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Jose Ramón Padrón García
He mentioned in the interview that he is responsible for co-organizing Las Palmas de Gran Canaria WordPress Meetup and WordCamp.
Customer Care and Sales enthusiastic from the last 20 years, focused in sectors as Hosting and Open Source in Spain and Latin American countries. I am very keen on rock music, good food, and I’m also a sci-fi devout.
I am very proud of being SiteGround Spain Country Manager and I am particularly engaged in the unique philosophy that mixes passion, work, fun time and commitment for employees and customers.
At the present time I’m co-organising Las Palmas de Gran Canaria WordPress Meetup and WordCamp, I’m also WCEU 2021 Global Lead, and I’m mentoring some WordCamps in Latin American countries.
Q. How did you come into your current field? Share a bit of the background?
Ans: I started as Technical Support representative in a hosting company in 2000.
As time went by, I started also to work on sales and marketing areas but always in direct contact with customers, something that gave me a customer-centric perspective, very valuable in this sector and also gave me the opportunity to be the Contact Center Manager of this company after studying a specialised Master in a Business School.
In 2008 I started to work on an Enterprise Hosting Business Unit of a big European company, and four years later I was managing the sales activity in Spain and Latin American countries for a Startup with products focused on Hosting providers.
Finally, in 2015 I met SiteGround. It was the first time I saw a real Customer-Centric company, and much more. I fell in love with this company from the very first moment I understood their values and mission and their passion regarding support and technology.
And with SiteGround also came the WordPress Community, events, talks, Meetup groups. I’ve started to contribute from the very beginning of my presence at SiteGround, and at this moment 50% of my working time is dedicated to this amazing community.
Q. What’s the most interesting project you have done to date in WordPress?
Ans: WordPress events in general terms, but Las Palmas de Gran Canaria WordPress Meetup group is for me the key to my contribution. Even I’m WCEU 2021 Global Lead with Lesley Molecke (I’m a proud WCEU crazy fan), I think the local Meetup groups are the key for the WordPress growth, specially in this case because this was the first WordPress Meetup Group in all Canary Islands.
With the help of Esther, Alicia and Paloma we started this group in 2016, one talk per month without interruption from that year, even in Covid-19 confinement time.
Q. What does your workstation look like?
Ans: My workstation mixes my job and one of my hobbies, music production and recording. I have a MacBook Pro for SiteGround and WordPress Community purposes, and one Mac Mini for the music stuff, both of them with 27” screens and upon an electric height adjustable standing desk.
Regarding the sound: Yamaha HS5 studio monitors, HyperX Quadcast microphone for online events, Shure in-ear SE-215 monitors and Bosé 700 wireless headphones.
Q. What kind of tools/software do you currently use for your creations?
Ans: WordPress for the company blogs, Slack-WhatsApp, GSuite, StreamYard and Crowdcast for live Webinars.
Q. What interesting feature do you think you would like to see in WordPress and is currently missing?
Ans: The most important feature to bring to WordPress from my point of view is the Full Site Editing.
That will make WordPress even more easy to manage for non technical people, and I love that. And regarding Performance Optimization, I’d like to see a Cache system integrated in the core, like other CMSs.
Q. Out of the current plugins and themes which one do you like the most and why?
Ans: I like a lot of Website Performance Optimization Plugins, and in this area SG Optimizer and WP Rocket are the best you can find in the market.
I like this concept of plugins because you can find all what you need for improving your Website Performance indicators in only one single plugin.
Q. Have you ever been to any WordPress meetups or WordCamps? If yes did you learn anything useful?
Ans: I’ve been and I’ve talked in many Meetup Groups and WordCamps in Spain, Mexico and Costa Rica.
Spain is the second worldwide country in number of WordPress Meetups, and before Covid-19 we were holding between 10-12 WordCamps per year in this country, well, I was in most of them from 2015 on a regular basis.
I’ve learned lots of useful technical, marketing and sales stuff, but my favorite learning is about people, how we interact in this Community, and how our professional and personal lives are better thanks to the wonderful people we are meeting in these events.
Q. Which WordPress hosting do you use and would you recommend for your clients and others?
Ans: Well, during my professional career I’ve used more than 25-30 different hosting providers, for testing and personal purposes.
Taking into account I’m working in a hosting company, I have a good understanding of how they work and how they build their solutions, their costs and budget, and the human resources needed.
I love Wordpress specialised managed hosting providers in general, because I know how difficult it is to manage the technology you need for an excellent performance, integrating useful tools, recruiting and taking care of the human resources you need, and keeping high customer satisfaction rates at the same time.
And SiteGround is my choice for all the reasons I’ve described. I’d recommend SiteGround not only for their speed, security and support features but also for the time and love they dedicate to the WordPress Community and the amazing people working in this company.
Q. Do you like/love what you currently do in WordPress?
Ans: I really do. My contribution is based on WordPress events, and my favorite part is organising them and knowing the people I have to work with. I also like mentoring other organisers because I can help organising more events, and at the same time I’m reinforcing all what I’ve learned in all the events I’ve organised.
Q. What would you like to do in the future in the current field or somewhere else?
Ans: I love what I’m currently doing in the place I’m doing it because I’m happy helping others to use technology and improving their professional lives.
I think technology is key in order to transform our society in a better place, and I’d like to be somewhere I would follow this path.
Q. Can you give us some reference for whom we should conduct an interview next and why?
Ans: Yes of course, but this is a difficult question because I have a lot of people to recommend. I’d like you to interview Fernando Tellado because he is a key person inside the Spanish WordPress Community and his blog, ayudawp.com is the worldwide’s most popular WordPress blog in Spanish.
And also Fernando Puente, Yith’s COO, because his technical and business knowledge are impressive, my favorite technical talks are his.
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