 Hey, everyone, it's Neely with GoDaddy Pro. Back again with another maker of the web. For this episode, I have Mary Job. She does a lot for the community, which is why I'm super excited to talk to her. First off, thanks for coming on and spending some time with me. Awesome. Thank you very much, Justin, for having me here. So my name is Mary Job. As Justin says, I live in Lagos, Nigeria. Although I spend most of my time in the village where I'm from because I run a computer app for teenagers to teach them how to use computers and WordPress and basic programming stuff. I'm also a part of the WordPress community in Nigeria here. I run the Lagos and the Jabu communities in my spare time. Then currently I work for Peed Memberships Pro as a support engineer. And I also founded my company, How Do You Tech? And I run that on the site when I'm not at peer proof. So you obviously do a lot and there's a lot to kind of prioritize everything. So with WordPress in general, like what got you started with it? What was that like first moment? My first moment actually, I run away from WordPress. The first time I encountered WordPress, that was in 2012. I was just looking for a space to write, just to blog. And when I saw WordPress, I was asking myself, what is this? Because I come from a philosophy background. I don't have a computer science background. And I was asking myself, what am I doing here? I just want to write, you know? So I ran away and then I came back in 2015 and I watched some videos, basically went through a tutorial series and I was amazed. I was like, wow, so this is what I've been missing all this while. I have to get into this. So I moved over my blog from Blogger and that was the beginning for me. And never looking back, right? Oh, no, no, no, no, we're in a love, love, love relationship. There's no breaking up here because WordPress as a whole has been a very big part of me and what I do right now. And also a very big part of my career because I didn't think that I would today be in this career where I'm learning programming languages. I didn't even know what HTML was in 2016. Now, obviously you get back to the community a lot. So if someone were watching this video and they're like, I want to give back to you, how does one get started with jumping into the WordPress community and helping? So for me, the way that I started was I, like I said, when I jumped into WordPress in 2015, after a year, I asked myself, you know, there has to be a community of people who do WordPress, where can I find them? And I stumbled on make and I said, oh, wow, this is where you find people who do WordPress. So for new people trying to come into WordPress, I always tell them, find a place and make to fit in. Because when I started, I wasn't even a programmer, you know, I looked at all the ways to give back and I told myself, I can't fit into any one of this. I would fit in the community, okay, let me go there. You know, there's a place for everyone to fit in. That's the way I say it. Regardless of what field you're working. So for anybody that wants to start, I would say just visit, make, look at the different ways, look at the different things. Which one of them aligns with your own interests and then dive into that. Perfect, and that's make.wordpress.org and you can kind of go and see all of those different options. Cause yeah, you don't have to be a developer. You don't have to be a marketer. There's so many different ways to kind of give back and find your tribe, if you will. I agree with you. And even if you're a language specialist, like I see people here would speak the local language, you know, so what I tell them is that if you can speak the local language very well, there are thousands of companies out there looking for people to translate their softwares for them into local languages. And if you could be a part of that, you know, contributing to WordPress in that way, that would serve as your resume. Because when they ask you, what have you done, you know, you can say, this is what I've done. I've been contributing to this. Any upcoming talks you want to highlight? Yes, so I'm speaking at WordSesh. WordSesh and there's WPA Genesis Submits. I'm talking about how JTEC can warn as the company that I founded. And then the other one, I'm speaking on corporate blogging. Yeah, because one of the ways that got me here today is because I was running a personal blog. So I always encourage you for it. It could be a great way for you to showcase yourself and document your thoughts along the line. And then I also speak about getting more women into tech because that is very important. I mean, when we started the Meetups in Lagos, it was always funny because I was usually like only female and then maybe we would have like three females and then like 100 guys and I'm like, oh my God, where are all the females? So I'm always up for speaking on encouraging women. Like just as we said, there are so many ways you could actually be a part of the community. It's not until you program before you can call yourself a part of the community. That is so awesome to hear. You're obviously doing great work. I mean, from the bit of research I did, I was blown away at your resume. It's super impressive. If anyone wants to kind of learn a little bit more about what you do, where can people find you? On my website, mariojo.com. Perfect. And your Twitter, I believe, Mary Ojo. Yes, Mary Ojo. Well, I definitely appreciate you coming on and spending some of your valuable time. I'm Neely with GoDaddy Pro. We'll see you next time.