Speaker Spotlight: Rick Radko

Rick Radko has been creating web sites and applications since 1996. He launched his first WordPress site in 2008. Rick is at home coding plugins, designing custom themes, building multilingual sites and teaching others to do all of those. His involvement in the WordPress community began when he became a co-founder of the Ottawa WordPress Meetup Group and spoke at WordCamp Toronto around the same time in 2011. Since then he has been a repeat presenter at WordCamps Toronto and Montréal, and launched WordCamp Ottawa in 2013.  Rick is the founder of R-Cubed Design Forge, where he develops and designs web sites and applications using open source software. @r3designforge

Rick is presenting: Introduction to WordPress

1) Why do you like using WordPress?
I work with WordPress because it’s really easy to use. My clients get web sites that they can manage and update mostly on their own, and as a developer I get a framework that is easy to modify or extend with add-ons and plugins.

2) Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Ottawa?
I’ve worked with WordPress for the past 6 years, and I want to see it continue to grow. Organizing this WordCamp and speaking too, provides an opportunity to give back to the WordPress community in a way that supports it and helps it thrive.

3) What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
The “Introduction to WordPress” is to help new WordPress users get a running start before all the sessions on Saturday.

4) What is your favourite WordPress plugin or theme? Why?
As a developer I use a lot of different plugins, but few that I use most of the time are Gravity Forms, Google Analytics for WordPress, TinyMCE Advanced and for building multilingual sites on WordPress multisite – Multisite Language Switcher and WP Native Dashboard.