“Zeitguys inc. is a digital agency. We help businesses and organizations implement their marketing strategies. Whether that means branding, high-end print collateral, presentations and motion graphics, web or mobile solutions we have the talent and equipment in-house to execute.”

“Our web platform of choice is WordPress and our expertise with that platform goes very deep. Our development team contributes to the ongoing improvement of the open source WordPress software, and we are proud supporters of the local WordPress community.”

Why WordPress?

“WordPress, when viewed as a framework rather than a blogging platform, provides a ton of intelligence around security, queries, optimization and syndication that saves a lot of development time while ensuring best practices. It enables us to focus on front- and back-end customizations to improve the end-user and administrative user experiences.”

Do you have an interesting WordPress story?

“My first WordPress website, looking back, was a complete disaster on the inside! Coming from a strong Perl background, I used my programming knowledge like a blunt object, smashing at bits and pieces of WordPress with abandon. Plugins were forked. Themes were modified without child themes. WordPress hooks and utility functions were blithely ignored, and Perl code was ported wholesale to PHP and jammed into WordPress.

Interestingly, the site (which shall remain nameless to protect my shame and their outrage) remains highly trafficked today and continues to be a flagship in our portfolio. This is a testament to how robust WordPress really is.”

How has WordPress affected your business?

“By choosing to adopt WordPress as our platform of choice, it has allowed us to focus on a specific workflow and toolset. This allows us to refine and reuse, rather than reinvent the wheel every time a new project is commenced.

Personally, diving deep into WordPress has opened my eyes to the Open Source movement, and shown me how powerful it is when you let go of the closed source, proprietary attitude and embrace the community. You get to let go of some of the responsibility, and contribute in areas where you have expertise, relying on other experts elsewhere (sometimes on the other side of the globe!) to do their thing.”

Any advice for WordCamp attendees?

“Follow a 70-30 rule when selecting sessions. 70% of the sessions you attend should be in your “comfort zone”, or area of expertise or specification. 30% of the sessions should challenge you – whether it’s coding, business or content.

Also, don’t forget the Happiness Bar. Back-to-back sessions can be exhausting. At the Happiness Bar, while you recharge, you can chat with WordPress experts who are there to answer your casual questions, or even work with you to solve harder problems that you might be currently experiencing with WordPress.”

What’s your one question for everyone attending WordCamp Toronto?

“Do you have any upcoming web related projects, and what is their approximate budget?”