Learn The more I dove in, the more interesting it became, and the more difficult things I was able to figure out. Now, when I look back and see what I've learned just by contributing, I'm amazed. It's been more than I ever learned in college. Andrea Rennick
Connect It raises your status inside the community, which is helpful, because it’s a very tight-knit community, and a lot of your business links are going to come from there. A lot of your potential partners on ventures and projects are going to come from within the community. And by contributing and staying close to that tight-knit group, you keep those connections alive. Mark Jaquith
Career I got my job with DreamHost. And really, I used to work for a bank. I always used to say to people, I get satisfaction out of doing support for WordPress because I feel like I’m making things better for people in such a way that I can see the change happen that I know that I’m making peoples’ life a little bit better and a little bit easier, in a way that my job at the time just couldn’t satisfy. Mika Epstein
Impact It’s not very often that something you do in an afternoon can touch so many folks, but WordPress is one of those places where you can. And for people who care about that, there’s nothing better. That feeling is so amazing. I still get it. I get that sort of shiver. You push out code or you push out change or a new design and you see the tweets start, you see the blog posts, you see the numbers move. It’s kind of amazing. Matt Mullenweg
Love I’m totally a little bit of a hippy type, and I do it because I love the software. It’s my living. I get paid to do it full time. I love the community, and I think that the basic premise that WordPress is built on—democratizing publishing for everybody—is a really important one. Helen Hou-Sandi
IRC Chat Schedule Wednesday: Mobile. 1600 UTC in #wordpress-mobile Wednesday: BuddyPress. 1900 UTC in #buddypress-dev Wednesday: bbPress. 1900 UTC in #bbpress Wednesday: Core. 2100 UTC in #wordpress-dev Thursday: Support & Docs. 2100 UTC in #wordpress-sfd To get help helping out, check out #wordpress-contribute irc.freenode.net
smckeown
soracom
ojun9
ryohatanmonolog
hcrane
hosimesi11
naoto_pq
nihonbuson
yayoi_dd
salaboy
yoshikikomoriya
tkhresk
watany
tanoku
jlugia
paigeccino
danielanewman
lara
akosma
phodgson
addyosmani
sachag
cassininazir
mojombo
jennybc