Speaker Interview: Shayna Diamond

Tim: What’s your WordPress “origin” story?

When I first learned about WordPress I said, “I can build a CMS, why would I use an existing one?” After a few months of working for an agency where WordPress was the standard, I fully understood that benefit of this remarkable open source platform. I now embraced WordPress with the zeal of a convert, as an active member of my local WordPress Meet-Up and by attending WordCamps wherever possible. As a freelancer, I specialize in custom theme development. I have recently joined the theme review team and am preparing to submit my first theme to the WordPress Repository.

Tim: Whats your top 3 WordPress plugins? Why?

  1. iThemes Security, because every site needs to be locked down
  2. WordPress SEO by YOAST, because it is SEO made simple
  3. Advanced Custom Fields, because of all the doors it opens!

Tim: Whats your most proud achievement around WordPress?


I built the site for Verulam Farm (verulamfarm.com) as a completely custom theme (a predecessor for the boilerplate I now use regularly). At the client’s insistence, it was developed to look exactly like the existing static & non-responsive site they had in place. Since then I have used ACF and custom post types to radically increase functionality, giving them a custom cataloging system fro their horses.

Tim: What do you want our readers to know about you?


I am really excited to be here. ‘Here’ at word camp, and ‘here’ as a developer in this stage and place in my life. I take great pride in the work I do, and I enjoy *almost* every minute of it.

When I’m not at the computer, I am at my jeweler’s bench creating other beautiful functional things, or outside digging in the dirt for rocks and mineral specimens.

Tim: Define yourself with one word.

interested

Shayna is speaking on Adding Functionality with Custom Post Types and Custom Fields at 2 pm.