Episode 78: Cameron Jones

Introducing Cameron Jones

Cameron Jones is a WordPress developer from the Gold Coast, Australia. He currently works for Digital Makers building websites for enterprise clients, and independently, he develops custom plugins. Outside of WordPress, he’s busy playing for sports clubs and parenting.

Show Notes

Twitter | @cameronjonesweb

Website | Cameron Jones Web

Plugins | Mongoose Marketplace

Episode Transcript

Tara: This is Hallway Chats, where we meet people who use WordPress.

Liam: We ask questions, and our guests share their stories, ideas and perspectives.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 78.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today, we’re joined by Cameron Jones. Cameron is a WordPress developer from the Gold Coast, Australia. He currently works for Digital Makers building websites for enterprise clients, and independently, he develops custom plugins. Outside of WordPress, he’s busy playing for sports clubs and parenting. Welcome, Cameron. Nice to see you.

Cameron: Hi, guys. Nice to be here.

Liam: Oh, it’s our pleasure. Thanks for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself please, Cameron?

Cameron: Yeah. Like I said, I live in the Gold Coast, Australia. I’ve been involved with the WordPress community for a bit over four years now, I think. And yeah, I’ve co-organized WordPress Meetups and WordCamps. I’ve got some custom plugins that I’ve used on more than 30,000 websites now. And yeah, I worked for an agency developing websites.

Tara: Cool. Tell us about the plugins that you’ve developed?

Cameron: The main one is called Facebook Page plugin and it just lets you embed a Facebook page on a website. That one I released April 2015, I think it was. Yeah, it’s used on more than 30,000 websites.

Tara: That’s great. How did you get started with WordPress? I can see you so I can say that you look like you’re a relatively young person. Technology probably is not something foreign to your upbringing. But how did you get started with WordPress?

Cameron: Yeah, I’ve kind of grown up with technology a little bit. Always had an attraction to computers. When I was in high school, I did a class that was doing coding and it was primarily MySQL and that was my introduction to web and coding. Before that, I’ve done some Flash games. I was designing MySQL databases and from there, I went to further study, got a diploma, and that was more website stuff mainly. Yeah, I was interested in doing work, making websites, web design and development. I was trying to find a job and I found most of the jobs were asking for people that do WordPress. So I literally just went onto YouTube and searched ‘how to make a website with WordPress’. That’s how I got into WordPress.

Tara: YouTube, the benefits of YouTube. That’s amazing. What a great story. And you are now employed doing WordPress and you also do some work on the side on your own. Which do you prefer?

Cameron: It’s a good question.

Liam: Given that you are currently employed, I’ll allow you to answer in a very diplomatic way.

Tara: Yes.

Liam: Or we can withdraw the question if you’d like.

Tara: Yeah, we can take that away. Let me change the question. We talked to a lot of people who are self-employed and when we get to the question that will ask you about success, a lot of them say having the freedom to do what they love and those types of things.