Adam Silver is one of the top WordPress developers. He is an expert in Internet Marketing, Content Production, and related training. Some of his specialties may include WordPress, Video Editing, Photography and Production. In this interview, Adam talks in detail about his career and the challenges he faced during his professional progression.
Cloudways: Hello Adam, thank you for joining us today. Can you please tell our readers a bit about yourself. How did you start your career? Who motivated and inspired you?
Hello. Well, depends on which career you are asking about, I’ve had a few. But for the sake of argument, we’ll focus on WordPress! I started out of a need to revamp my photography website. It was flat HTML with some Flash streaks. Wow! That’s slightly embarrassing to admit. Times were changing, and after mucking with Joomla! for a New York second, I found WordPress and didn’t look back.
Cloudways: You are currently a WordPress instructor at Redondo Beach Unified School District. How do you motivate adults to create a WordPress website? And how you encourage them to choose WordPress as CMS? What other CMS would you recommend if WordPress had not been developed and why?
I started my career with part-time teaching on client recommendations. One of my clients commented: “Hey you are a great teacher, you should offer this to more people. Like at the adult school!” In response to the motivated students, the idea behind it was to make learning fun and accessible. You keep stuff too technical and people tune out. As the class is a beginner class, I try to keep it basic. Though there are students who want more info, I do brief them in such a way that it balances out. Honestly, I have had some students where WordPress wasn’t a good fit as they couldn’t grasp certain things, and in such cases, I recommend other services that would be a better fit.
Cloudways: What does your typical workday looks like? Are there projects that you are proud of? Can you share the most complicated or most interesting project you have worked on?
Adam Silver: My typical workday is a bit frenetic, to say the least, I am a bit trendy so I wear many hats. Firstly, I’m an early riser. I run 3-4 days a week from around 5 am PST. Exercising boosts my immune systems and helps mental health. If I am not running then I go for a walk. I also visit a local Starbucks store. I also provide freelance services for different companies mostly related to social media and internet marketing.
I have left the “day job” and took on ConciergeWP full time. I just celebrated three years this past September. The routine day work involves managing clients, delegating tasks, putting together site audits and proposals as well as managing a small staff of freelancers. The saying “herding cats” is at times very appropriate!
Once, I am done with my work, I either teach my WordPress class (3 x 4 times a year) or head to a meetup or maybe head back home to my wife & kids. Yeah, my duties at home are to cater homework for kids, make dinner and probably hang out after a meal.
As far as the projects are concerned that makes me proud, It is indeed hard to pick out one. I’m usually just happiest when I troubleshoot and solve a problem for client or find a resource that helps someone accomplish their goal(s).
Oh.. I have also moved from California to North Carolina!
Cloudways: Many associate the success of WordPress due to its vast community, do you agree? How do you see the future of WordPress?
I totally agree. The community is awesome! I have amazing friendships because of it. I never saw that coming and happy when I’m around them at meetups and WordCamps.
Cloudways: How did you get started with podcasting? How do you come up with topic ideas of the podcast? Do you invite guests on podcast?
I’ve been listening to Podcasts for a long time. Like since they first started. I always wanted to do one. When I started getting serious about WordPress, I searched iTunes and found a few, though many were already “pod-faded” i.e. not producing any new content. From there I thought, I could do that as well. Though it took some prodding from a good friend to actually start. I get ideas from what I see going on in the community, my own struggles, my WordPress class and the local meetup I run.
I am still producing podcasts every week, coming up on episode 300 for The KitchenSinkWP podcast. I have also started a second WordPress podcast with Kyle Maurer, called The Get Options Podcast. We “give options” to people to post questions in the WordPress space. We have a lot of fun with that show as we are a bit goofy!
Cloudways: When I saw your domain-name, I laughed out aloud 🙂 How did you get an idea of such a unique domain name? What is the story behind the name “KitchensinkWP”?
Adam Silver: Thanks for the compliment! The domain idea just came to me as the saying goes… “it’s got everything but the kitchen sink”. That as well as the button that use to exist it the visual editor called “kitchensink” so it tied it together for me and made sense! I also had ideas of using the “kitchensink” for other creative outlets/branding like how the “dummies” books did it, but for now it’s just WordPress related.
Cloudways: You are working at Silver Lining Productions as a Freelance Photographer, Educator and Multimedia Producer. Could you tell the readers about your best work there? Share some of your favourite pics with us 🙂
Adam Silver: SLP is still my parent company, though CWP and KSWP are the two primary assets. I’ve also launched CanYouStartYesterday.com and about to launch BackupSpeaker.com next month. Both are serving a gap in the field they are tied to.
As many business owners can identify with, the order of work is look for work, do the client work, manage our own sites last! That said, both SLP main site and SLP photography site are due for updates. The photography site got hacked! Yep.. it even happened to me. Full disclosure, I was expecting and let it happen by not updating WordPress core, the theme I am using or plugins for a long time. As I wasn’t doing much photography at the time, and the site was due for a refresh, I wanted to see/learn how it might be exploited. Mission accomplished! That said, my portfolio of images is currently offline. Sorry!
Cloudways: Within the WordPress Community, who do you consider your best friends?
Adam Silver: Oh, that’s easy and tough. I have so many friends. But “besties”. Let’s see. In no specific order: Kyle Maurer, Dustin Hartzler, Gregg Franklin, Keri-Leigh Marucchi, Stephen Harvey, Jamie Currie, Various Benjamin, Jen Miller, Sara Dunn.
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Cloudways: Cloudways is a managed hosting platform for everyone, offering 1-click installation for WordPress with great caching solutions and optimized servers. What’s your opinion about managed cloud hosting services like Cloudways?
Adam Silver: I think Managed WordPress Hosting is starting to make a lot of sense for many users who want to know their host is reliable. As I’m 100% honest, I haven’t yet used nor tested any managed hosting services at this time, but I do have it on my list to do so soon.
Please send us an image of how your workspace looks like?
Don’t have a pic handy, but for now, I describe it: DIY Standing Desk using Ikea Expedit! It’s a tough balance as I am tall.
Danish Naseer
Danish Naseer is a WordPress Community Manager at Cloudways. He is passionate about designing, developing, and engaging with people to help them. He also actively participates in the community to share his knowledge. Besides that, he loves to watch documentaries, traveling and spending time with family. You can contact him at [email protected]
