On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Carrie Dils. Carrie has been around the Genesis community for a number of years. She s a WordPress developer, consultant, speaker, and teacher.

She loves sharing what she s learned with others to help them be more successful in their business. She hosts a weekly WordPress podcast at OfficeHours.fm and is a course instructor for Lynda.com.

In this 29-minute episode Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke, and Carrie Dils discuss:

• What open-source means


• How open-source projects can be attractive to developers


• The pros and cons of open-source


• Using helpfulness to build authority


• The benefits of an open-source ecosystem


• The expansion of the Office Hours podcast

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The Show Notes

• Follow Carrie on Twitter


• Visit CarrieDils.com


• The Office Hours Podcast


• Carrie on Lynda.com


• The Utility Pro Theme


• The Genesis Facebook Group

The Transcript

Why Open-Source-Based Communities Are So Powerful

Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Well, some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit, and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit.

We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer, but for now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us.

Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work.

Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is being able to mingle with people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn Live. I also love the parties after each day, being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before.

Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference for me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps me pick the best tools.

Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree — one of the biggest reasons we host a conference every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events.

Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot and having a lot of fun.

Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by, “Which session should I go to?” and, “Am I missing something?”

Attendee 6: The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect has been connecting with both people who are putting it on and then other attendees.

Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit, and I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit.

Voiceover: StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform.

Lauren Mancke: On this week’s episode, Brian and I are joined by Carrie Dils to discuss why an open-source-based community is so powerful.

Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone. Welcome to StudioPress FM. I am your host Brian Gardner, and I’m joined, as usual, with the Vice President of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke. We are very excited about today’s show because we are continuing the series where we talk to members of the Genesis community.

Today, we’re joined by Carrie Dils. Carrie has been around the genesis community for a number of years. She’s a WordPress developer, a consultant, a speaker, a teacher, among many other things. She loves sharing what she’s learned with others, and she wants to help them be more successful in their business. She hosts a weekly WordPress podcast called OfficeHours.fm and is a course instructor over at Lynda.com.

Carrie, it’s a huge pleasure to have you on StudioPress FM. Welcome to the show.

Carrie Dils: Hey, Brian and Lauren. It’s so great to be here.

Brian Gardner: Now this is full circle for us both as we’ve both been individually guests on your show, and now we get to come back to the point where you are a guest on our show.

Carrie Dils: Yeah, and just to be clear, there’s no money swapping hands there for the podcast swapping.

Brian Gardner: This is like a weird version of linking back and forth, reciprocal linking, right?

Carrie Dils: I’ll link to you if you link to me.

Brian Gardner: I’ll have you on my show if you’ll have me on your show, that kind of thing. All right, let’s get this going.

Carrie Dils: Let’s do it.

Brian Gardner: Carrie, you’ve been developing websites for many years, almost 20 to be exact. We won’t ask how old you are, but you built your first site back in 1997. Some of our listeners may not have even been born then. That’s funny, but give us the low down on your career path — how you became a developer, when WordPress came into the picture, and also what got you involved with Genesis.

How Open-Source Projects Can Be Attractive to Developers

Carrie Dils: Just to be clear, I was a toddler when I started developing websites. That’s how I started in 1997 and still have this great youth about me. I started working with websites back when it was plain old basic HTML days, working with FrontPage and other cringe-worthy tools at that time. My career has taken many winding roads, but five years ago, I discovered WordPress and was in love with it and the power of what it could do right out of the box, started tinkering with the code base, and got into starting to customizing themes.

As I was getting into the theme space, I tried out a bunch of different themes and eventually stumbled on Genesis. What I liked about Genesis, for some reason it clicked. It clicked to me the way that it’s built around action hooks and filters. I felt at home with that and started to dig in there. I think that was four, five years ago. Feels like forever.

Lauren Mancke: I also built my first website 20 years ago. I was in middle school, so toddler is very impressive to me.

Brian Gardner: Now you guys are making me feel old because, 20 years ago, I was out of high school, out of college, and a grown adult so let’s move on.

Lauren Mancke: Anyone who’s listened to your podcast knows you are from Texas, and you’re a fan of craft beer. You actually picked a pretty good one out when I was down in Texas last. Another little fact about you is that you worked at Starbucks as a barista. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about that experience?

Carrie Dils: Yeah. First of all, when I found out that Brian Gardner loves Starbucks as much as he did, I immediately started to bribe him with coffee. I had this wild hair in my mid-20s. I thought, “I want to open up a coffee shop,” but I didn’t know a thing about business or running, specifically, a café for that matter. So I decided to go learn on somebody else’s dime. That somebody was Starbucks. I was with them almost nine years in various capacities. At the end of that career, I’ve decided that under no circumstances do I want to own a coffee shop.

Brian Gardner: Now the beauty of being an online entrepreneur is that a) you can work in your underwear and b) work whenever you want. As I know, I worked in a convenience store, retail really is the pits if you’re not overly passionate or making a ton of money from it because then you’re working for someone else, the holidays, weekends and nights, and things like that. I’m sure with you at Starbucks that probably was the same way.

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