Many thanks to 6S Marketing for stepping up and contributing a corporate sponsorship, and to the numerous raffle prize sponsors. You guys rock! Please follow @YVRTwestival on Twitter and check the website for more information!
Mark your calendars – Tony & Guy (one of Vancouver’s most recognized hair salons) will be celebrating their anniversary on February 5th, and it will be a fully charitable event with 100% of the proceeds going to Beauty Night. Furthermore, ticket holders will receive a bag of products valued at $ 35. I’m really happy that Toni & Guy are supporting Beauty Night, as it is a really awesome charity! The event will take place at a Vancouver landmark – The Penthouse.
As an academic, I often find myself conflicted on the sharing of my presentations and papers. On the one hand, we are supposed to do research to advance the literature and contribute to the global larger body of knowledge. However, with instances of plagiarism, issues of copyright and the fact that some of us actually make a living out of our knowledge, sometimes it becomes a bit tricky whether we want to share our Power Point slides or our articles/papers.
Before, I would just put up the PDF of a presentation in Power Point or a journal article, assuming this would sort of (kind of) ensure that my work wouldn’t be plagiarized. However, this is never the case, there’s always a way (if a knowledge thief wants to do it). But then, as I got immersed in social media, I discovered two tools that might be already very well known to you (but they weren’t to me): SlideShare and Scribd
SlideShare is, in their own words, a “community to share with the world”. You basically share your slide decks.
SlideShare is the best way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. Do you want to get the word out about your product or service? Do you want your slides to reach people who could not make it to your talk? Are you a teacher looking to share your lesson plans? It only takes a moment – start uploading now, and let your slides do the talking!
With Scribd’s iPaper document reader, anyone can easily upload and immediately share their original works on Scribd.com or any other website. iPaper transforms PDF, Word, PowerPoint and many other file formats into an elegant web display. Your work can be shared with Scribd’s community of passionate readers, and because every word of your document is indexed for search engine optimization, your screenplay, novel or even sheet music and recipes also can be discovered by the world.
I discovered Scribd and SlideShare through various of my friends who have uploaded their presentations from the WordCamp Whistler and Paul Hillsdon’s blog, so hat tips to them.
Now, the question goes to YOU – how do you feel about sharing your presentations or papers?
I’ve been reading a lot of posts recently on how to best use Twitter for business and the top mistakes that people make on Twitter. Frankly, I am not going to claim to be an expert on the use of this awesome micro-blogging tool. Many of my good friends are excellent evangelists for Twitter (particularly for businesses). But I don’t want to write about that (I can point you to other people’s excellent posts) On the personal realm, I use Twitter (as I mentioned in a previous post) to create relationships and friendships.
Admittedly, I am sometimes rather noisy. But for me, the whole point of Twitter is to engage in a bi-directional (or multi-directional) conversation. And frankly, if you really really want to know my view – I prefer to add value to your life IN REAL LIFE rather than on Twitter. Of course, if I find something that may be relevant, I’ll tweet or retweet – but for the most part, Twitter is the stepping stone to create real-life friendships. At least, in my case.
This is (not surprisingly) my 1,400th post (WOW – that’s A LOT of posts) and even though yes, it’s just recently been Chinese New Year, I’m feeling slightly ambivalent. I started with some positive news but also some mixed (not so good) news.
It’s hard to remain focused when things go in several directions at the same time. What I do know is that I’m very happy with the fact that, despite the challenges I often face, I am always surrounded with people who care and who will be there for me.
The blogging might be light for the next couple of weeks (or not, depending on whether I decide to publish the drafts I’ve got in my box). I won’t be writing much, I’ve already written lots of pretty-much-done posts that can be pre-stamped (thank you scheduling function of WordPress!).
It’s almost Wednesday, hope the weekend will look better!
These are the notes of the first Vancouver ChangeCamp organizational meeting. During the meeting, we tried to incorporate the feedback from people who submitted comments on my previous blog post and who wrote to the Google Groups for Vancouver ChangeCamp.
I’ll be creating a PBWiki and will insert all of this information there too.
Vancouver ChangeCamp Organizational Meeting
January 26th, 2009
Attending…
Joe Solomon (engagejoe) social media strategist – citizen-based engagement
Raul Pacheco (hummingbird604) environmental policy wonk/consultant – citizen participation
Paul Czene (pcz) youth worker with Van Park Board – engaging youth into participating
Heath Johns (urbantastic) micro-volunteering site – small chunks – social media amongst volunteering people
Beth Breines (bella_b) writer/editor/MBA Bainbridge
Justin Johnson – learned through Steve and ThinkCity
Ben Johnson (urbantastic) – micro-volunteering
What is a Camp
– An un-conference – no schedule – everyone arrives, describe the topics of what we’re going to do
– Open source organization
– Emerges from the BarCamp thingie
ChangeCamp, GreenCamp, GovCamp?
A discussion seems to emerge on whether we should focus on government or on sustainability. There are two or three tracks sort of emerging – government / sustainability / third sector? (although there is concern that it might be dangerous to categorize in this way) – the government doesn’t want to get compartmentalized – what are the ideas from outside – we know the hoops that people need to jump through. The feeling seems that the camp should be more “umbrella” – we are sort of starting square one – it’s an empty box and we can’t put an empty box and we can’t put anything already because we’re opening it.
We need still a bit of a focus – while you want diversity you want it specific enough that there is an audience. Invite people in a non-official capacity so that they don’t have to feel as though they’ll be held to anything.
Citizen-participation is a good umbrella term – to foster citizen-engagement. Government people should be able to join in without worrying about what they say.
Date of the Camp
Think about dates and the provincial election. – we decided on March 28th, 2009
Focus and directions of the Change Camp
Are we going to run into the problem of having too tight boundaries? How wide a focus? How narrow a focus?
Format of the Camp
Some people would like to have the Camp in the same format as “Marketers for a Change” at BarCamp — You got problems – we can crowd-source the problems. NetImpact – at the end of the night you basically solve a problem. There is another suggestion – that we do half and half. Two days sounds like a good idea. Theory in the morning / applications (solutions to problems) in the afternoon – maybe do two days — Most people want “concrete” but you also keep space for the more abstract. We’ve been talking government, we’ve been talking sustainability – ok, those are there, but there will be space for a new track.
Groundswell –
Part I (conference) – Part II (unconference)
Relationship w/government
Come in with some resources/plan on hand, they’re going to jump on the bandwagon. “here is what we can do and what we need?”
What’s the risk? Are we setting a new precedent? (for the government) – squeaky wheel works in Vancouver.
Two problems
1.- How do we structure the unconference?
2.- How do we market the unconference?
Theme – tools for change – you can come to a participatory event where you walk to wherever you want that change to happen
Government
Citizen engagement
Sustainability
Keep it unconference but make the marketing as “we are going to talk about sustainability AND other topics”
One person – one keynote – this is what the solution is going to look like – to avoid separating sustainability – you could say “this room is themed sustainability” or “this room is themed poverty”…
Choose your change – open platform – if you created an environment where the audience could show up and that audience design the event that is the unconference we are trying to represent those ideas its sort of an empowering tool that we are going to have a change camp and the people decide – how best we can facilitate that – wouldn’t it be in our best interest that the audience has the power to decide what gets changed – “I’m hosting a discussion ion poverty “ how can we best facilitate it in such a way that we empower the people to choose what changes they want to make.
Maybe just divide session by session – know information or collaborate – it’s a good mix (knowledge-sharing or action)
If you’re going to pitch a session it is a “learning session” or a “doing session”
1997 book – Open Space Technology – A User’s Guide
We kind of explored tracks.
Results from the meeting – agreement on two points
Choose Your Change – whether we go with the tracks or not, you’re still making a choice
Question
I want to explore what “choose your change looks like” – and what does “learning and doing” look like
Want to change but not necessarily know how to effect the change.
It allows people to be complete amateurs and STILL engaging. The big challenge is that there is a lot of people who want to contribute but it’s all jargon, all acronyms. Opening this up beyond “the usual suspects”
A lot of people want to sit back and digest – a two-tiered process. You can allow the introverts to still participate in the discussions – quietly contribute – they don’t necessarily want to be upfront.
With regards to t-shirts
You could have an “iron your own t-shirt” – transfer thingie – b/c environmental concerns
[UPDATE 2:20pm] Here is my email blast explaining the surge of VanChangeCamp – hope this makes it more coherent!
Hi all,
Rumor has it that the Vancouver Twittersphere is interested in a ChangeCamp Vancouver. We had talked previously about organizing an unconference (camp) about web 2.0 and effecting social change. You all have an interest in changing the world in one way or another. Some of you have been involved in sustainable farming, or empowering the disenfranchised and marginalized through non-profit work, etc. I have been always interested in enabling citizen participation in government policy making, particularly environmental policy. And well, I teach public policy and environmental policy, so …
My understanding of ChangeCamp (from the ChangeCamp Toronto site and a Summize search I did) is that the conference looked at citizen participation and the relationship of government with society in a web-enabled era. I might be wrong, of course, but this is what seems to transpire from it.
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23changecamp
http://changecamp.ca/
HOWEVER
I also know that some of us had been wanting to speak about sustainability, web 2.0, etc. Furthermore, many of us do work on stuff that while not sustainability related is focused on effecting social change. So I think we can embed both aspects. Certainly, sustainability DOES require citizen participation.
I created a placeholder blog post that will definitely have to morph into a wiki.
All ideas obviously welcome. Feel free to forward my email to whomever might be interested.
Twitter is an amazing tool to bring people together. As I recently wrote, Twitter has enabled me to build new friendships and create networks that make things happen. Several of my Tweeps have been involved in using Web 2.0 tools to empower people (particularly the disenfranchised) and effect change. So, this post will serve as a placeholder to bounce ideas off about an upcoming ChangeCamp in Vancouver.
ChangeCamp is a free participatory web-enabled face-to-face event that brings together citizens, technologists, designers, academics, policy wonks, political players, change-makers and government employees to answer one question:
How do we re-imagine government and citizenship in the age of participation?
ChangeCamp addresses the demand for a renewed relationship among citizens and government. We seek to create connections, knowledge, tools and policies that drive transparency, civic engagement and democratic empowerment.
People that I have noticed talking about a local, Vancouver ChangeCamp (please don’t be upset if I didn’t mention you yet – I am more than happy to add you – remember, this post is a placeholder).
Karen Quinn Fung (@counti8) – social media, transportation – Karen attended ChangeCamp Toronto!
Joe Solomon (@engagejoe) – social media strategy, nonprofits
Lorraine Murphy (@raincoaster) – social media strategy, nonprofits
Ben and Heath (@urbantastic) – social media, nonprofits
Tom Williams (@tomwilliams) – GiveMeaning.com – nonprofits
Tamera (@tamera) –
Sustainability Tweeps –
I’m particularly interested in having people who work at the intersection of social media and sustainability, because citizen participation is key in creating environmental policy.
Government Tweeps –
Um, this is perhaps where I should place government officials on Twitter?
FIRST QUESTIONS
1.- Purpose of Vancouver ChangeCamp (I assume we’re still going with the same vision of ChangeCamp on the web-enabled relationship between government and civil society?)
2.- Scales of government who should be involved (I assume Federal, the Province of British Columbia and the various municipalities in Metro Vancouver)
3.- Logistics (we’ll have to talk about location, sponsors, speakers, etc.)
Feel free to add stuff in the comments and I will be reshaping this perhaps as a wiki.
[UPDATE – Paul from Mojave and Make Good also asked to get involved – feel free to drop me a comment or email me and I’ll add you to the distribution list]
[UPDATE – I will add the folks who have asked me to be included to the list by the end of the day – please keep the comments coming – Lisa, Beth, Jason Mogus and David Eaves and everyone, no I haven’t forgotten you either!)
When people ask me what I did my PhD in and I answer that one of the avenues that I explored in my dissertation was the decline of industries, they look into my eyes with a quizzical look. “WHAT? You studied how companies disappear?” The answer is YES, surprising as that may sound. The geography of industrial decline, as some economic geographers call it, is a really interesting topic (and yes, there are environmental dimensions to plant closure).
I have always been fascinated with research topics that may sound somewhat unappealing. But the really fascinating question to me was not simply why do industrial plants or companies close? but what do companies and industrial sectors do that makes them tough it out and survive. In other words, how do declining industries adapt to uncertain and turmoilish conditions?
While I won’t describe my research findings in much detail here (I have a few blog posts coming up on my research blog about the topic), a key insight that I gained is that industries need to be flexible and adaptive to ensure survival. Companies that lack flexibility and are strongly vertically-integrated and hierarchical will definitely NOT survive.
The literature on adaptation is multidisciplinary and quite varied. For my research I examined bodies of work from the organizational behavior, strategic management, climate change, evolutionary ecology and evolutionary economics fields. (SIDE NOTE – I love interdisciplinary research precisely because it allowed me to examine ONE problem from MANY angles. If I just had the time to do research in all the areas I want to!). But one of the things that really struck me is that, more often than not, researchers in the industrial decline field seem to be fixated with wanting to study large numbers of companies but, lacking resources and time, resort to just a few selected case studies.
Methodologically speaking, I am conversant in both quantitative and qualitative methods, and that’s one of my contributions to the literature on environmental economic geography. However, I still think that a big challenge for anyone who wants to understand industrial decline in this time of recession and global economic turmoil will be to find company owners that will want to speak to researchers about the reasons behind their business closure. I am interested in this topic because I want to find ways to help industries and businesses not only stay afloat but to thrive and survive.
[Hat tips to Erik V. at Kitsilano.ca who wrote a recent post on Kitsilano businesses closure that prompted me to write this entry]
As I tweeted earlier today, my posts for the day are all themed around friendships. I am a very, very blessed man. I am very lucky in that I have amazing people who inspire me every day, who comfort me when I’m down, who can confront me with the truth and tell me right to my face when I’m doing wrong, and who are always happy for my growth and improvement.
Last Friday, I had the privilege of having lunch with Rachel Black, whom I met (not surprisingly) through Anthony Nicalo (and I met both of them through Twitter). Rachel does research on water as well (from an anthropological perspective) and (yes, call me academic geek) it was awesome not only because of Rachel’s personality and charisma, but also because we both got a chance to talk tenure-tracks, publishing research, and potentially collaborating in projects.
I wouldn’t have access to the many wonderful individuals I have in the past year if it hadn’t been for Twitter. I met Melanie Hoyt through Twitter and even though she is in the US now, she’s coming to Vancouver soon and we’ll get to hang out in real life. I keep in touch with Yam, a friend I made here in Vancouver, through Twitter. So, in reality, Twitter has given me an opportunity to build new connections, friendships and to grow them.
So, when I was watching Lorelle’s keynote presentation at WordCamp Whistler (read my liveblog here) I completely understood where she was coming from. I have used social media, and specifically WordPress and Twitter, to create new friendships. And yes, maybe, just maybe, social media may actually help me land my dream job. But that’s another completely different topic.
In closing, yes – I DO know that sometimes I’m noisy on Twitter. But bear in mind that, to me, Twitter is a relationship-building tool. I have tried very hard to keep my @ replies to a bare minimum (I follow 300 people, and I would follow more if I had the actual physical capability to do so – I don’t follow everybody back simply because I can’t not because I don’t want to).
Yes, I have gained a lot from Twitter – I have made NEW FRIENDS. And for that, I am always grateful.
I’d been reflecting on a lot of personal stuff for a while, and this particular topic sort of came up this morning at breakfast with two of my closest friends (not from the online community). I had struggled with this issue before, and now that I’m very immersed in the Vancouver social media/tech scene, even more. So, here’s the whole issue… I kind of don’t like the “best friend” label.
When I was little (e.g. 5, 6 years old) it was important to me to have A “best friend”. Someone who would pretty much beat anyone who wanted to beat me, someone who would climb trees with me and play basketball. Even though I had four brothers (all of whom I’m very close to), it was nice to have that one friend who would be with me in good and in bad, and who would always support me.
Years went by, I have seen many friendships grow strong and some (very few, luckily) fade away. I am now privileged to have MANY friends, many of whom are so close to me as though we were brothers/siblings. So, it’s hard for me to call any single one of my friends “my best friend”. Why? Because I don’t want to slight anyone else.
Obviously, some people (myself included on certain occasions) get away with variations of the same theme – “he is my best friend from high school” or “she is my best friend from undergrad”. I was able to get away with this before, but not anymore.
So, your opinions now – do you have ONE best friends or several? Do you feel conflicted about who you call “my best friend”. Or, do you actually avoid this whole “best friend label” …. feel free to let me know in the comments section. Enjoy this beautiful sunny day in Vancouver on Chinese New Year’s Eve
As we were making our way through downtown Vancouver (thanks again Jeremy for taking Karen and myself up to Whistler for WordCamp!) I was having a wonderful conversation about the nature of blogs. A few months ago, while I was visiting my family in Mexico, some of my civilian friends noted that my blog had become somewhat more corporate/tech. I was somewhat taken aback. For all the writing I do about tech stuff, some of my research in the environmental field, movie reviews, etc. I always have thought of my blog as a personal blog.
My blog is personal. I write about me, unashamedly and unabashedly. I don’t like labels nor categorizations, I think we all are unique and I for one know that I am very unique in my own way. Sure, I liveblog the hell out of events. Sure, I review movies, products, and more than anything, restaurants hehe. But this is my personal blog, and I refuse to give that up. Precisely for that very reason, I have decided to separate my professional life from my personal life and create a website just for my research (which should go live VERY VERY SOON)
As I have told just about everyone whom I’ve met recently and who asks about my blogging – I blog about myself and not ashamed to admit it. This blog is about my life in Vancouver, and I’m very grateful that people find it entertaining. But more than anything, I write for myself. Admittedly, I also write for my friends, family and the world when I write about other stuff, like restaurants, etc.
That’s also why I told Lorelle about writing good content as my key, first and foremost advice. I do recommend WordPress because it is an easy platform with great flexibility, but I do try to write good content. And it seems some people like it. Frankly, I do. I like my writing. This may sound totally conceited to some, but it’s true. I think I’m good at telling my stories.
And this was just part of my story. I’m heading out to meet with two of my closest civilian friends, have to finish cleaning up the apartment I was house-sitting and finish talking to my Mom on GTalk – so, hoping you’re having a wonderful Sunday, I’ll bid you adieu!
Dave O is speaking about blogging as delivery of content. His talk is kind of the “rounding the event” kind of keynote. Dave is doing some story-telling, which I absolutely adore. He is taking us to Guam and speaking about Jerry Garcia. Weird topic, but I am sure everything is going to tie together. DaveO quit his job and then decided to move to San Francisco (following “all the answers”).
DaveO is such a wonderful artist and storyteller! He is basically telling us his story of how he got into the Internetz and the whole business of social media. His first slide is giving us the bullet point list – in learning about the Internet, he realized that this was the whole element that was missing. There were tensions or syndromes. The first puzzle is distribution. Artists making stuff getting it to people who are interested in reading. How can you transfer these bits of information to the people who want to consume it?
Helping educate other people about how to do different things. Dave O is going to show us the last two artifacts that close the loop and the whole story.
There are logistical, legal and social challenges. He has now moved on to The Odyssey (yes, the greek mythology story). So now he is going to read a passage of Agamenon’s journal, returning from battle. Different parts and elements to writing.
Who were the monks translating for? Other monks.
I interrupted my liveblog because it’s such a great story telling exercise, it’d be a pity to miss his talk. Back with a recap later.
SUMMARY – Looking beyond the platform. Have SOMETHING to express (which ties to my suggestion to Lorelle, a WordPress tip – focus on the content). Now DaveO shows a Venn Diagram Awesome (X) intersecting with Audience (Y). Your goal is to end up in the middle (at the intersection of writing awesome stuff AND deliver it to your audience).
Putting the blog back into blogging.
Andy Peatling is not only a friend of mine, but also a fantastic WP developer. Andy is the Social Engineer at Automattic. This presentation is an overview of BuddyPress in early 2009. BuddyPress will transform an installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform.
BuddyPress is actually a suite of 8 plugins. You can specifically pick and choose which plugins you want to use. If you want to add profiles you can just install the Extended Networks component. You can just drop in the Messaging module. It’s very module, none of the other plugins need each other, but they extend them. Andy is going to provide an overview of the first 8 plugins.
1. EXTENDED PROFILES – Lets administrators to create descriptions of themselves and the users of the network.
2. PRIVATE MESSAGING – Internal email, threaded messaging – any user can respond to other users.
3. FRIENDS – Creates friend-like relationships amongst the users.
4. BLOGS – Activates all your blogging activity across all your network.
5. GROUPS – Allows any user to create 3 types of groups – public, private and hidden.
6. WIRE – You get a wire on your profile page (kinda the wall on Facebook).
7. ACTIVITY STREAMS.
8. FORUMS – Makes use of BBPress – people can create conversations in a forum style.
9. STATUS UPDATES
10. ALBUMS
Plugins 9 and 10 are slated to come out in 2009. There are two themes. Default Home Theme — WP theme (basic) – creates a static page on the front page. The second theme is the Member theme. A WordPress blog theme can be converted to a BuddyPress member theme with a few simple steps.
All the members on a site can be searched (by name or specific content on their profile).
Installation is pretty simple. Plugin Files (wp-content/mu-plugins) – Home Theme (wp-content/themes) and – Member Theme (wp-content/member-themes). You can drop the widgets (about 8).
Potential uses
– Business or school internal social networks
– Niche social networks
– Adding social networking features to existing blog networks
– Interacting with fellow bloggers on WordPress.com
Gives the administrator full control (something I appreciate from BuddyPress and is sorely lacking on Facebook!)
WHY USE WORDPRESS
– Easy database access and manipulation.
– User management and control.
– Powerful XML support, importing, exporting, XML-RPC
– Active and supportive community
– Localization support built right in
Existing plugins and themes with BuddyPress
– Add new features to already existing plugins
– Use any WordPress theme (with some easy steps)
– A complete developer platform already exists – if you can write a WordPress plugin, you already know how to create or extend BuddyPress components.
All components follow the same file and code structure. Standardization and consistency makes happy developers.
UPDATE – 3:05 PM – Andy is telling us the view to the future for BP.
– Beta 2 – next week / final early February ’09
– Albums and Status Updates components
– BuddyPress.org developer community site
– Open standards support/distribution of data
– BuddyPress for WordPress
“My name is Tris and I hate to code”. Tris does a quick poll – how many of us create websites with WordPress? Well, some people don’t do it. When the design and the content are together in the code – updating can be less than fun – therefore, websites aren’t updated, a simple change breaks links, etc.
Note – Tris had already written a blog post as a precursor for his talk, you can check it out here. Tris loves to use the WP template system to create websites. The content remains the same. Is this the right solution for you? May or may not work for you.
– Need easily updated content
– User control
– Flexible design
– Static info and a blog
– SEO tuned
– Fast initial build out
STEP 1 Make two pages
– Home page
* Call it whatever you want
* Use Lorem Ipsum text if needed
– Blog page
* Static page
* I like to call it “Blog” it’s really up to you
* No content, just a title.
STEP 2
STEP 3 Menus
– This ties into Morten’s talk very nicely
That’s pretty much it for the basics – the next thing is – tweaks, themes and plugins.
Tweaks – make your permalinks pretty – .htaccess will have to be updated – you want the titles of your pages and posts to be the URL of your permalinks. Create a good title for your WordPress blog and a nice tag line!
UPDATE – 2:07 PM – I’m feeling way better and I’m very focused on Tris’ talk.
You want Google to index your posts, not your blog title!
Picking a template
– This is the hardest part
– Finding a non-bloggy template important
– Newspaper style
– Magazine
– Navigation
Themes
– Arthemia
– Digital Remix
– Thesis
– Revolution
Tris is now taking questions, which I think everyone appreciates. I ask about stats plugins (given that mine isn’t working, the WP-Stats) and Tris suggests Woopra AND Google Analytics. No, you can’t really change themes per page.
Rebecca’s afternoon sesions dayblog is here. Don’t forget to check on it. Those of you who COULDN’T make it for one reason or another, sorry that you’re missing on an excellent event. Honestly, it’s been fantastic!
Morten changed his title – how to emancipate yourself frmo the shackles of “the blog”. The information gets put on the table (MySQL database) – the template talks to the MySQL database, then to HTML, then to CSS – the final outcome of what the page looks like is the template and the Cascading Style Sheets (you have control of the content and the appearance).
WordPress – a blogging platform? Is it really? Depends on how you define blog. Morten showcases The Huffington Post and the Anti-Benjamin Button Club blog as not complying with the definition of blog as widely admitted. What defines a blog is the way in which the content is presented.
blog – a web site or part of a web site that features articles published and offered in a reverse chronological order (Morten’s Encyclopaedia). Morten is quite funny.
WordPress should be thought of as a publishing platform that allows you to create content that can be published as a blog. [Raul’s notes – this is exactly what I am doing with my research blog – changing the landing pages and show the website as a site with a blog page]
UPDATE 12:48 pm – I am NOT feeling well so I have missed part of Morten’s very detailed descriptions on how you can edit the template page (Custom Template Page)
Morten is really describing the process of editing the CSS and the Custom Page template in detail, but sadly, I can’t really think straight because my body is not feeling well so what I’ll do is send him an interview email with questions about his talk and update this liveblog. Sorry everyone. Also, sorry for the momentary crash on my site.
UPDATE 12:51 – Morten describes how to adjust the Custom Fields so that you get the fields you want on your Custom Page.
John Biehler is describing how to integrate photos and video differently from other plugins. The first one I could capture is FAlbum – you have to get a Flickr authorization that allows you to create a page and you can set the page – pulls in the Flickr content (your photo-stream) – for a link to John’s demo site click here.
John describes some of the various settings of the plugin. Videos don’t work on FAlbum, sadly. But luckily for us, he is going to give us other tips that will allow us to embed videos and create playlists and stuff.
pb-embedFlash – another great plugin – allows you to create playlists of videos and you can skin it in such a way and customize it so that the playlist works exactly the way you want it.
Finally, John talks about Vimeo-Embed – the nice thing about this plugin is that it looks complicated but it really is a very easy mechanism. I can totally see how my and Tris‘ guest video-review of Carmen’s dress rehearsal for Sexy in VanCity could have enhanced if I had installed this plugin beforehand.
Dale Mugford from BraveNewCode has titled his talk “An Inconvenient Blog – WordPress is Going Mobile – You Should Too“. I look forward to an amazing talk! I was telling Rebecca that the WordCamp is going SO well, and just had a very brief chat with Duane, checking in on the wireless. I may not be able to liveblog, as I’m getting physically tired (I didn’t get any food for breakfast, despite kind offers from Jeremy on the way up).
Developers of the iPhone wanted to create apps that linked directly with the API. Many people hadn’t thought about mobile WordPress. Dale is sharing some statistics on mobile webpages views (since I have a super basic cell phone, I really don’t do it – but I can see how mobile blogging is increasing). Mobile internet users
WordPress Mobile Solutions
Mobile WordPress.com (m.wordpress.com) – Summer ’06
AlexKing.org – WordPress mobile edition
MobilePress – Great simple cross-platform solution
wPhone – Awesome admin for WordPress for iPhone, iPod Touch. — still mroe versatile than native WP iPhone app, works with other mobile browsers as well.
WordPress PDA & iPhone
– Still in development (beta)
– The plugin enables the WordPress blog vewable for PDA and iPhone browsers
Mobile by Mippin
– Employ re-directs to services which format content for mobile devices
– iWPhone – probably the most advanced solution for iPhone but was missing some key features that people wanted.
Now Dale turns to WPtouch -WordPress for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android. It is activated as a plugin but works like a WP theme. Users can switch between WPTouch and their own theme – it’s lightweight and customizable. Dale is now giving an awesome description (with visuals) of how WPTouch works. I recommend that you install the app and test it, it’s such an amazing one! If only I had an iPhone!
Where is WPTouch going?
– Launching on WordPress.com
– Full localization support.
– More themes, support for user created themes, APIs
– Native Adsense, Google Analytics, Mint, Twitter and More
– Podcasting integratino with native iPhone/iPod tie-ins
– More efficient code, re-written admin engine for MU sites.
After a great overview of WPTouch – Dale is now showing what they hope for the future of the app. It’s really hard for me to visualize all the power of WPTouch because I don’t have a mobile internet-enabled phone, but I can totally see the value, and I am proud to call the developers of WPTouch my friends.
– We can expect more and more traffic coming from mobile devices.
– Greater browser support for more advanced features.
– Less proprietary features, more standards make it easy.
– Mobile audio/video/photo publishing.
UPDATE 11:42 AM – Dale has just completed his talk, and he did a fantastic job!
UPDATE 9.49 am – I am not 100% sure I will be able (or wanting) to liveblog and I still haven’t learned to do Cover It Live so I’m just going to go the good ol’ fashion – posting updates on my site. This place looks SO geeky. Kudos to Rebecca, Duane, John for excellent organization, thanks also to Lorraine and April and David for livestreaming, and Erica who is helping Rebecca at the door. I was commissioned to do the coffee 🙂
For those of you who don’t know, Lorelle Van Fossen is considered a worldwide authority on all things WordPress. I haven’t yet had the pleasure to meet Lorelle on a one-on-one basis but I’m sure I will. Lots of my friends are here, and if I mention everyone by name I might miss someone so let’s just get on with the fun!
Lorelle starts with a very cute movie to the music of Pinoccio “WordPress has changed a lot of lives” (it certainly has changed mine -e.g. Raul’s). After the photo slideshow, there is an additional few short videos from prominent bloggers who express how WordPress has changed their lives. Glenda Watson Hyatt (the left handed blogger) has a prominent segment in the presentation that Lorelle is giving. Glenda describes how WordPress has enabled her to have a voice and provide her with a visibility she wouldn’t get otherwise. WordPress has given Glenda a chance to meet and create connections online that then are taken to the real world. Glenda – your words were inspirational.
UPDATE 10:10 am – Rebecca and Duane are on the podium – thanking awesome sponsors (I can list them a bit later). Rebecca is about to introduce Lorelle – and Duane is thanking the sponsors – absolutely well deserved, but it also should be noted that Rebecca, Duane and John did an AMAZING job. Thank you guys for giving us a chance to attend this unique event!
Lorelle’s homepage was big around the world (Taking Your Camera on the Road). Lorelle also works for Woopra! It wasn’t even called a website! Lorelle is describing all the things that she does with WordPress (she is an evangelist for WP and everything associated). She is also going to be selling her latest book. She just had a conversation with Matt Mullenweg (his goals for 2009 include a lot of open sourcing).
Lorelle is describing Matt’s pet peeve with WordPress being actually WordPress (I knew this too, hehe). Now showing an LOLCats for the lowercase P. The resolutions of Matt include
– Making people learn that it’s “WordPress” not “WordPress”.
– Make people use the actual true logo (the W is much larger).
When you push the Turbo button on WP – works with Google Gears and creates a caching system so that the administration panels load much faster. WordPress 2.7 is major Java-script hungry.
Lorelle’s Number 1 tip – Future Posts – Timestamps – Lorelle does a lot of future posts. She writes 6-10 at a time and then schedules them across time (which allows her to have a life and time things). It’s very useful. In 2.7 you hit the edit button you can put in the date and time. Almost everybody is up to WP 2.7 (I certainly am!)
Lorelle’s Number 2 tip – FireFox – Spell Check – Webmasters Tool for Designers – Powerful extensions and add-ons – Greasemonkey Scripts – Lorelle certainly opens A LOT of tabs. I don’t go over 15 EVER.
Lorelle’s tip – Probloggers use HTML Editor. The FireFox extension that allows you to copy a full link (Greasemonkey Scripts). She is giving MAJOR SEO tips – I know for a fact that I don’t include code with the post title. Unless you put in a caption, it will NOT put the actual caption (“alt” in your HTML meta-tags, also known as “alternative accessibility”).
So, why use the HTML editor
– Fix poorly formed HTML.
– Total control over content formatting.
– You do not need to use paragraph tags.
– Pasted content cleans easily
– Faster blogging
WordPress-It & QuickPress
– Quick posting to your blog
– Built-in feature of WordPress
– QuickPress found on the 2.7 Dashboard panel (NOTE FROM RAUL – I do use the QuickPress to create drafts of blog posts) – Yes, the problem is that QuickPress does NOT have categories. They NEED to fix this up.
Press This Bookmarklet
– Fast blogging – You can now create a blog post out of links on the Internet. Very nifty! It does have a few flaws, though. It takes the text that you’ve selected and puts it into a paragraph, not block quotes. Lorelle does recommend that this gets fixed (and it should – Lorelle is a big advocate of copyright). NOTE FROM RAUL – This could be fixed integrating Sni.ps into WordPress. Matt and David Gratton should be talking, I think.
Speed Blogging
– Note Tab Pro
– FireFox
It’s important to backup your database.
NoteTabPro creates a paste board file.
CoLT and AtuoCopy FireFox extensions.
Lorelle is sharing a few details on Greasemonkey Scripts – frankly, I couldn’t capture them but I think you can explore them on your own.
Finding WordPress Plugins
– Plug In Directory
– WP-Plugins Database
– Blog Herald WordPress News
– WordPress Podcasts
UPDATE – Rebecca’s liveblog is here and John’s on the WC Whistler site is here.
UPDATE 10.48 pm – I am a bit overwhelmed by the quantity of information Lorelle is sharing, but I do hope that she might post her slides on Slideshare or something.
I added a remark when Lorelle asked me about a tip “no matter what platform you use (and you SHOULD use WordPress) make sure to write good content”. She also asked me if I have said nice things about her. Of course, Lorelle! You are rocking this session (a tad fast for my typing, but amazing nonetheless).
Lorelle is Twittering every day at least one plugin and one tip. She is also sharing awesome tips on Twitter (publishing her tweets on her site). She got a lot of complaints. So she recommends not to publish her tweets (I am guilty of doing it myself!)
Popular WordPress Plugins include – PodPress – PollDaddy – WP-Download Manager – All in One Video Pack – Viper Video Tags – Buy Me a Coffee / Buy Me A Beer plugin (I need to install this one).
Yes, I had my arm twisted, and yes, I am attending WordCamp Whistler. How could I not, if three close friends of mine organized it? If many of my close friends are presenting? When so many friends of mine are also attending. So, in summary, yes you will have at least a recap if not a liveblog of the presentations. I won’t be live-tweeting as I need my concentration to capture the relevant points of the presentations.
I had the honor of being offered a ride to WordCamp Whistler by two different friends of mine (Jeremy Latham and Tris Hussey) but we decided to split the camp (six people) in two cars. So, Jeremy is taking me and Karen Hamilton, whereas Tris is taking Erica and Caroline. Of course, you’ll hear of our shenanigans, you can rest assured.
If we haven’t met in real life, come say hi. I don’t bite, I swear.
And following tradition, Jan Karlsbjerg (who also has a PhD, but his is in computer science) has written an excellent recap of the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup January meeting at The End Cafe. In my opinion, it was very well attended and I am quite pleased with the end result.
I did notice that it was slightly noisy but they (The End Cafe) did everything they could to accomodate us and they gave us the best location, so all in all, no reason to complain. Hope you all had as much fun as I did. Thanks to The End Cafe owners and staff for being so accomodating and to Barbara Doduk for recommending it!
Thanks to Mandy Gratton and Pete Quily for speak to the various types of blogging that there is out there (mommy blogging in the case of Mandy and ADHD in the case of Pete)
Seeing as I’m overwhelmed with a number of projects, tomorrow is WordCamp Whistler, and I’m practically booked on Sunday all day, I don’t think I’ll have a chance to write a proper recap of Ideas on Tap. Re-invented by the fine folks of 6S Marketing, the new and improved Ideas on Tap provides entrepreneurs with a 60 second time allowance to wow and convince potential investors and, in general, a very tech-savvy crowd.
I attend Ideas on Tap not only because it’s a great event for the Vancouver tech community but also because 6S folks are also good friends of mine and I like the way they design their events. As a social event organizer myself (I organize the Vancouver Bloggers Meetup and regularly organize other events), I know how hard and how time consuming it is to put everything together.
I took video of the four presentations, and the arrival of Emme Rogers (one of the lead writers of the blog Sexy in VanCity). We arrived all together (Tris, Emme and I) since Tris had invited me to the opera, and we had agreed to escort Emme to the event. Awesome!
I am not an expert in transportation like Stephen Rees or Paul Hillsdon, whose analyses on Translink (the Greater Vancouver transportation system, fully named the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority) and its performance are always very interesting to me. However, I *am* always interested in how government agencies use social media tools (I am also interested in how universities and other higher education institutions use social media tools, but that’ll be a post for later – Beth Kanter, I haven’t forgotten about you, I swear).
Translink as a transportation authority has a really weird governance structure. I dare you to read Translink’s About Page and actually understand WHO is responsible for WHAT. Yes. I know. Confusing. But whatever. As a transportation authority of a major urban region, I kind of expect Translink to provide excellent service. I won’t bore you with stories of how many times a bus driver has started his/her bus and shut the doors on me despite the fact that they have seen me run. I won’t describe how many issues arose with buses and the Skytrain because of extreme climatic conditions. Those are detailed elsewhere on the internet.
What did make me scratch my head a bit was this tweet sent by the writer of The Buzzer Blog (who recently joined Twitter, and with whom I’ve had a few exchanges over email) to Tris. The reason why I was puzzled is because I certainly think that an organization the size of Translink SHOULD have enough staffing to handle Twitter AND a blog. Heck, I know DOZENS of organizations whose Twitter AND blogs are handled by one single person.
I do understand that Twittering does take time, but truth be told, there are MANY ways in which Twitter updates of transit conditions. Fortunately, more Translink staff is getting on Twitter, including Ken Hardie (Director of Communications of Translink). However, Ken – if I may give you a piece of advice – careful what you tweet. Once it’s out, it’s out. Yes, I’m referring to this one.
I am SO incredibly disappointed. The Academy snubbed James Franco and Kristin Scott Thomas for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Leading Role, respectively, for the 2009 Oscars. Even after the fact that Franco’s subdued and excellent performance made Penn’s performance in Milk shine. Even after Scott Thomas acted in fluent French (she is an Englishwoman).
And in a complete act of “yes we worship you your Highness Pitt”, The Academy gave “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” not one, not two, THIRTEEN Oscar nominations. Blech. Many people worldwide are so upset with this situation that they’ve created the Official Anti-Benjamin Button Club (hat tips to NowPublic and Jarrett Martineau for breaking the news).
Yes, I love Kate Winslet, and perhaps this is her year to win the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, but what can I say? I love Meryl Streep even more. Let’s see what the Academy decides. As for Best Actor in a Leading Role, my vote is quite obviously for Sean Penn.
It’s been a year since I last live-blogged a Vancouver Bloggers Meetup. This year, I’m actually the Organizer of the Meetup, and I’m quite honored to be hosting it. The End Cafe actually has been pretty good to us, and I am glad that the turn out is very good.
I’ll try to have updates as the night goes by. Obviously, as I know it’s tradition, I do expect that Dr. Jan Karlsbjerg will have a recap on his blog, to which I will duly link.
UPDATE – 6:54pm – I’m going to start the Meetup now with introductions all around. I might miss some people so just drop me your name if I miss you when I do the linkage.
UPDATE – 7:10pm – Pete Quily (ADDCoach) describes in 3 minutes what ADHD is. For more information and a really great in-depth analysis of ADHD, I’d suggest his blog.
UPDATE – 7:15pm – Mandy Gratton gives an overview of what mommy blogging is and how she got into it. Mandy’s excellent (and funny) blog is here.
UPDATE – I can see many people that are coming in, and having a hard time recognizing everyone so I decided not to continue live-blogging. I am sure there will be posts up about the meetup!
I had a chance to meet with Warrick and Jesse, owners of Qoola Yogurt + Fruit, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I’m always a fan of green-minded entrepreneurs, but the thing that really struck a chord with me was the fact that Warrick and Jesse started their business with a view towards being fully sustainable. They’ve been working with Green Table to ensure that they implement green measures, which is to be praised.
Their yogurt is fantastic, and while I think it deserves a fuller review (which I’ll do in a later post), it’s a good idea just to let you know that they’ve started with their soft-launch, and that they are on Twitter. Follow them here. Both Warrick and Jesse are very interested in engaging with their public and get as much feedback as possible.
I also wanted to let you know that they are on UrbanSpoon. They have also agreed to sponsor a contest in the next couple of weeks with a prize of two gift cards, which I think is completely awesome. Come to think about it (and sorry that I didn’t think about this earlier, Warrick) I should let 3rdWhale know about Qoola too!
Their grand opening is coming soon, so I’ll let them inform you guys via Twitter when this will happen. In the mean time, if you have a chance to swing by and try some of their excellent products (no, they didn’t pay me to give them a glowing review, I’m honest in saying that I *loved* their yogurt) I’d recommend to do so.
