Profiles

WordPress, open source, the open web, digital independence, privacy, sustainable web development, technical SEO, community building, photography, hiking

My relationship with the internet started in the late 90s, with dial-up modems and the constant battle for the phone line. By 2003 I had registered my first domain and was hand-coding static HTML. When I discovered CMS platforms, I spent years searching for the right fit, trying Coppermine, then Joomla, and first touching WordPress 2.0 “Duke Ellington” around 2006. At the time it didn’t quite click, mostly because I couldn’t find a decent gallery solution. So I moved on, but WordPress never really let me go.

By late 2011 I made the decision to stay with it for good. What won me over was the simplicity and the sense that something genuine was happening in the community behind it. That feeling was confirmed when I attended my first WordPress Meetup in Zürich, which led to my first WordCamp in Switzerland in 2014. That experience sparked something: I went on to organise WordPress Meetups in Thuringia and eventually co-founded the Jena and Erfurt groups. WordPress stopped being just a tool and became a framework for how I think about the web altogether.