Niranjan Udas is a WordPress lover from Nepal. He is a Technology Evangelist currently working at Genese Software Solution, which he co-founded with his colleagues 5 years ago. He has created several WordPress sites and few custom plugins for national and international clients. He is also working as a part-time lecturer at Gandaki College of Engineering and Science. At WordCamp Pokhara 2018, he talked about ‘WP Project Management Lifecycle – An Insight into the context of Nepal.’ We got to talk with him right the same day.
How and when did you start your journey with WordPress?
I started working on WordPress 5 years ago when I, along with my friends, started our company (Genese Software Solution) and I am very happy being a part of it.
What excites you the most about WordCamps?
People from all over the country and even experts from foreign lands come together to share their experiences. There is such a nice environment to bond with each other. And the food! The WordCamp food is always good.
This is the first WordCamp happening here in Pokhara, how excited are you?
Very excited! Pokhara is such a beautiful and peaceful place. The weather always feels right whether it is cold or hot or even rainy. Everyone coming from outside must be really happy to find another reason to be in this beautiful city. And for us, the local speakers, WordCamp Pokhara has given us a huge platform to share our knowledge and experiences. I am very thrilled and happy to be a part of WordCamp Pokhara 2018!
What do you hope attendees will take away from your talk today?
I am talking about ‘WordPress Project Management in the context of Nepal’. It is mostly focused on how to manage the expectation of the clients by setting a process. I have felt that we lack a standardized process of requirement gathering for WordPress projects, which may cause a lot of confusion and delays in the future. I hope the attendees will realize where I am coming from and feel the need for setting such a streamlined process.
Are there any challenges you faced that you’d like to share with us?
I am going to mention this in my presentation as well, the major challenge that I have faced while working on a WordPress project has been the lack of clarity on the clients’ end on what features they need in their website. They usually bring a sample of their competitors’ websites and ask us to build a better version of it. Such a request is really hard to fulfill and the level of satisfaction is not so high at the end.
What are your thoughts on the WordPress community of Nepal?
Its bigger than any other tech community already and is still growing! We should always try to maintain its standard and keep organizing events like this one to keep it lively.
How have you been contributing or giving back to the community?
Currently, I am working to spread the practical knowledge of cloud computing throughout the colleges in Pokhara. And the plan is to extend this campaign throughout the country. It has become very important that the students of IT have proper understanding on this topic before they even graduate from their colleges. Therefore, it is my priority right now and the program is going to get even bigger in 2019.
What do you think about female participation in WordPress?
I found the number of female attendees quite encouraging. But we still need to elevate the female participation as speakers as well.
How do you stay updated on WordPress?
WordPress itself keeps on updating as we update our Themes and Plugins. I personally have subscribed to many WordPress related websites, blogs, and YouTube channels.
Gutenberg editor is a hot topic nowadays in WordPress, how do you think it is going to affect the WordPress ecosystem?
It is certainly going to adversely affect the page builder plugins. But it is going to make the life of a lot of other demographics easier. With Gutenberg, WordPress users can build their website with more visibility and that might encourage people who don’t have much experience with code to build their own website using WordPress. Overall, I feel positive about it but certainly, not everyone is going to be happy.
What can we find you doing when you’re not WordPressing?
I am always learning something. But this year, it has mostly been about cloud computing. So, you will find me watching videos on services like AWS and Azure or reading books and articles on them. Also, coffee, you will find me drinking a lot of it.
And lastly, WordPress 5.0 is releasing soon with Gutenberg Editor as the default editor. How excited are you about it?
There are going to be a lot of issues with compatibility. At least that’s how I feel. So, we are all ready from our end to handle any problem that might arise. It is a huge update and quite a useful one as well. So we are very excited but also cautious.
You can get in touch with Niranjan Udas and learn new things through his Facebook.