{"id":4871,"date":"2015-01-22T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T17:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ttinvent.com?p=4871&preview_id=4871"},"modified":"2015-11-07T07:15:49","modified_gmt":"2015-11-07T15:15:49","slug":"018-ben-meredith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/?p=4871","title":{"rendered":"019 – From Choir to Coding with Ben Meredith"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
<\/div>\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

\"019_meredithBen_selfie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/i> Leave a Review in iTunes<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/p>\r\n

\u00a0Get updates every week. <\/span>
\r\n Subscribe in iTunes, YouTube, or Libsyn!<\/span><\/h2>\r\n

\n

[In This Episode<\/a>][Guest Bio<\/a>][Additional Notes<\/a>][Text Transcript<\/a>]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

<\/a>In This Episode<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

What would lead a music director to a career in computer coding?\u00a0How can you get people to read your online posts even if the content seems at first to be bland?\u00a0Is it really necessary to create an explosion every time I light the grill?\u00a0Why did Nikola Tesla wiggle his toes 100 times every night? What does all this have to do with inventing and education?<\/p>\n

Our guest today, Ben Meredith, is a self-taught web developer who creates great WordPress plugins. \u00a0If you aren’t familiar with WordPress, it is a web kit to help average people start a website. \u00a0Forbes says that 20% of Websites are now powered by WordPress–that’s somewhere north of 60 million websites powered by WordPress–and Ben is developing plugins for this extremely powerful web force. Listen in to see what Ben has to say about the power of the web and self-education.<\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

<\/a>Ben’s Favorite Quote<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/h2>\n

\"quote_acuff_start\"<\/p>\n

You don't need to go back in time to be awesome; you just have to start right now. - Jon Acuff <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

<\/a>About Teachers<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Can you briefly tell us about a teacher that made an impact on your education and why they are important to you?<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr Burke, my high school English teacher, who made me realize that\u00a0reading is fascinating, and that it’s cool to love books.<\/div><\/div>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

<\/a>About Making<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

What was the last thing you made?<\/em><\/p>\n

Always making something digital for WordPress. The last physical\u00a0thing? A paper airplane for my 4-year old. It wasn’t the most epic thing\u00a0ever, but it got the job done.<\/div><\/div>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

<\/a>About Learning<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

What is the most recent new thing you have learned?<\/em><\/p>\n

Oh, it’s some fascinating stuff about how to code a plugin in such a way\u00a0as to be translated into multiple languages. We geeks call it i18n (there\u00a0are 18 letters between the i and n in “internationalization”).\u00a0I am working to make my plugins inclusive of people who don’t speak\u00a0English. It may sound corny, but getting even the smallest portion of\u00a0the code right has been known to initiate a happy-dance in my office.<\/div><\/div>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

<\/a>About Ben
<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"meredith_ben\"Ben is a self-taught WordPress plugin developer, with more than 3,000 downloads of his plugins!\u00a0He decided 10 years out of college to teach himself how to code, mostly using free resources on the web.\u00a0Ben was fascinated by open source code and the ramifications for web development and learning to code.\u00a0Ben is a husband and homeschool dad of two boys.\u00a0 He leads the music at his church when he’s not knee deep in code!<\/p>\n

For a very interesting, more in-depth look at Ben’s bio, check out his page “I Lost My Job, Not My Identity: Part 1 of My Employment Bio<\/a>“. We guarantee you’ll want to read the rest of the story!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

<\/a>Additional Notes<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Connect with Ben:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>Text Transcript<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0Coming Soon!<\/p>\n

\"quote_meredith_codingPuzzle\"<\/p>\n

Coding... it's like a puzzle and a poem all at once - Ben Meredith, Digital Handyman <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span>\n

\"quote_godin_attention\"<\/p>\n

Attention is our greatest resource today - Seth Godin <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span>\n

\"quote_meredith_cottonCandyConsuming\"<\/p>\n

Consuming is cotton candy compared to the steak dinner of creating - Ben Meredith, Digital Handyman <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span>\n

\"Click<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would lead a music director to a career in computer coding? How can you get people to read your online posts even if the content seems at first to be bland? Is it really necessary to create an explosion every time I light the grill? Why did Nikola Tesla wiggle his toes 100 times every night? What does all this have to do with inventing and education? Our guest today, Ben Meredith, is a self-taught web developer who creates great WordPress plugins. If you aren’t familiar with WordPress, it is a web kit to help average people start a website. Forbes says that 20% of Websites are now powered by WordPress–that’s somewhere north of 60 million websites powered by WordPress–and Ben is developing plugins for this extremely powerful web force. Listen in to see what Ben has to say about the power of the web and self-education.<\/p>\n

Read more ›<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[85,387,337],"tags":[584,407,405,343,406],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/meredith_ben.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PzL0-1gz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4871"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8897,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4871\/revisions\/8897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/developinginnovators.com\/education\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}