Archives for September 2019

---

Tara Claeys of Design TLC, LLC is a seasoned website designer and developer with a marketing background going back over 20 years. She provides custom website and graphic design services, with a focus on creating effective, clean and personal communication platforms for small businesses. Tara listens to you, to learn what you have in mind for your identity, and takes care to create an image that fits your brand personality.

While there is an abundance of “Do-It-Yourself” website platforms, Tara’s extensive experience with WordPress websites allows you to focus on your business instead of spending hours creating a website that doesn’t end up looking or functioning like you want it to. Once created, Tara can keep your website updated, or train you to make your own edits, and is always available to help and answer questions.

Tara is the proud recipient of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce 2016 “Best Technology Business Award.”

When she’s not working, Tara enjoys cycling, running, watching movies and spending time with friends and family.

Michele: What do you do in the WordPress ecosystem?

Tara: I create websites for clients. I co-host the podcast Hallway Chats. I organize the WordPress Northern Virginia/DC Meetup

Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?

Tara: I started using WordPress in 2010, and discovered the community at WordCamp Baltimore in 2014. I have been hooked ever since!

Michele: Please tell me one story of someone who has inspired you within the WordPress Community?

Tara: I have met and be inspired by so many amazing people in the WordPress community! Shay Bocks is an amazing, talented and kind person who has built a great business using WordPress. Dale Reardon is a blind man in Tazmania who built an online community for disabled people. Norma Miller has a captioning business which makes WordCamps accessible. I could go on and on! ????

Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?

Tara: It means any idea can be accomplished with WordPress, and that people can make a living with WordPress.

Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins. 

Tara: Beaver Builder, Beaver Themer, Yoast

Michele: Do you have a favorite theme or framework you like to use?

Tara: I used to use Genesis but now have moved to Beaver Builder for almost everything.

Michele: If you could change one thing in WordPress, what would it be?

Tara: More racial diversity.

Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?

Tara: My first WordCamp, when I had no idea about the WordPress community and sat at lunch with Chris Lema and Shay Bocks and it changed my life.

Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?

Tara: Go to a WordCamp and a Meetup.

Michele: What do you think is in store for the future of WordPress?

Tara: More change! I think the community will broaden and grow with the changes in IA.

Michele: Just for fun, share one memory that makes you proud to be a part of the WordPress Community.

Tara: When some people I helped at a Meetup came back the next month and told me how much I helped them

You can find Tara Claeys at Design TLC and Hallway Chats.

If you find these interesting and would like to be spotlighted yourself, please see our interview form.

---

I’ve been building websites for as long as I had a computer, which dates back to a 386SX-20Mhz, in the early 90’s. Starting with HTML, I moved up to site generators, then some of the PHP ancestors like Xoops and Joomla, to finally graduate to modern CMS’ like Drupal and WordPress. Yeah, I’ve been around 😉

In 2010, I started a Web Consulting business, and quickly decided to focus on WordPress. Since then, I’ve helped countless professionnals and businesses establish or improve their web presence.

Since 2017, I’m Managing Partner at S2B Solution (and SatelliteWP.com), where we work with corporate clients in building, managing and optimizing their Web + WordPress infrastructure, and maximize the ROI on their web investments.

And since 2011, I’ve enjoyed giving back to local communities by speaking and sponsoring WordCamps, Meetups and other WordPress-related events.

Michele: What do you do in the WordPress ecosystem?

Jean-Francois: I’m co-owner of a Web/WordPress Development & Maintenance Agency

Michele: How did you get involved with WordPress?

Jean-Francois: I started using WordPress as a hobby in 2005, building a site for myself and some side projects. I have blog entries that document how I would dabble with functions and templates in WordPress, discovering how it all worked together.

Michele: Please tell me one story of someone who has inspired you within the WordPress Community?

Jean-Francois: I wouldn’t say it’s a particular story or person, but more the realization, after reading up on the community in general, that it WAS possible to make a living from Open Source software… that I could help make a difference for local people and businesses, by sharing my knowledge which sits at the intersection of business and technology.

Michele: What does the Open Source Community mean to you?

Jean-Francois: To me, participaing in the Open Source community means the possibility to give back on a large scale, to help people use software and realize they can also “pay it forward” by helping in their way, for the benefit of the community.

Michele: Please name some of your favorite plugins. 

Jean-Francois: Toolset, Redirection, Gravity Forms, Beaver Builder.

Michele: Do you have a favorite theme or framework you like to use?

Jean-Francois: We like the Beaver Builder theme and Storefront by WooCommerce.

Michele: If you could change one thing in WordPress, what would it be?

Jean-Francois: I would make the ability to run a multilingual site part of the core of WordPress, to reduce the technical challenge it is for many countries to offer more than one dialect, locale or language at the same time on a given site.

Michele: What is your most memorable WordPress moment?

Jean-Francois: I would have to say the first time I attended a WordCamp in Montreal, in 2010, and realized there was a whole community of geeks in my city who lived and breathed WordPress!

Michele: What is one piece of advice you would give to someone just getting started with WordPress?

Jean-Francois: Install it, press buttons and see what everything does, try to change some pieces of code in themes, break the site and learn from it… “there’s no substitute for experience” 🙂

Michele: What do you think is in store for the future of WordPress?

Jean-Francois: My personal view is that there’s still plenty of growth for self-hosted WordPress to be had in the CMS space, in the absence of true competition in terms of ease-of-use, but especially extensibility. But I also think that some functionality, and maybe eve major architectural changes, will need to happen in order for WordPress to truly compete more the enterprise space.

Michele: Just for fun, share one memory that makes you proud to be a part of the WordPress Community.

Jean-Francois: I’m particularly pour whenever I hear of initiatives like “Girls/Ladies Learning Code” which can improve women’s accces to STEM fields, or do_action Hackathon that provide non-profit organizations with a new site, over a single week-end.

You can find Jean-Francois online at Satellite WP.

If you find these interesting and would like to be spotlighted yourself, please see our interview form.