An Innovation that Affects Millions: Vistage Connect Member Celebrates Milestone as WordPress Core Contributor

In the world of online publishing tools, WordPress is about as big as it gets with millions, including Vistage, using the open source content management system to publish their content. Vistage Connect member Paul Clark can now count himself among the “core contributors” to the program.

The accomplishment is a pretty big deal. To earn that kind of credit, he had to submit changes (or “write code” in web developer speak) to the WordPress program that were found acceptable for release. But before that could happen, there was a lot of feedback to consider, changes to make and challenges to get over. After all, once accepted, millions of people are going to install or upgrade to the latest version of the program, which will include Paul’s changes.

It took some time for Paul to work up the courage to submit a patch, so he started small by reading and writing bug reports and plug-ins. After a while, he was ready to jump into the deep end. “The WordPress team was super encouraging and helpful in getting me involved,” he says. “It just felt like a big step between reporting bugs or requesting features versus writing the solutions to make them happen!”

So the next time you’re looking at an image gallery on a website running the WordPress TwenyTwelve theme, notice how natural the gallery looks and feels no matter if you’re looking at it on a smart phone, tablet or computer. Then, thank Paul. This is partly his doing.

When he’s not crafting new solutions for WordPress and Vistage, Paul serves as the cofounder and “Left Brain” at the web design and programming agency Brainstorm Media. They describe themselves as “a team of passionate servants with teachers’ hearts. Together, they are in the business of changing the world using WordPress.” He’s also one of the featured speakers at this year’s WordCamp LA, a conference that covers everything WordPress.

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