First, I need to indicate that this is a cross-post from speaker spotlight on the WordCamp Kenya 2012 site.
An introduction to WordPress’ official, Open Source apps for various platforms and the how to best manage your website while on the go. There are many ways to make websites work better on mobile devices, we’ll talk about a few options and discuss best practices.
If you come for WordCamp Kenya 2012, you should get a chance to meet Isaac Keyet. He is a team lead and designer for the Mobile Team at Automattic and
helps plan and design the official open source WordPress apps. Each month, over half a million posts get published from these apps on WordPress.com alone. Isaac co-founded IntenseDebate back in the day and is a TechStars ’07 alumnus. He is a Swede who says he likes coffee, road trips, and temperatures above freezing.
A short backgrounder: I am a Swedish designer turned team lead who’s working closely with the WordPress community to create the best possible WordPress apps for an array of different platforms. I have been working at Automattic for 4 years, I travel a lot and enjoy visiting new places and meeting new people. In the past I have worked as a freelance web designer, web startup founder and I am also a 2007 TechStars alumni. I enjoy adrenaline kicks like driving go-karts. I recently did my first skydive.
How did you get interested in WordPress? What about WordPress drives your continued interest? WordPress democratizes publishing and is the future of the Web. That’s something worth fighting for.
Why WordCamp Kenya 2012? I always wanted to go to Kenya so that was a big reason. Other than that, mobile is so big in many African countries that it just made sense to come over to learn more.
What will you speak about at WordCamp Kenya 2012? My talk is going to be about the official WordPress apps, what you can do with them, other ways to simplify mobile WordPress management, things to think about when creating websites for the “mobile web”, and some of the things currently being mapped out for core WordPress to simplify mobile management.
If people could walk away with just one thing from your presentation, what would you choose that to be? There is only one web, just different devices connecting to it. Don’t ever design for a specific device or browser, design for the web.
What is your favourite WordPress theme and/or plugin, and why? Underscores is a great starter theme from some of the best themers around Automattic.
Akismet is still the best plugin to get rid of spam.
Share one WP tip with us; One very important tip. If you have mobile device with a touch screen, enable “Accessibility Mode” in Screen Options to be able to do most things in the admin (works around drag-and-drop limitations).
What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Kenya 2012? Meeting everyone!
Do you make money from WordPress? Yes, I’m employed by Automattic which runs WordPress.com and other services based on or around WordPress.
Do you think WordPress an effective platform for getting your message across? WordPress is the most powerful publishing tool this planet has yet seen.
Do you have a blog where you publish? I want to blog more professionally on isaackeyet.com, but I do have one or two casual blogs that I post on.
You can follow Isaac Keyet on twitter on @isaackeyet.
