 My name is Sophia Deroja. I'm a photographer, artist, writer, and avid reader of most any book I can find. And I was a completely reluctant WordPress user. I've been working with WordPress for about three years. I didn't start using WordPress consistently until a year or so ago when I saw a need and tried to fill it. We'll get back to that in a minute. Now, I say I've been working with WordPress for only three years, but I've been in the WordPress community as long as I can remember. My dad knew people, my mom knew people, and it didn't take very long for me to know people either. I attended my very first WordCamp in 2014 in Chicago, and that's where I really started to get into things. My mom told me that before I went to a WordCamp, I needed to make a blog. At the age of 13, I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my blog or what I really liked to do in general, so I wrote random things and posted them there. It wasn't until recently, though, that I discovered the joys of writing on a blog and all the amazing things you can do with WordPress. If you asked me what WordPress was three years ago, I would have told you it was a blogging platform. Now that I feel the inclination to laugh in my 13-year-old self's face, before I forget, hi, grandma. She should be here somewhere. I don't know if she's here yet. Oh, hi, grandma. Now, to the need! I had a group of people at my church who all wanted to communicate but didn't have a good way of going about it. They would have to use multiple different social media platforms, and many of us were too young to use the ever-so-common Facebook. It was always messy and always complicated. One day, my dad asked me if I'd ever be interested in a social site for my friends and I, thinking he'd build it for us. Little did he know, I'd be taking the reins. My dad got me set up with a basic blog platform, and I ran with it from there. First of all, I downloaded BuddyPress. It's a plugin like all the others, and it gave me multiple options with the help of themes and plugins to convert my site to the kind of social site I was looking for. After I downloaded BuddyPress, I went over to Facebook and started looking for all the things I wanted in a social site. For an image's function, I used a Jetpack, but Jetpack also has many other features. When you first download Jetpack, it takes you to a payment page. If you close out of that, go to the Jetpack dashboard and click Debug. You can unlock all of Jetpack's services. A plugin I used alongside Jetpack was U Image Optimizer. It works by compressing images to make your site faster, being that one of the main functions of my site was pictures, having a fast site was crucial. Once I finished that, I went on to find a messaging plugin. I personally couldn't find that many messaging plugins, but White Chat was my favorite. It provides clean, simple messaging. I haven't messed with it very much, but it allows for group and one-on-one messaging. The only downside is that I haven't found a way to send images. I assume that's a whole other plugin in itself. When you're the creator of a BuddyPress site, you're in the admin role, which means you have free range to everything. There are multiple different roles you can be in, so to do some testing in each role, I used user switching so I didn't have to keep logging in and out. Now I get to explain the kittens. In my previous slides, I have the logo for each plugin in the bottom left corner, but for those that I couldn't find a logo for, I used kittens. Another optimization plugin I used was SG Optimizer. This plugin only works if you have SiteGround hosting your page. It works by caching pages, having the latest version of PHP and caching database queries. I don't know what most of that means, but I do know that it makes your site faster, and that's kind of all you need to know. Once my site was up, running, and fast, I started to look at the details of it. My dad and I used plug-in exception to create a login short code plugin that made the login form provided by theme my login more like what I was looking for. That way, this way, we had a clear login page that protected the content from users who weren't logged in and from those who weren't logged in. Next was the rules page. I really debated about how to do this. I wanted to make sure each user got a good look at the rules and regulations, but I didn't want it to be annoying. The best way I could think of was to use terms of service and privacy policy generator to create a rules page that would only show up when a new user first logged in. After that, I used widget logic. That allows for certain widgets to show up only on the preferred page so things are more clean and organized. Widget placement really seems to be where my designer OCD comes out. I could spend hours reorganizing plugins. Or widgets, sorry. Oh, I skipped one. And last but not least, I used the events calendar to add a calendar page. This held information about various youth year by activities so students wouldn't miss anything fun. I didn't really know what to look for in a good plug-in. I checked ratings, reviews, and often googled to find what I was looking for. I've been having some trouble lately with my site crashing, saying it tried redirecting too many times. I didn't know what to do, so I went to my dad for tech support. Sometimes I just needed professional help. We found out it was probably something with the plugins, so I downloaded a plug-in detective. This is a plug-in my dad heard about, so I did some googling, learned about it, and how it works. I haven't had any time to learn how to use it, but that's definitely something I'm going to work on. Once I got the site built, I started the communications and managerial side of things. I was updating calendars, approving new users, and adding new things here and there. You know what I realized? That's a lot of work for a single person. After a couple months, I sent out some sign-up sheets for various jobs my friends could start helping with. Recently, I've been training them, and soon I'm going to be training a friend of mine to primarily take over after I graduate high school. Probably one of the most valuable things I learned from this whole process is that people are capable. If you need help, ask for it. I can almost guarantee there will be someone out there willing to help you. After the site was live, I gave the announcement at my youth group, and a couple users started streaming in. That was it. Just a couple. It's not so frustrating. I wasn't quite sure what to do. The primary goal was to create a place where everyone could talk to each other, but that only worked if everyone was on the site. I made a couple flyers and put them up at my church, but that didn't seem to help a lot, either. Something that has helped, though, is getting more people involved. Not only does it bring in more users, but it also helps the site have more content and information that I couldn't provide on my own. Now, let's bring some things into perspective for a moment. I went from 13-year-old blogger to 16-year-old social media designer, slash builder, slash manager, slash every other job you need to keep a site full of teenagers up and running. My point here is that it's not that hard. If you know someone or some way to get started and know how to Google the rest, that's really all you need. It's all about finding a need and being willing to learn all you have to to fill that need. That's what I did, and a year later, I'm speaking in a WordCamp. Now, let's sum things up a little. Is that the right one? I don't remember. Let's sum things up a little. I started with a need. I took that need, had an idea, and got some advice. After that, I learned how to make my idea a reality and created something that filled the need. When we couldn't use Facebook, I downloaded BuddyPress and made my own. I used other plugins to add some key features that added functionality. I consulted a professional when I got stuck, and when I started to feel overwhelmed, I got some help from my friends. When I first had the idea of making a social site, I didn't think I was qualified. I tend to be more Bob Ross than Mark Zuckerberg. I didn't really see how any skill set I had fit the position. But once I got started, I started to develop the skills I needed. I also noticed some skills that have always been there. I just didn't see them until now. Sometimes the most important things seem so big and scary, but once we start doing them, we realize that they're not so bad, and that we kind of like them. For the longest time, I didn't really want to do anything with WordPress, neither as a blogger nor more than that. It just didn't seem very interesting. But after making this site, I learned that I actually kind of like setting up websites. I like managing things, and I seem to be pretty good at it. I don't know if that's what my future holds, but I do know those are skills I have, and I shouldn't have any trouble using them when the time comes. Thank you, and good night.