WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world. What makes it great is its community. Switzerland has had an active WordPress community for many years: the first national event took place in 2014. Since then, activity has grown exponentially, both nationally and in exchange with colleagues from all over the world.
It’s important to me to be part of the WordPress community—both in Switzerland and worldwide—because WordPress has been a collaborative project since its inception in 2003. Even before its founding, I helped troubleshoot the software on which WordPress is now based. This gives me more than 22 years of experience collaborating on open source solutions.
Just as my career and the services I provide to my clients are built on collaborative work, it’s equally important to me to continue sharing knowledge with anyone in the community who needs my help. I dedicate around 10% of my time to developing and maintaining open source plugins, translating third-party software, and providing feedback on existing and new features via GitHub.
WordCamp conferences and meetups
Tech conferences offer a great opportunity to meet fellow WordPress community members in real life—especially the affordable WordCamps organized by the WordPress community itself. Over the past few years, I’ve been part of the organizing teams for several national events, built their WordCamp websites—including the first multilingual one in 2023—and have also been a speaker from Geneva to Zurich.
By participating in national events and, most recently, the world’s largest annual WordCamps (WordCamp Europe), I continue to cultivate collegial exchange with friends and colleagues from international specialist agencies. In smaller groups, I participate in regular WordPress meetups in Bern, Basel, and Zurich, where I occasionally speak.
These connections are incredibly important because they provide me with a broad network to gain support and experience from some of the world’s most experienced specialists in their field.
WordPress Switzerland Slack Channel
To provide developers, designers, and content creators with an online meeting place between meetups, we created a free Slack channel for WordPress Switzerland in 2016. Slack is a chat room where members can interact, share links, and meet new colleagues.
To join the channel, first log in to the WordPress community website make.wordpress.org/chat/ and register your account. You’ll automatically receive a free email address: username@chat.wordpress.org. You can then use this to register for the WordPress Switzerland channel at wpch.slack.com.
