WCSTL Speaker Interview: Dane Morgan

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Dane Morgan will be speaking on WordPress Theme Code Reviews. He’s from southern Missouri, and he’s a freelance WordPress developer and says he’s an experimental blogger.

Here’s our interview with Dane.

NILE FLORES: What was it about WordPress that got you to start using it?

DANE MORGAN: I had been building PHP/HTML websites for a certain group of aggressive internet marketers, when one of them asked me if I had used WordPress, and could I make it look different for him. That was WordPress version 1.2, and making it look different was a much more challenging proposition back then.

NILE FLORES: What motivates you to give back to WordPress and its community?

DANE MORGAN: I’m just sort of built that way. I joined the Army out of a sense of civic responsibility, though I admit the idea of adventure didn’t hurt any. But I can’t help but try to make groups I identify with better if there is a way for me to do so.

NILE FLORES: How many WordCamps have you been to, and what was your best 1 or 2 experiences that you had when attending WordCamp?

DANE MORGAN: I’ve been to two of them. WordCamp St. Louis 2016 and WordCamp US 2016. I wish I had started going to them a lot sooner now. For me the greatest part of WordCamp is just meeting other people who do this thing. As a freelancer working in my home office, it can be terribly isolating, and WordCamp was a very liberating experience in that respect.

NILE FLORES: What is your number 1 tip for WordPress users?


DANE MORGAN: Get messy, break things (on the development server) and have fun!

NILE FLORES: What is your favorite feature in WordPress?

DANE MORGAN: The hooks and filters API. Really my favorite feature is the infinity capacity for changing the features, while still being WordPress.

NILE FLORES: What are your 3 most favorite WordPress plugins?

DANE MORGAN: Carbon Fields, Yoast SEO and WooCommerce.

NILE FLORES: What is your favorite WordPress theme?

DANE MORGAN: I really like Theme hybrid, Genesis and Underscores and I use all three a lot. I’m leaning toward Underscores though because I’ve finally gotten on board with Sass and i can go grab a Sassified copy of it with all the slugs filled in for the new site in less than two minutes.

If you’d love to meet Dane or hear his talk, you should go buy a ticket and come out to see him on March 18th.