Get To Know Ben Byrne
Ben Byrne is one of three cofounders of Cornershop Creative, a web services agency that plans, designs, builds and maintains websites — mostly in WordPress — for nonprofit organizations and educational institutions around the country. As Chief Creative Officer, Ben oversees most the design and development work that Cornershop does. Prior to founding Cornershop Creative in 2012, Ben worked as a front-end developer for a few different agencies, did some freelancing, and was the in-house designer and developer for a nonprofit in Massachusetts. His fluency in HTML, CSS and JavaScript have been put to good use implementing his designs on a variety of platforms and systems including WordPress and Drupal.
Ben has a BFA in Graphic Design from Iowa State University and has been working on the web professionally for about 20 years. He has presented on the difference between print and web design, web typography, WordPress widgets, high performance front-end performance optimization and other topics at various organizations and events, including several WordCamps. Last summer Ben moved from Indiana to Santa Rosa, CA with his wife, two kids, and labradoodle.
We’re thrilled Ben will be speaking at WordCamp Sacramento 2016 on Making Multisite Work For You!
Speaker Q&A With Ben
To help you learn even more about Ben, we asked him to answer a few questions for us, some WordPress-related, and some others we think you’ll appreciate 🙂 Be sure to give him a shout out on Twitter and don’t forget to use our hashtag #wcsac.
What inspired you to give this talk at WordCamp?
Multisite occupies a very odd space within the WordPress community: I’ve come across experienced developers who barely know it exists, and rookies who use it all the time. Some treat it like a pariah and others a godsend, which made me interested in learning more about it. As I got to know it better, I realized that multisite can, in fact, be totally awesome or utterly horrible, depending on what you know and are trying to make it do… which made it seem like a great WordCamp topic!
How did you discover WordPress?
I honestly can’t remember my first experience with WordPress; I think it was many years ago when it really was purpose-built specifically for blogging and I needed a CMS, so I didn’t take it too seriously. But after spending far too many hours fighting with Drupal, I eventually saw the light!
How has WordPress Or WordCamp impacted you?
I don’t know that my company could exist if there were no WordPress; without it, we wouldn’t be able to build usable, feature-rich websites for our nonprofit clients that were actually affordable!
Before I started attending WordCamps, WordPress was just a tool, a collection of code that came from “the Internet” and was useful. But by attending WordCamps, WordPress became much more than that: a community of people who listen, teach, and share a passion.
How do you primarily work with WordPress?
Nowadays, I spend very little time actually using WordPress to manage a website (I’m embarrassed by how few of the tricks now present in the editor I don’t know!). Instead, I spend a lot of time writing custom themes for our clients, and increasingly, plugins. I’ve had the chance to release a few plugins into the Plugin Directory and am increasingly excited about getting more involved in products built on WordPress.
What does the WordCamp theme Discovery mean to you?
When I heard the word “discovery” I think of unexpected learning. And WordCamps are the perfect place for that to happen: you may learn of a new development technique you can use from a session you weren’t even sure was worth going to; you might hear about a plugin you never thought to consider might be out there that completely changes how to you everything in WordPress; or you might meet someone you wind up getting to know personally or professionally for many years! There’s a lot of serendipity that happens at every WordCamp.
What is the latest book you read?
Library of Souls, by Ransom Riggs
What is your favorite restaurant? Favorite menu item?
A Tasca, in Ponta Delgada in the Azores. Everything’s good, I think it’s my favorite because of the location and ambiance.
What TV series are you current binging on/into?
The West Wing. No, really. I’m that far behind on my TV watching that I’m just now getting into it.
What do you do for fun?
Between co-owning a business and having two kids, I don’t find myself with a terrific amount of spare time. But having just moved to California from the midwest, I’m using that time to get out and explore — hiking, biking, you name it, it’s just a joy to have so much to do. Once upon a time I spent a lot more time looking at the world through my camera, though, and I hope to return to doing more of that soon.