Ask Me Anything on April 19th

I’m excited to be online for Ask Me Anything powered by ManageWP most of this Wednesday, April 19th, to ask any of your questions about Design & User Experience, Client work, and work flow. I’m also happy to chat about WordPress, how I contribute to the Open Source project, and the upcoming WordCamp Europe in Paris.

Other topics I’d be excited to talk about are Impostor Syndrome, working remotely, and work-life-blance.

I’ll see you online at ManageWP.org from 6:30am to 2:30pm EST. I’m currently in Europe, so it’ll be my afternoon.

I hope you’ll join me and Ask Me Anything!

Lost in Translation: What I learned by Contributing to the Polyglots Team

I’m going to tell you why you should care about WordPress Translations, even if you don’t speak any other languages besides English.

Today WordPress powers 26% of the Internet. It is now a teenager and has been growing constantly over the past 13 years. It was created here in the U.S., so it’s “native” language is English. But for a CMS to grow globally, English is not enough.

So how many languages does WordPress speak?

WordPress speaks more than 100 languages and is learning new languages every day by it’s amazing community, the Polyglots. It has 162 locales, and 56 locales are translated at 100%. That means that every string in WordPress, the dashboard and default themes are fully translated. Continue reading “Lost in Translation: What I learned by Contributing to the Polyglots Team”

My friend the Impostor Syndrome

Four years ago I was working in New York on a project. It was a strategy project for a big media company. They got 10,000 visitors a day. Whereas all my previous projects would get 1,000 hits a day or less. So it was 10 times bigger than anything I’ve ever worked on.

One day I went to work, I approached the huge silver building in Midtown Manhattan, walked through the revolving door and into an empty elevator. Even before I reached the 46th floor I found myself crying. But I pulled myself together, walked into the office and started my day. A few days later the same thing happened again and only after I found myself crying in the elevator for the third time I knew I had to do something. Continue reading “My friend the Impostor Syndrome”

I’ll be speaking at WordCamp NYC again this year

The very first time I spoke at a WordCamp was in 2012 at WordCamp New York. I spoke about Responsive Design back then, which was the hot topic at the time. This year I have the honor to share the stage again with so many amazing people in the community. I’ll be speaking about my experience with the Impostor Syndrome and how I am overcoming it. I hope to inspire others to talk about how it is effecting them.

WordCamp NYC is happening July 15th to 17th. It is hosted at the United Nations during OpenCamp, a week of events organized by different Open Source projects. I’m very excited to see how OpenCamp will bring different Open Source communities together to foster conversation and hopefully we can learn from each other.

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WordCamp Switzerland 2015

I always enjoy meeting new people and catching up with good friends in the European WordPress community. This past weekend I went to WordCamp Switzerland, a very well-organized, fun WordCamp.

One track for all

The single-track lineup, a mix of full sessions and lightning talks, was excellent, for one because the selection of topics was diverse and more so because all speakers shared their personal experiences on the topic they spoke about. The event venue was setup perfectly to connect with many of the 200 attendees in between sessions and during breaks.

WordCamp Switzerland 2015 – Q&A with WordPress Experts Pascal Birchler and Konstantin Obenland
WordCamp Switzerland 2015 – Q&A with WordPress Experts
Pascal Birchler and Konstantin Obenland

I had the pleasure to speak at the event and share my experiences working remotely as a WordPress freelancer. I shared reasons why I love working remotely and the challenges it come with. How I stay motivated and find community. You can find my slides on Speaker Deck.

WordCamp Switzerland 2015 – Petya Raykovska
WordCamp Switzerland 2015 – Petya Raykovska

Contributor Day

The Contributor Day Sunday drew quite a lot of experienced and first-time contributors. It’s always great to see more people getting involved and giving back. Petya gave a great intro and her enthusiastic nature draws you right in! I decided to join the Polyglots team this time and really enjoyed translating 400 strings of the iThemes Security plugin into German. If you speak multiple languages and you’d like to contribute to the Polyglots team as well, you can find more information at: https://translate.wordpress.org

A huge thank you to all the organizers (Karin, Silvan, Noel, Andrew, Pascal, and the rest of the amazing team), the volunteers and sponsors for putting together such an amazing event and fun after-party!!

See you again next year!

WordCamp NYC 2014

WordCamp New York City is only a few weeks away and we’re busy with the final organizing stages of the event. We were very excited to announce an amazing line up of speakers and Saturday’s and Sunday’s schedule.

We are also planning a Contributor Day Friday! Make sure to sign up and join us in making WordPress even more awesome!

If you don’t have a ticket yet, make sure to get your ticket soon! We’re selling out fast!

I’m Attending WordCamp NYC – August 2-3, 2014

 

Image credits: New York City Skyline by Wikimedia Commons