Author: Jacob Martella

Carrie Dils enrolled at Texas Christian University in the late 1990s. She graduated four years later with a degree in criminal justice.

She’s never used that degree since.

Instead, during her time at TCU, Dils took an HTML course, created a website for her department at TCU and became hooked on creating websites. So when she graduated, Dils turned away from criminal justice and became a freelance web developer.

“It was before there were any degrees in web development or that sort of thing,” Dils said. “That was where the snowball began.”

Dils came out of college into the freelance web development world at just the right time. The dot-com bubble was starting to pick up steam as the new millennium approached. Dils found no trouble picking up work as she continued to develop her new trade.

“I worked for a couple of companies that were larger agencies, but for the most part, when I was independent, I was working with small local mom-and-pop businesses,” Dils said. “It was the trend; everybody needs a website.”

But with the calendar reading 2001, the dot-com bubble burst, sending the economy into a recession and taking many internet-related businesses with it. All three web development agencies Carrie had worked for during the boom went belly up in the recession.

Still, Dils continued on picking up freelance gigs as the market settled out.

Then in the late 2000s, a friend of her’s introduced her to WordPress. Up to that point Dils had used Blogger before, but was still using tried and true HTML to build her websites. But when she realized there was more to WordPress, she quickly changed her mind.

“When I realized that WordPress was more than just blogging software, that it had full content management system behind it, I was hooked,” Dils said. “It’s incredibly powerful that stuff back in my day you built by hand and here it was neatly packaged and free to use as a foundation for projects.”

As she continued to learn about the content management system, Dils began chronicling ways to do different things with WordPress on her blog. While they were intended to help her to remember how to do something, others found useful information out of the posts. She also popped into the WordPress support forums to help others with questions they might about the platform and began speaking at WordCamps.

Eventually, Dils formally took up teaching others about WordPress and working as a freelancer. In addition to writing tutorials on her own website, Dils teaches 16 courses on Linda.co over WordPress and web development.

Dils said her love of teaching was an unexpected development.

“I figured out that I have this knack for teaching things and explaining things,” Dils said. “And I love it when people tell me that they’ve learned something from my site or from one of my courses.”

Dils’ influence isn’t just restricted to the web either. She also hosts a podcast, OfficeHours.FM, which focuses on small business owners, freelancers and web service providers. And in late 2017, she and her friend, Diane Kinney, will be publishing a book called “Real World Freelancing: The No Bullsh*t Survival Guide”. Dils said the book pushes against online programs that promise immediate success for freelancers.

“That’s just not my story and not my experience of what it looks like to run a business over time and that’s sustainable through the years,” Dils said.

But none of this would have happened with the WordPress community. Or at least it wouldn’t have been that enjoyable for Dils.

From the first time she stepped into the community, Dils felt welcome. Whether it was someone in the community following her back or taking time to answer a question she had. And those online bonds have become real friendships from real world WordPress events.

“I learned very early on that WordPress was a giving community,” Dils said. “If I had questions, there was always somebody that was happy to help you out. I experienced it as a welcoming community off the start online and then attending live events like WordCamp and our local Meetup and got to start forming friendships and relationships and those of some of my best friends today.”

But, while Dils’ first experience with the WordPress community kept her going, she’s heard from others who didn’t get that experience. And that’s something she says the WordPress community could be doing better.

“I think that, especially at WordCamps, when you have a group of people that have met each other a bajillion times, it’s easy for people to feel like outsiders,” Dils said. “And I don’t think that’s intentional. That’s what happens to a community when they’ve been around for a while.”

Dils will be giving the Sunday keynote speech at this year’s WordCamp DFW. While she wouldn’t give a hint about her keynote topic, she did have one thing to say about it.

“I hope they come away inspired to take one action,” Dils said. “And I’ll let them know what that one action is during the keynote.”

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

Topic: Advanced Custom Fields: Beyond the Basics

When not working as an International Spy for the ACME Donut Corporation, Dave lives his secret identity as a mild-mannered web developer for the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. In additional running numerous WordPress web sites for the library system, he custom codes plugins and child themes for the library and his side-hustle as a freelance web developer. When not blending in with the general public, you will often find him out flying his camera drone or taking pictures with his extensive camera collection… usually of his teenagers, who hate having their picture taken, of course.

How did you get involved in WordPress?

I was using a blogging platform called “Movable Type” and when they went to a paid model, I went looking for free platform. My friend, Leo Laporte from TechTV, recommended WordPress. I installed it and have not looked back. I have been an evangelist ever since, not just speaking at WordCamps, but promoting WordPress at business conferences and in my local business community.

What do you do with WordPress?

My “day job” is as a web developer for a large library in the capital city of Kansas. I write plugins and child-themes to run our internal systems and public web sites. I also run a small agency as a developer supporting designers to help them add advanced functionality to their clients web sites. I love writing code and I can honestly say that since graduating college, I haven’t worked a day in my life.

What has your experience with the WordPress community been like?

It’s been amazing, pretty much from the start. Matt Mullenweg and Automattic have worked very hard to build a friendly community with stellar peer support and that has been largely successful. As a developer, I am particularly thrilled and grateful for all of the other developers in the community who have answered my questions and helped guide me to better solutions. The Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups in particular have been outstanding resources for both my development work and my personal usage of WordPress for my own blogs and sites.

Why did you want to speak at WordCamp DFW?

I am a huge Dallas Cowboys fan and I lived in Dallas for a few years as a child. So I love to visit the city whenever an opportunity presents itself. I speak at a lot of WordCamps all over the country and it’s a great opportunity to meet others in the community and build long-standing relationships.

Why did you decide to speak on Advanced Custom Fields?

Most of the Advanced Custom Fields sessions I have attended at other WordCamps have been geared towards the beginner and they all pretty much show the same basic stuff. It’s time to move beyond the basics and show how powerful ACF really is for something a little more advanced.

What do you hope the audience gets from your talk?

I hope it piques their curiosity and fills them with a desire to go beyond the simple and create entirely new features for themselves and their clients. Advanced Custom Fields works for beginners to advanced developers and the possibilities are nearly endless.

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!

When Sheryle Gillihan re-entered the business world, she wanted a job that gave her a purpose.

Gillihan joined the U.S. Army while she was in college. After boot camp, she trained for over a year as an Arabic translator for the military. But with her first child on the way and nearly eight months pregnant, Gillihan felt the pressure to choose between being a mother and a career that would require her to leave her baby. One month before she completed training, Gillihan was honorably discharged.

Then, after seven years as a stay-at-home mom raising two kids until they were school-age, Gillihan was ready to get back into the working world. She sought opportunities working with nonprofits, but found that the sector paid less than she was expecting and her qualifications on paper only translated into entry-level positions.

“It was really challenging because I joined the military just after my junior year of college,” Gillihan said. “I was still working towards finishing my degree and struggled to find a good job without my bachelor’s and without paid work experience for the seven years prior to my job hunt.”

But a friend recognized her work ethic through her countless hours of volunteering and gave her a chance at Due Diligence Online, a company specializing in virtual data rooms similar to Dropbox that focused on mergers and acquisitions.

Eventually, Gillihan learned the online platform and the requirements for M&A transactions. She worked her way up to become the company’s Vice President of Operations. Being on this career path allowed her to complete her bachelor’s degree and offered stability for her family. However, over time, the stress of the 24/7 global service company overwhelmed her and she began to feel like her work didn’t have a meaningful purpose.

In 2010, her husband, Michael, found the perfect job for her. CauseLabs was looking for a project manager for a scripture translation project, a role that leveraged Gillihan’s linguistic background, management skills, and aligned with both her faith and her search for meaning.

There was just one catch — the job posting was on Craigslist.

“I remember saying ‘That is such a scam,’” Gillihan said. “You don’t find good jobs on Craigslist.”

Gillihan interviewed with CauseLabs several times — most of the calls just to make sure this was, in fact, a real job — and she took the leap of faith to join the team in December of 2010. She’s held many roles at CauseLabs from project manager to Director of Project Management, Director of Marketing, and Director of Partnerships. In November 2016, Gillihan was asked to accept the position as CEO of CauseLabs.

“Everything that I did at CauseLabs revolved around ‘How do we define our mission? How do we create positive impact? What partners do we chose? How do we connect with people?” Gillihan said. “I wake up loving my work, which is powerful. But also I found my purpose at CauseLabs and as the company evolved, so did I. The fact that I’m CauseLabs’ CEO today is a testament to the notion of ‘starting in the mailroom’. There’s value in understanding the different roles and perspectives in a company. There’s also value in our relational approach to projects. While it allowed me to serve our clients better, connection and alignment has always been very important to me.”

Today, Gillihan serves on several advisory boards, the United Way of Tarrant County’s social innovation committee, and is in her 10th year as a Girl Scout leader. Gillihan is also the Purpose Ambassador for PurposeWP, a WordPress agency and product company that creates solutions for nonprofits, which her husband Michael founded in January 2016.

But Gillihan isn’t bogged down by the added load of helping so many nonprofit organizations. Instead, it’s her way of giving back after the help she received as a child.

“You’re not born knowing that you’re poor.” Gillihan said.

Gillihan grew up in poverty in Angeles City, Philippines. One of her most vivid memories is the excitement her great aunt had for their shower, which was just bucket overhead that dumped water when a rope was pulled.

“The bucket above was empty at the time, but I imagined the gush of water I would have felt,” Gillihan wrote in a blog post about her relationship with water.

Gillihan was sponsored by the Pearl S. Buck Foundation at the age of 18 months, which helped her get life-saving medical treatment, a fact she wouldn’t learn about until her 30’s.

“It’s through the philanthropy of others that I’m even here today,” Gillihan said in an interview for Forbes. “And so I’m glad to be to be a part of that for somebody else.”

At the age of six, Gillihan’s parents married and they moved to the United States. While she has never forgotten where she’s come from, she didn’t fully understand poverty until her work at CauseLabs parallelled her childhood experiences. Nor is she willing to sit on the sidelines while others go through similar situations.

“Technology is changing the world and I want to be a part of using that technology for good,” Gillihan said in the Forbes interview.

Gillihan isn’t 100 percent sure what the details of her Saturday keynote talk will be about for WordCamp DFW. She does know that she wants to talk about purpose and community.

“WordCamp is about community and how the people in the room come together, even it’s your first time coming to a WordCamp and even if you haven’t touched WordPress before,” Gillihan said. “The experience of the two days is going to be what we make it, who we meet, and how we continue to connect with each other long after the event.”

And she hopes people come away with “the confidence to start something.”

“Whether that be a business, a new project, a new conversation, or a new blog on WordPress,” Gillihan said. “Whatever that might be; I hope people gain the confidence to start something.”

Tickets are now on sale for this year’s WordCamp DFW held on Nov. 11-12. There are also plenty of opportunities to sponsor the event or help run it. We hope to see you there!