With 15+ years experience working in digital strategy, user experience design, and software engineering with professional services agencies, John Eckman brings a lot to the table for the Las Vegas edition of Prestige Conference.

The current CEO of 10up, one of the fastest-growing agencies in the WordPress ecosystem, will be speaking about the enterprise market and how CMS systems can be marketed beyond small- to medium-sized business clients. He has worked with clients ranging from small startups to Fortune 50 companies, and his session is one you won’t want to miss.

Read on to get to know John a little bit better before our event, and make sure to check out his blog Open Parenthesis where he writes regularly about free and open source software, internet strategy, and building compelling experiences for the web and mobile.

In 3 sentences or less, please describe what you do for a living:

I help run 10up, a distributed digital agency delivering content-centric web experiences on the WordPress platform. I focus on operations, hr, culture, and process - scaling the firm - and work with selected clients on strategy.

Why this career and not something else?

Beats digging ditches. My first career was in academia - did a PhD and taught in an English department. But then the web came along, and it was just too revolutionary, world-changing, and cool to avoid.

The internet, and most specifically the web as a manifestation of the best the internet can do, is the most revolutionary innovation since movable type, and perhaps bigger than that.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

Depending on how far back you go: Novelist, Literature Professor, Rock Star, Race Car Driver, Chemical Engineer, Teacher.

Once you figured out what you wanted to do with your career, how did you start making things happen?

Ran hard and fast at every opportunity. Front-end development, user experience, information architecture, project management, technical architecture, engineering, sales, management - every role I took I focused on what new thing I was learning.

Back in 2005/2006, I decided to focus in on open source, and specifically Drupal and WordPress. I started WordCamp Boston in 2010 - that started a number of snowballs rolling down hills.

Who were your most valuable mentors and how did you connect with them?

Ralph Folz and Tom Little, who were the cofounders of TVisions; Mavis Chin and Dave Gynn from Optaros, Jeff Cram from ISITE - all people I’ve worked with/for and kept in touch with.

Now, of course, that list includes Jake Goldman and the team at 10up.

What’s coming up next for you?

Continuing to focus on 10up - improving our processes, investing in our culture - making sure we can continue to scale without sacrificing quality of delivery or employee experience.

Any industry predictions for 2015?

More focus on financial metrics - how can we demonstrate the real value of the investments we make in web products. This includes optimization (A/B and multivariate testing) but also wholesale redesigns and replatforms - how do we know we’re getting our money’s worth?

What book(s) are you reading right now?

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, by Gabriella Coleman.

Favorite “guilty pleasure” song or band that you can’t help but rock out to?

Too many to count. I guess the most unavoidable is New Order’s “Blue Monday” - gets me dancing every time.

Name something you’re looking forward to for Prestige Conference Las Vegas:

A quality, curated content experience with plenty of time for discussion - more of what we saw in Minneapolis last time.

Specifically, Pippin and Jake, John Hawkins & Kim Schaefer.

Going to the Pawn Shop from Pawn Stars.