Yoast Care fund: An interview with Bet Hannon

Today we’re interviewing Yoast Care fund recipient Bet Hannon, who received a nomination from Laura Byrne. Laura nominated her for everything she does as a regular contributor to the Support team. Let’s find out what she does exactly! But first, nominator Laura would love to tell you why she nominated Bet for the Yoast Care fund:

Nominator Laura Byrne: “Bet is a tireless supporter of others. She contributes to the support forums team, and she is a constant ally for accessibility on which she speaks passionately and without judgment. In addition to that, she was part of the all-female release squad.“

Let’s get to know Bet Hannon

Thank you for those warming words, Laura. Now, let’s get to know this tireless contributor by asking her some questions:

Hello, Bet. Can you tell us more about what you do?

I run an agency that focuses on WordPress development, accessibility, and integrations. I’m the co-organizer for my local WordPress Meetup in Bend, Oregon, and I help out when I can with the WordPress Support Team, which runs the wordpress.org forums. I’ve also spoken at a few WordCamps about accessibility and how it impacts your business and the Gravity Forms.

So tell us, how did you know about WordPress?

I had built a few drag-and-drop websites for people, and a friend that is an iOS app developer suggested I take a look at WordPress. Via a phone call, we both logged into the back end of his WordPress site, and that was a big lightbulb moment for me. I saw how easily users without technical skills could add and maintain content without messing up templates like you often did in drag-and-drop systems. I never went back to those drag-and-drop systems.

What was your first time contributing like?

I had been to one another WordCamp before, but when I went to WordCamp San Francisco in 2014 and volunteered, someone suggested that I come to contributor day. I was only able to come for part of the day and initially thought I might try out the Training Team, but pretty quickly fell in with the Support Team. There’s a lot of great camaraderies, and as we migrated into Slack, our abundant gifs and emojis were a lot of fun as we supported one another in supporting users.

What contribution or moment are you most proud of?

I don’t really have one moment as a contributor that stands out, but I have really loved volunteering at WordCamps because that has given me a chance to meet so many people in the community and to feel like a part of the global WordPress community. It’s been great to meet people volunteering on the various Make WordPress teams from all over the world, developers of plugins I use, people who do similar things with WordPress (and people who do really different things!), and people who are just starting out with WordPress – I learn so much from all of them.

Where can people find you?

Like so many people, I am really, REALLY looking forward to being able to be back to in-person Meetups and WordCamps when we are able to travel again! Meanwhile, you can find me on Twitter at @bethannon.

Thank you for this interview, Bet. And for all of your contributions to the Support team! If you’re reading this and know someone like Bet who deserves a nomination for our Care fund, go to our Yoast Care page right now to nominate them.