From distant Greece (or Hellas, how he calls it) comes our next speaker – Anastasios Manoloudis. He is a designer that started his own company back in 2007. For Anastasios, WordCamp Zagreb will be his first speaking gig at a WordCamp so we would like to give him a warm welcome.
I started my company back in 2007
Anastasios, it’s nice to have you with us, and we are looking forward to your talk in Zagreb. Can you tell us more about yourself? I know you are an active member of European WordPress community, you have been a volunteer on how many WordCamps Europe?
Hello dear reader and thank you for having me, Emanuel and team WordCamp Zagreb 2017! Let’s start with introductions: My name is Anastasios Manoloudis and I’m from a neighbour Balkan country named Hellas (you might know it as Greece). After working in-house for other firms for a few years I decided to start my own in 2007. Back in those years, I used mainly Adobe’s software tools and Lynda’s material.
Open source — not only as a concept — was familiar to me through various Linux distributions and while researching for a project, WordPress “knocked on my door”. Later on, becoming a customer of — then named — WooThemes meant that I also subscribed to their email newsletter and what do you know (?) one day an email mentioning WordCamp Europe 2014 arrived and the real fun began.
One could say I took my time to start volunteering. Even though I attended WCEU 2014 in Sofia and shortly after — along with a great team — started organising the local meetup in Heraklion (Crete), it wasn’t until WCEU in Vienna that I started volunteering. It was truly “an insightful, rewarding participation and experience” which only got better over time after participating in more WordCamps.
What is that you like to do? Is it a website, a logo, a visual identity? I see that you’re quite passionate about everything you do!
Thank you for this question, Emanuel. “Borrowing” the quote from Steve Zehngut’s presentation at this year’s LoopConf: We, at CrowdedTent, love helping businesses succeed online. Personally, I’m all for all for visual communication; with an emphasis on communication. Take any project; what’s the basis of it?! Communication! Love putting strong foundations.
Spending life mostly in front of a monitor is not my thing; love the great outdoors and building stuff by hands. So the mobility that my way of life is providing me with is a treasure.
I would like to explore how the words we use shape the world around us
Now, your talk is titled “DeSign Everything”. What will you speak about? The first word “design” is written differently with an emphasis on “sign” – why’s that?
Haha, it is designed to be thought-provoking. My goal is to communicate attention to detail and through my presentation, I would like to explore how the words we use shape the world around us, their importance in design and how to think — and work — out of the box. Another way to put is on signing your work, take initiative and responsibility. To be authentic and not be afraid to build and ship stuff.
Am I correct – is this your first public speaking gig? Why should people come and listen to your talk? What can we expect on stage?
At WordCamp, it is, yes. Yay! They should not; I’m inviting them to watch the live-stream (we’ll be streaming it, right?!) or maybe watch the recording afterward. It will be on a Saturday, yes; but if they have an opportunity to be somewhere in nature or with friends, they can watch it during office hours later on. Not saying this in an arrogant way. Simply believe that it is an amazing library of presentations that we’re putting on WordPress.tv and personally I see it — and treat it — as a kind of University; one where the goal is not to graduate from but to improve ourselves (ok, we also cannot be all over the planet at the same time).
Any final words?
Have your ticket already? Can’t wait to meet you in person at WordCamp Zagreb 2017! Not yet? There’s still some available I hear; does not matter if you just happened to stumble upon this article and know nothing of WordPress, get yours and come say “hi”. We’re a friendly bunch!
Oh, and thanks for reading this far! 😉
Did you get your ticket?
If you haven’t already, get your ticket for WordCamp Zagreb today. Tickets are priced at 20€ (around 150 HRK) which will give you entrance to the conference, (first) access to workshops on Friday and to Contributor day on Sunday. You will also get the drinks, lunch, incredible t-shirt and other cool swag from our sponsors.