Hummingbird604.com » WordCamp Victoria

Growing Robust Online Communities with WordPress (WordCamp Victoria 2012) #wcv12 #yyjWordCamp

Raul — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:43:24 +0000

People asked for my slides (and I mentioned I would post a modified version). Here is the expanded version (e.g. the version that includes a few slides that I couldn’t talk about). If you have comments (and/or testimonials, particularly testimonials as people seem to have enjoyed it), please drop them on this post, NOT on SlideShare.

Growing Robust Online Communities with WordPress

View more presentations from Raul Pacheco-Vega.

Additional content about my talk at WordCamp Victoria 2012 can be found on the Storify I created from the livetweets. Posted below:

Learn some basic coding/HTML if you have a WordPress blog

Raul — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:00:36 +0000

After careful reflection on the fact that I was NOT at WordCamp Victoria 2011, it just occurred to me the kind of talk I *could* have given had I remembered at the time of proposal submission. One of the things that I think facilitates my blogging and allows me to crank as many posts as I do per week is that I learned a little tiny bit of coding and HTML to facilitate my workflow. I know exactly which plugins I want to use, and how a plugin or a theme should be hacked to make it do what I want. I try to write for the web and think for the web (two very useful complementary skills). As Ariane Colenbrander said to me at my WordCamp Fraser Valley talk: “I’m a good art designer”. There’s also a little back story to this, actually two.

Photo credit: Peregrino Will Reign on Flickr

The first one: I started using computers when I was very little, inspired by the American TV show Whiz Kids. So, I have had a penchant for computer programming. Yeah, this is probably one of the reasons why I enjoy blogging so much, and doing my own stunts. Heck, the computer geekery has stayed with me even as I grew older. When I was deciding what to do a Masters’ degree in, I dipped my feet wet and took 1 semester of courses in a Masters of Science in Computer Science. Yes, I took Boolean Logic, Set Theory, C++ Programming and Visual Basic.

The second story has to do with my good friend Rebecca Bollwitt. When we first met, I was pretty much a newbie. I had blogged for over a year and a bit, but I hadn’t moved to WordPress, I hadn’t really learned much of the code behind it, etc. I was just a writer. I knew nothing about WordPress. Rebecca taught me A LOT of what I know about WordPress and the PHP and HTML behind/underneath it, over coffee, lunches, liveblogging the same events, etc. And she immediately understood what I meant when I said that I liked doing my own stunts: even if I’m not a web developer, I love being able to create my own websites. Basic as they may be, but I just love being able to do some of the basic HTML coding. Rebecca taught me and enabled me to do that with my websites.

Much of the customization you’ve seen here on Hummingbird604.com was done by good friends of mine: Rebecca taught me a lot of the basic inner workings of WordPress, J. Karen Parker adapted the Deviant art WordPress theme for me, and several other good friends have helped me with stuff here and there (Ianiv Schweber with some of the theme issues, Mike Yurechko, Tris Hussey, Andy Peatling and almost every time I scream for help, someone on Twitter is willing to help me.

photo credit: Charles Williams

But still, I code by hand a lot of the HTML tags that make WordPress do the things they do (e.g. embedding my photos and align them to the left or right, change fonts, etc). I *love* doing this basic coding. It makes me feel that I am independent and self-reliant. So, even if you are a blogger or a website copy writer, I would very strongly recommend you to learn some basic HTML and learn a bit more in-depth.

And a fun fact – I wrote by hand all the HTML code around the photo shown to force it to align to the left and provide the photo credit underneath with a link back to Flickr (pretty much the way my PhotoDropper plugin does). How cool is that?

Why I’m not speaking at @yyjWordCamp and why I think you should attend anyways

Raul — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:59:09 +0000

Photo credit: John Bollwitt on Flickr

When I announced on Twitter a few weeks back that I wasn’t going to be speaking at WordCamp Victoria 2011 (which is organized by two of my very, very good friends Paul Holmes and his wife Katharine Holmes along with an amazing group of volunteers), some people looked puzzled. After all, I have spoken at several WordCamps, my websites are all designed and implemented in WordPress (even the UBC ones, as I am using BuddyPress on those). And I even code my own stunts. AND it’s organized by good friends of mine.

There is one key reason that in my brain, made sense for me not to pursue more aggressively proposing a talk at WordCamp Victoria (and now the programme is full). My main activity is NOT in the field of web development. Not even in writing. Heck, not even in blogging. All of these are side gigs of mine. My core activity is academic and consultant, and in 2011 I am presenting academic papers at the very least at 6 different conferences.

It makes more sense for me to speak, for example, at Social Media Camp Victoria 2011 than it does at WordCamp Victoria 2011. Why? Because I *use* social media tools in higher education, politics and public policy. I advise governments, non-profits and academics on how to use social media. This is an area where I am both knowledgeable and I see the immediate benefit.

But my most successful WordCamp talk so far has been Building Your Online Community with WordPress. And that’s literally a Blogging 101 talk. So, I’ll leave it to other WordPress experts (many of whom are dear friends of mine, in fact) to go and impart their wisdom on to you. You should attend, it’s totally worth it. And for the record, organizing a WordCamp doesn’t benefit anyone more than the community. The organizers work a lot to get the conference done for YOU, attendees.

You can RSVP here and you probably want to do that soon, as it’s selling out.

My #wcyyj10 #yyjWordCamp slides on Blogging for Professional and Personal Goals

Raul — Tue, 18 May 2010 18:26:36 +0000

I was invited by Paul Holmes (IdeaZone.ca) to give a talk at WordCamp Victoria 2010. Having already spoken at the 2009 edition, I figured I would do a brand new presentation. I have discovered in the past year that writing a brand new talk or preparing a completely new slide deck challenges me to think in different ways about the same issues.

One of the things I’ve been thinking about in the last two years, and in particular in 2010 has been how I (despite always suggesting my audiences to create a unified identity), I continue to keep both my academic self and my personal self separate. I find value in having distinct blogs/websites because the writing in each one has a different audience altogether.

Here is my slide deck – bear in mind I do live demos, but apparently there is video of my talk, so I’ll be happy to link to that once I get the link. I hope attendees liked my talk!

Word camp victoria 2010 raul pacheco vega – professional and personal blogging

View more presentations from Raul Pacheco-Vega.

Rebecca Bollwitt (@miss604) on WordPress plugins bloggers should use #wcyyj10

Raul — Sat, 15 May 2010 20:59:15 +0000

I’ve liveblogged Rebecca’s talks a few times, but this is the first time I’m going to do it on ScribbleLive. It’s given me a heck of trouble lately, so not sure it’ll be the best tool, but here we go.

Rebecca Bollwitt on plugins for bloggers

(05/15/2010)