New Challenges

My professional career in web development began in the mid 90s, when the “World Wide Web” was this new platform only beginning to be explored.  I was fortunate to get a contract as the webmaster for the former Township of Cumberland maintaining their web presence.  Their official website address was a sub-folder of their service provider’s domain name, an indication as to how “early days” this was.  I saw the web as the new frontier, an obvious progression from the bulletin board systems (BBS) I’d enjoyed using as a teenager.

Since then, I’ve spent 20 years developing web sites and applications for a variety of organizations in local and federal government, private industry and the not for profit sector in Canada, the United States and overseas.

In recent years, this work has become more specialized in WordPress, the open source publishing platform that now powers about 23% of all websites. I’m often asking how I started working with WordPress.  The truth is, I had a client who’s existing site was built using the platform. I dove in and learned all I could in order to expand and maintain that site. The more I worked in the WordPress environment, the more I loved it.  In addition to working on client projects, I’ve had the opportunity to be part of the amazing community around WordPress – speaking at WordCamp events in Canada and the US and contributing to the WordPress core.

Exciting times ahead…

— Shawn Hooper (he/him) (@ShawnHooper) April 30, 2015

In April, I sent the tweet above, “Exciting times ahead…”. Today, I’m able to fill in the details about that mysterious thought.

As of next week, I am assuming the role of Chief Technology Officer at Actionable Books, the same organization that introduced me to WordPress in the first place.

Retreat with the Actionable Books team in May 2015.

We have wonderful plans for the future of the Actionable platform, and I look forward to taking on the technical challenges that involves, along with the opportunity to work with an intelligent, engaging group of individuals from across the globe who are committed to changing employee engagement.

I am fortunate to be joining a team that has heavily invested in the WordPress platform – this will allow me to continue contributing to the community that I have so much respect and admiration for. I will continue to speak at conferences, and contribute wherever needed.

Here’s to new challenges!

Cheers.

Shawn