The Beautiful Of WordPress Website Is That Learning Never Ends

Mwale Kalenga

Today, we are going to conduct the interview of Mwale Kalenga from Lusaka, Zambia. He is a Support Specialist at WPMU DEV. Also, he was a Former Content Marketer at Brainstorm Force.

In this interview, Mwale mentioned that before coming into WordPress he was into Football as well as he mentioned that whenever he gets free from work, you will find him playing and watching games.

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• WordPress.org Profile

Introduction:

I’m Mwale, technically a Business Economist, but I spend most of my days working on websites and learning how to promote them. Before getting into WordPress, I was quite curious about technology and websites in particular. So great was this interest in websites that I built my first one at age fourteen.

I’ve always also been into football. Not only can you find me watching the games, I love playing too. I enjoy playing defense, but funny enough, I also love to score. Which is why Five-a-side football and I are a match made in heaven.

Q. How did you get to know about WordPress? Share if there is an interesting story.

Ans: I had a business idea and needed a website to promote it. I found a YouTube video explaining how to make one with WordPress and that was how I got hooked. After getting through the entire video, the website was still a long way off from where it needed to be.

So I googled and googled some more, until I got the hang of things. It was so interesting creating websites with WordPress, that just kept making them for no reason. This was made possible in part due to the fact that I was building them on a local environment using xampp.

Q. What’s the most interesting project you have done to date in WordPress? What were your responsibilities?

Ans: Definitely it’s been working on the WPMU DEV projects. WPMU DEV have a range of WordPress products, and to see how these are made and how much time and effort goes into ensuring that the products are up to scratch, is just fascinating.

Working on these projects has also helped me get into things I never thought of trying, such as shell scripting. My responsibilities as a member of the first level support team include

(1) Communicating with customers to identify issues, walk through solutions and initiate corrective actions to restore service and functionality.
(2) Observing system functioning and entering commands to test different areas of operations.
(3) Collaborating with developers to assist customers with emergent technical issues and develop effective solutions.

Q. Have you ever been to any WordPress meetups or WordCamps? Share your thoughts on WordPress Community.

Ans: I haven’t yet attended a WordCamp. But the WordPress Community is the real deal. There you’ll find extremely helpful folks.

Q. How does your workstation look like? Can you send us a picture?

Ans: My workstation is pretty boring. I have some ergonomics going on, so there are plenty of keyboards lying around my desk.

Q. What interesting feature do you think you would like to see in WordPress and is currently missing?

Ans: I would definitely say in-built image conversion. WordPress now supports webP images, which means you can upload and preview webP files. But if you upload a Png, WordPress cannot convert it to webP.

I think it makes sense to add this image conversion feature to allow for more flexibility without the need to install more plugins.

Q. Out of the current plugins and themes which one do you like the most and why?

Ans: It’s hard to decide because there are just so many great themes getting added everyday. But if I had to choose one, I would probably go with GeneratePress theme because it’s really flexible and lightweight. When it comes to plugins, I simply cannot narrow it down to one. It’s too difficult to decide.

Q. Any awesome technology you want to share other than WordPress?

Ans: Not really.

Q. Do you like/love what you currently do in WordPress?

Ans: Absolutely! Working on WordPress websites is a joy. The beautiful of it all is that learning never ends, literally! There’s always a new fun thing to do.

Q. Where do you find yourself after 5 years

Ans: After 5 years, I hope to be working less and relaxing more. This might be on a farm somewhere.

Q. Share something about your life other than work

Ans: I’m a runner, a lazy one. I’ve been running for over 7 years (not continuously) and I just love it. When you spend several hours on the screen working and another several hours playing, you can get out of shape fast. Running is a great way to cut down on screen time and get healthier in the process.

Q. To whom you give credit for your success?

Ans: I would definitely give credit to Jehovah (God’s name as revealed in the bible).

Q. Can you give us some reference for whom we should conduct an interview next and why?

Ans: Jacobo Castillo: He’s a nice guy and he’s got great WP knowledge.

Q. How do you reward yourself?

Ans: With more time on the screen :). When I’ve gotten enough work done, I like to catch up with my favorite YouTubers. There may or may not be some junk food involved.

Q. Any suggestion for WordPress beginners?

Ans: Don’t get overwhelmed or worry about getting good fast. Everybody that’s a WordPress expert today started right where you are and you can be sure they didn’t get good fast. Enjoy the journey and worry about not having enough fun. If you get stuck or have a question, just ask on the WordPress forums.