Wilmingtonian Greg Davis got his introduction to WordPress in 2009 when he helped a pastor set up a blog.
“It kind of got me playing around with it and trying to figure out, ‘What is this thing?’” he said. He liked what he saw.
And so, seven years later, Davis wants to build New Castle County’s WordPress community, and he’s begun a Meetup group to do it.
http://www.meetup.com/New-Castle-County-WordPress-Meetup/events/227719583/
While Philadelphia and the Philly suburbs have vibrant WordPress communities (and btw, hosted the ultimate WordPress event, WordCamp US, last month), Davis said Wilmington is its own community with plenty to offer. “I wanted to be able to not always have got be relying on other groups and get something started in our community,” he said.
Davis, who worked for DuPont for several years, is the IT director for VWR International, a laboratory supply distribution company. After helping the pastor back in 2009, he realized he was becoming a go-to guy for people with tech questions. In response to that, he started 38 Solutions in 2010. “What I’m aiming to do, in most cases, is help small business owners or individuals with their web presence and get them going on the web,” he said.
WordPress is a tool he uses often with his 38 Solutions work, and he has a hunch that there are lots of folks in the area who are either WordPress users or developers (though he guesses there are more users).
What he loves about the popular website creation tool is that the software is open source, and it has a strong community of tech lovers who want to help each other in their online endeavors.
“It can be a tool for a career, or it can become a career itself for people to learn,” Davis said.
So, if you’re a Wilmington-area WordPress user (we are!) or developer — or you just want to know more about how it works — check out Davis’ Meetup. He held the first meeting in November (eight attended) and he’s hopeful to grow an enthusiastic community here. He’s also in talks with 1313 Innovation’s Megan Anthony about doing a Girl Develop It session on WordPress.
“The important thing is to get the word out to people that you don’t have to be afraid to do things online.”
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