},"modified":"2015-03-10T23:38:27","modified_gmt":"2015-03-11T04:38:27","slug":"speaker-interview-ryan-markel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/speaker-interview-ryan-markel\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker Interview: Ryan Markel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Markel is a Happiness Engineer for WordPress.com<\/a> VIP and a St. Louis local. I’m happy to be able to slip him some questions for our Speaker Interview series<\/a>. I hope you enjoy it too.<\/p>\n

You can read more about him at his speaker bio<\/a>. Ryan will be presenting on Jetpack<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"wcstl-speakerinterview-ryanmarkel\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NILE FLORES:<\/strong> What got you interested in WordPress?<\/p>\n

RYAN MARKEL:<\/strong> I had been involved in blogging basically since it was a thing, and tried pretty much everything available at the time. WordPress is what “stuck.” I’ve been using it ever since.<\/em><\/p>\n

NILE FLORES:<\/strong> What is the most interesting WordPress-related project you\u2019ve worked on?<\/p>\n

RYAN MARKEL:<\/strong> I work daily on WordPress.com VIP, which is by far the most interesting thing I have ever done with WordPress. We support high-traffic and complicated WordPress sites for major publishers and companies, all on WordPress.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

NILE FLORES:<\/strong> Name 3 WordPress plugins that have always been on your MUST install list, and why.<\/p>\n

RYAN MARKEL:<\/strong>1. Jetpack – the essentials for almost all WordPress sites. It covers so much of the necessities and makes WordPress better out of the box.<\/em><\/p>\n

2. WP Super Cache – at least for shared hosts, having static caching is a must for site speed. This is usually the second thing I install.<\/em><\/p>\n

3. Akismet – because no one likes spam.<\/em> \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

NILE FLORES:<\/strong> What is something interesting about you that the WordPress community doesn\u2019t know?<\/p>\n

RYAN MARKEL:<\/strong> I participate in a fundraiser for Children’s Miracle Network every year called Extra Life – it raises money for local hospitals. In the last two years, I’ve raised over $1500 for St. Louis hospitals. It’s a great program that has real benefits for kids who need treatment for various illnesses.<\/em><\/p>\n

NILE FLORES:<\/strong> In regards to new WordPress users, what one or two pieces of advice would you give them that could be very helpful?<\/p>\n

RYAN MARKEL:<\/strong> CREATE! You should start creating, writing, and posting as soon as possible when you start a site, and do this as often as you can. Experiment. Shotgun code and design. See what sticks.<\/em><\/p>\n

The more you actively create, the better you will come at creating and the less work it will seem to be. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan Markel is a Happiness Engineer for WordPress.com VIP and a St. Louis local. I’m happy to be able to slip him some questions for our Speaker Interview series. I hope you enjoy it too. You can read more about … Continue reading Speaker Interview: Ryan Markel<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1346476,"featured_media":1303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29],"tags":[35997,465037],"class_list":["post-1302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speakers","tag-ryan-markel","tag-speaker-interview-series"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/files\/2015\/03\/wcstl-speakerinterview-ryanmarkel.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5laqk-l0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1346476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1304,"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1302\/revisions\/1304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlouis.wordcamp.org\/2015\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}