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!
