{"id":1637,"date":"2015-06-09T10:00:53","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T15:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/2015.kansascity.wordcamp.org\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2015-06-09T09:31:59","modified_gmt":"2015-06-09T14:31:59","slug":"speaker-spotlight-brian-bookwalter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kansascity.wordcamp.org\/2015\/speaker-spotlight-brian-bookwalter\/","title":{"rendered":"Speaker Spotlight: Brian Bookwalter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brian<\/a><\/strong>A long time supporter of WordPress Kansas City, Brian will be joining us to talk about bit about page builders. We know you’ve got questions, so we learned a little more about him below!<\/p>\n

Q: How did you get started in your current field?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0I worked as a print graphic designer as my first job in Manhattan, Kansas for an educational publishing company. Those seven years went very quickly and then I attended Graduate School at Kansas State. There, I started digging into code a little to learn more about the web. I set up my first WordPress site in 2005 (or so) and fell in love with it. Since then, I’ve been designing sites, some web-development, and using and reviewing premium products related to WordPress.<\/p>\n

Q: Describe your \u2018ah ha\u2019 moment about WordPress?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0My ah ha moment would have to be the first time I changed my theme but kept the database intact. After doing that, I just had a little resorting with the menu and post types order and the entire site was changed in a few hours.<\/p>\n

At that time, “static” websites were all I knew, where your content was hard coded into each page… and changing a website design required starting over. WordPress changed the game.<\/p>\n

Q: If you could go back to when you were getting started and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0Don’t be too overwhelmed by the immense selection of plug-ins and themes available, both paid and free. Start simple with the basics instead of jumping into really complex backend UI products. Most websites are designed to do two things: get data and display data. Knowing what problem you are solving with a website will help you design everything around that premise. And of course, making it look good is easier than ever with really great theme options. I could keep going and going about the topic of “I wish I knew then what I know now”!<\/p>\n

Q: Describe your talk in three sentences or less.<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0We will review, compare, and contrast several different page builders and compare them with popular theme builders to help all attendees decide for themselves which option best suits their design needs.<\/p>\n

Q: Who should attend your talk (beginner developer, intermediate content provider, advanced designer, etc)?<\/strong>
\nA:\u00a0Intermediate designer\/ developers looking for ways to improve their front-end content development workflow.<\/p>\n

This post is part of a multi-day series<\/a> featuring speakers from WordCamp Kansas City 2015.\u00a0Subscribe to have them delivered to your mailbox, or feel free to check back every day!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long time supporter of WordPress Kansas City, Brian will be joining us to talk about bit about page builders. We know you’ve got questions, so we learned a little more about him below! Q: How did you get started in your current field? A:\u00a0I worked as a print graphic designer as my first job … Continue reading Speaker Spotlight: Brian Bookwalter<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10573955,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","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":[29,8335],"tags":[491573,5041,27085,491572,14],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-speakers","category-spotlight","tag-brian-bookwalter","tag-developer","tag-kansas-city","tag-page-builders","tag-wordpress"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UiQo-qp","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":955,"url":"https:\/\/kansascity.wordcamp.org\/2015\/speaker-spotlight-brian-goldstein\/","url_meta":{"origin":1637,"position":0},"title":"Speaker Spotlight: Brian Goldstein","author":"Josepha","date":"May 19, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Brian Goldstein hails from St Louis on the other side of our humble state. He works in a shop of three,\u00a0loves all the work he does there, and is\u00a0something of a sports fan. Keep reading to find out more about his work and the presentation he's giving in June! Q:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "speakers"","block_context":{"text":"speakers","link":"https:\/\/kansascity.wordcamp.org\/2015\/category\/wordcamp-kc-news\/speakers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Brian Goldstein","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2015.kansascity.wordcamp.org\/files\/2015\/05\/Brian-Goldstein-300x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1560,"url":"https:\/\/kansascity.wordcamp.org\/2015\/speaker-spotlight-andy-brudtkuhl\/","url_meta":{"origin":1637,"position":1},"title":"Speaker Spotlight: Andy Brudtkuhl","author":"Josepha","date":"June 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Andy is a web developer from Des Moines, Iowa who came to WordPress after a lot of other work. He gave us a little insight into his work so that you could get to know him better! 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