Mike Payne — WCSLC Speaker Profile

Mike is a junior partner and Development Director at Punchline Advertising where he builds custom CMSs for his clients based on WordPress using custom post types and fields. He also spends time as a WordPress consultant, helping companies and individuals better understand how to utilize open source projects for long term scalable platforms.

Mike got his start on WordPress 2.6 while in high school at the Academy of Information Technology. When he first started web developing, he was coding every page by hand in HTML/CSS. “I wasn’t very enthusiastic about the career path until I started using PHP to make my sites more dynamic, and understanding how to move sections of the site into templated files. Suddenly everything became way easier! WordPress cranks that ease of use and excitement to 11!”

His favorite part of WordPress is the community of developers and users. “With so many people continuously looking for easier ways to make a free piece of software do what they want, it is becoming easier and easier to find solutions that used to be impossible.” One of his recent projects that he’s proud of is Salt City Glass. “I built that site from the ground up. I took product photography, built out the ecommerce solutions, developed the site branding and feel, and helped the client to understand how to easily input new products and zone in on SEO friendly content.”

Mike’s presentation topic is the Psychology of Web Design. “I’ve always been intrigued by the psychology of interaction. Salesmen learn basic psychologic techniques to persuade customers into not only buying from them, but upselling them toward more expensive products. Your website is your best — and sometimes only — salesman. By understanding your visitors intentions you can funnel them to specific content, persuade them into believing, wanting, and buying.”

When Mike isn’t working on WordPress, he loves robots, motorcycles and video games. He recently built an arcade cabinet from scratch with his brother, wiring the controls to a computer from which they can play thousands of emulated arcade games from one machine. His favorite jazz musician is Miles Davis, though he doesn’t listen to jazz most frequently.