Public speaking is something I love to do.

I love to teach, engage and contribute to those who want to listen.

I was honored to be able to present at WordCamp Phoenix. The event was one of the best organized and produced WordCamps I have attended. Excellent line up of WordPress professionals, great venue and format. Kudos to the organizers and sponsors.

WordPress is utilized by such a wide variety of people for multiple disciplines. There are bloggers, web designers, web developers, entrepreneurs, business owners, application innovators, social media enthusiasts, content publishers, small businesses and everyone in between. Considering the breadth of users and uses for WordPress, its difficult to host an event that will cater to everyone in the audience.

Questions & Answers

I had the chance to speak to many of the folks that attended.  They all thought the $30 price tag was an incredible value, especially with breakfast and lunch being included.  I asked all of them a few questions including: What would make WordCamp better?  What expectations did you have and were those expectations met?  What would you like to see at WordCamp in the future?

I was surprised to hear that many of them did not have specific expectations, rather they attended the event to either learn more about WordPress itself in general or to hear a certain speaker.  Many did agree the event should  incorporate educational learning components, the fundamentals of WP and technical presentations as well.

Almost everyone I spoke to you loved the idea of having more of a question and answer format and hands on training modules. A few participants brought up the idea of a hand out with resources.

Ideally, in order to address the concerns, desires and wishes of the attendees to WordCamp and provide the most entertaining and educational experience possible, its my opinion the event coordinators should survey each participant before and after the event to help define the best speakers and topics for presentations as well next years format.

I really like WordCamp NYC and WordCamp Victoria Canada’s formats.  You will see the consistency in the programs that I am trying to explain below.

My Take Away – Chunk it!

WordCamp is still a new concept.  We are all doing our best and each event will always be different, but maybe standardizing the flow and content would be a benefit to connect with as many people as possible.  Here are my suggestions.

1. Open with a presentation on the history, current status and future development of WordPress.  This is where it started, this is where it is now and this is where it is going.
2. Invite one keynote speaker that has made a major contribution to the WordPress culture.   On first thought, it would be great to have a WP authority from the local community as to capitalize on name recognition, if this is not possible then one who is well known through out the WordPress community.  Lorelle Van Fossen was a perfect choice for WordCamp Phoenix.
3. Allow attendees to sign up for specific modules focusing on areas of interest.  This may be accomplished with multiple tracks or days.

   WordPress design, WordPress development and Plugins , WordPress as a CMS, WordPress as a vehicle for Social Media, WordPress for Business, etc.  This would allow for the WordCamp organizers to concentrate their time and efforts in the areas that people are most interested in learning about WP, as well as give participants exactly what they expect from WordCamp.

4. Offer demonstrations and specific techniques for hands on real time learning and interaction with the participants, i.e. Q & A sessions, demonstrations and expert panels.
5. Offer continuing education.  WordCamp is just the beginning for most.  Many folks left with more questions then answers.  Provide the possibility for webinars and follow up materials to the participants, maybe even workshops organized in the local area after the event.  Offer people to join a WordPress Meetup!
6. Form a global WordCamp advisory board and committee of past organizers, where enthusiasts wishing to host a WordCamp can find definitive resources and answers to produce the best event possible.
7. Make sure the speakers are prepared and attend to their needs!  Help them with their presentation design, flow and content.  I would have loved to have had others’ opinions and ideas and a little help from my friends.  Asa first timer speaking at WordCamp, I was not sure what to expect, even though I have made dozens of presentations before.
8. Last and certainly not least, make sure the technology works flawlessly.  Utilize one computer for all presentations and each presentation should be created in the same software or format.  Make sure the Internet access is robust and reliable.

I am sure there are many more factors that make a great event a success.  We all live and learn.  I am not saying that WordCamp Phoenix fell short in any of these areas.  I am just sharing my overall insights from attending my 4th WordCamp.

Love to hear your thoughts.  Please leave a comment and share.

November 13, 2009 will be a day to remember as WordCamp Pheonix will be the first WordCamp professionally produced by a big name local internet services company, GoDaddy!

I have attended a few WordCamps in person as well as via live streaming video and tracking the trends of status updates on twitter.  I have been totally impressed with the volunteers efforts and class A speakers.

The venues have varied greatly all over the world, each with their very own distinctive and unique atmosphere and culture.

It will be interesting to experience WordCamp  at The Arizona Grand Resort Phoenix, Arizona.  A very established city  split between retired golf fanatics and university students in the middle of the desert and geographic center of the state.

The resort lies adjacent to 17,000 acres of South Mountain Preserve, the largest municipal park in the world and the second most visited tourist destination in Arizona.

I am super excited to find out what GoDaddy has planned.

The folks behind WordCamp Pheonix say

The webcast will be professionally produced with multiple cameras, great sound, and a high quality video feed.

Visit WordCamp Pheonix at phxwordcamp.com to learn more!  Hope to see you in person or virtually there!

Come listen to me with several other great speakers including Matt Mullenweg, Merlin Mann, John Hawkins, Brent Spore, Lorrelle VanFossen and Dave Moyer from the WordCast Podcast.

I love it when a WordPress Theme makes my job easier

And better yet still retains custom design changes when you upgrade your theme for the latest and greatest functionality.  The Thesis theme available from diythemes.com was developed with that purpose in mind. 

Tweak it, bend it, modify it how ever you want, as long as you follow the rules and only make your changes to the files in the “custom” directory.  This will guarantee your modifications will be safe and sound; protected from being over written with future Theme upgrades.

My task was simple, make changes to the WordPress theme to allow for a 3 column layout on the home page while keeping the default 2 colum layout on all secondary pages.  (you can choose your column layout and design from the Thesis Design Options panel)

No problem right?  A few conditional statements to verify what styles to render depending on what page is displayed, write the CSS and poof, a custom home page layout.

Wrong! – Thesis does more than just wrap WordPress in an elegant design, it adds tremendous functionality for the blog administrator and WordPress developer alike.  Remember when someone first showed you the keyboard shortcuts for copy, cut and paste?  Life was so much easier.  Thesis has built in function and design options.

After diving into the code and trying to figure out what happened to the core theme files that I am so familiar seeing in any other WordPress theme, I discovered in order to make changes to the Thesis theme, I need to do things a little bit differently.

2 Files to Make Custom Design Simple

There are only 2 files you need to manipulate to make all your design changes.  The custom.css file to overwrite the theme’s default styles and custom_functions.php to make all your functional changes utilizing the ingenious method of Thesis hooks. 

Thesis hooks and filters allow you to change blocks of code or module positions.  Modules make up your web page layout, the header, navigation menu, sidebars, content area and footers.  Click here for a visual representation of Thesis hooks.  Its very easy to add custom code, text and images above, within or below various modules in the Thesis framework. 

For example, lets say you wanted to move the navigation menu from the top of the page to below your header image.

Just add the following code to your custom_functions.php file.  Its that easy!
 
/*move the nav bar below the header*/
remove_action(’thesis_hook_before_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);
add_action(’thesis_hook_after_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);


OK now lets play with the Thesis Mutimedia Box.  A very smart, built in theme functionality. Thesis Multimedia Box is a Thesis design option you can control form the admin panel.  Just choose a default setup to display rotating images, a video or your own custom code.

I wanted to show a category relevant video on each different category page.  Select the custom code option, remeber to hit the big ass save button.  Then go to your handy dandy custom_functions.php file and write a few ‘ if else’ statements to determine which video you want to show up on which category page.

/* Custom mm Box */
function custom_mm_box() {
if ( is_category('twitter')){
?>

} else {
?>

}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_multimedia_box', 'custom_mm_box');

Remember to add the 'add_action' hook to call your function.  Again simple as pie. For a full visual of the working product, take a look at my video on the Twitter category page and then the video on my Wordpres category page. 

So many options.

If you can Imagine it...

Thesis can help you do it.  I am continually amazed at the power of WordPress.  Thesis is now to WordPress, what Youtube is to   video.  It is revolutionizing the way we share content and making it very easy for the novice to look like a pro.

Let me know your thoughts about Thesis and some cool ways you use the Multimedia box?

“Plug in the DISQUS comment system and bring out the best discussion on your website”

- from disqus home page

We all know the power of comments on our blogs.  They give us a mechanism for discussion, real feedback and personal opinions from our readers.  With comments, we are able to establish a connection and participate in the conversation with our audience.

But there is so much more we can do!

Disqus is a robust commenting system allow us to track our conversations, share our discussion with the likes of Friendfeed and Plaxo as well as always stay in touch by replying via email or our mobile phone.

Disqus enhances our experience and considerably steps up the interactivity by incorporating ratings and video comments.  Now that’s cool!

Ok, ok I can hear you.

“Come on Jayson, with all those components, you will need a programmer just to install it on your blog.”

Its easy as pie to implement.

Actually Disqus has done a great job with making their commenting system easy as pie to integrate into your blog.  The administrative area is very intuitive.  They have incorporated search engine friendly plugins , a complete data sync (whatever that is) but it sounds good, and widgets allow you to easily build your community.

Forget the boring simple text fields we usually see, Disqus is totally customizable to match the look and feel of your blog design.  Disqus has reinvented what it means to make a comment.

In their own words; ” there’s no difference between a great comment and a great blog post…people feel good about taking the time to speak (or type) their minds.”

I really can’t think of any reason not to have Disqus on your blog, unless you don’t want your readers talking to you, about you… “oh yeah, they are going to do that anyway.”

I would love to Disqus this with you!

OK one huge lesson, REMEMBER to back up your blog’s database.  I run WordPress behind the scenes of this fancy website and when I decided to upgrade to version 2.8, all hell broke loose.

Yup… nothing more nerve racking than seeing or “not seeing” all your hard work suddenly remove itself from the webosphere.

I had a few good laughs when Twitter took a dive the other day when everybody was freaking out.

I thought, “man don’t we have a life outside of twitter?”  Well for some, Twitter IS their life, so when their Twitter profile and all their valued content disappeared, their heart missed a few beats.

Solution: Create a duplicate copy of all your content that you don’t want to lose.

Hey is there an application to back up our Twitter statuses?  Let me know your thoughts.

If you want to maximize your blog for social media, you want to create an interactive experience for your viewers.

I utilize several plugins in order to allow my viewers to vote and rate posts, see related posts, watch videos and bookmark their favorite articles and pages.  I also use administrative plugins to connect my social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and Youtube with my WordPress blog.

This allows me to cross reference posts and content to a wider audience and make relevant links between my various social media outlets.

In my opinion the following plugins are the best of the best with active support, continuing development and current updates to the latest version of WordPress (2.7).

WordPress Social Media Plugins to Enhance Your Blog

Plugin: Sociable – download
Description: Automatically add links to your favorite social bookmarking sites on your posts, pages and in your RSS feed. You can choose from 99 different social bookmarking sites!

Plugin: Lifestream – download
Description: Lifestream displays your social feeds and photos much like you would see it on many of the social networking sites.

Plugin: Twitter Tools – download
Description: This plugin creates an integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. Pull your tweets into your blog and create new tweets on blog posts and from within WordPress.

Plugin: Smart YouTube – download
Description:  Smart Youtube is a WordPress Youtube Plugin that allows you to easily insert Youtube videos in your post, comments and in RSS feed.

Plugin: Viper’s Video Quicktags – download
Description: Allows easy and XHTML valid posting of videos from various websites such as youtube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and more. You can fully configure how the videos are displayed (width, height, colors, alignment on the page)

Plugin: Wordbook -  download
Description: This plugin allows you to cross-post your blog posts to your Facebook Wall. Your Facebook “Boxes” tab will show your most recent blog posts.

Plugin: FotoBook – download
Description: Fotobook is a WordPress plugin that will link to your Facebook account(s) and import all of your photo albums for use in your WordPress installation. It uses the Facebook’s API so importing your photos is a breeze.

Whats Your Favorite social media plugin for WordPress?

Please leave a comment and bookmark.  I’d appreciate it.