Hello!

I'm Keir Whitaker — I work in the Offline Marketing team at Shopify. You can my read latest blog posts, find out more about me & listen to the web industry podcast I co–host. You'll also find me on Twitter and Instagram.

A Bit of History

About Me

I have been working at Shopify since 2012. Today I work on the offline marketing team. You can find my full professional history on Linkedin.

Smashing Conference Freiburg 2014 — Photo by Marc Thiele

If you would like to hear more about my background my good friend Marc Thiele recently interviewd me on his Twumble podcast. You can listen to the episode below.

The Back to Front Show

Back in 2013 Kieran Masterton and I (AKA "The Kings of Silicon Gorge") started a web industry focused podcast called The Back to Front Show. We've amassed almost 50 episodes and plan on getting back behind the mics in September 2017!

Find out more about the show and have a listen to some episodes from our archive.

Conferences, Events, & Workshops

Since 2011 I have spoken at a number of web conferences as well as devised and presented workshops focusing on Shopify theme building, the Liquid template language, ecommerce, working in the web industry, podcasting, and side projects. Feel free to email me if you would like me to participate in your event.

I also regularly host Shopify and ecommerce focused events around the world. Over the last few years, I've been lucky enough to visit London, Bristol, Birmingham, Toronto, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Dublin, Belfast, Brooklyn, New York, Boston, Seattle, Chicago, San Francisco, and many more.

Forays into Publishing

In 2012 Elliot Jay Stocks and I published the 256-page "Insites: The Book" under our, now closed, Viewport Industries banner. The book featured 20 interviews with 21 of the web industries finest practitioners. Whilst all print copies sold out you can download the digital versions (epub, PDF — 75mb ZIP) for free.

Collection of images from Insites: The Book — Insties: The Book — Published in 2012

The following year we also published a one-off large format magazine called Digest.

Previously

2011–2014 — For three years I worked on a number of projects with Elliot Jay Stocks under the banner of Viewport Industries including, the aforementioned, "Insites: The Book". Additionally, we ran numerous workshops, published Digest — a one off lifestyle large format magazine, and hosted Insites: The Tour — a four cities in four days tour chatting with interesting web folk about how they got started.
2011–2012 — I worked as freelance web developer, with a focus on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and WordPress.
2011–2012 — During this period I was also honoured to work with the amazing team at Smashing Magazine on their Coding section. I helped curate and edit the articles that appear weekly and have been privileged to work with amazing writers at the forefront of the web industry.
2008–2010 — was spent working in a variety of roles at Carsonified (acquired in 2011), the UK based company known for web-focused events such as The Future of Web Design and The Future of Web Apps. I hosted and produced the podcast Think Vitamin Radio (full site no longer active). The show made the shortlist for the annual .net awards two years running, which was nice. If asked, I say it came joint second in 2010!

Pre 2008

Prior to moving to the West Country from London in 2008, I worked at a small web development agency with a focus on large scale data driven web applications as well as undertaking a variety of freelance projects. Pre 2004 I held a number of mostly web related positions in the NHS (National Health Service) in East London, UK.

Before the internet was even a thing I worked at the Royal Albert Hall in the box office. I have many funny tales from this era, feel free to quiz me if we meet.

Got a question? Feel free to email me or find me on Twitter.