studionashvegas | design and social media

It’s official – my plane tickets have been purchased, my itinerary has been loaded, and I am well on my way to getting things ready for BlogWorldExpo in Vegas.  It’s my first conference of this magnitude (I love speaking at BarCamps and WordCamps, don’t get me wrong, but there’s something really cool about being invited to speak at the largest blogger conference in America) [side note: I will be hanging out in the WordPress Genius Bar and will be attending some of the WordCamp sessions too, so it’s two… two… two conferences in one!]

My session will be on “Designing a Killer Blog” and I’m going commando for this one.  No, not that type of commando… I’m going no slides, no notes.  Well, OK, I’ll have notes, but i’m going to be showing a lot of sites and showcasing why those sites are great designs.  Then, at the end, compile the notes and see what the final verdict is as far as great sites go.

So, If you’re heading to BlogWorld and want to link up, give me a shout – i’ll have a busy week, but it’ll totally be worth it (and if you’re flying in on Wednesday, who knows – we may be on the same flight!)

WordCampBirmingham is little under an hour and a half underway down here at the Innovation Depot in Birmingham.  Dougal gave an amazing presentation on plugin development earlier and Sara Cannon is giving a great presentation on branding WordPress as we speak.  There’s a lot of people here (around 200ish) and so far the lineup of presentations is looking to be killer.

I’ll update this as the day goes on – Matt M. himself is going to give the lunch keynote so that promises to be good as always.

I’m finally back home after two weeks of vacation and conferences (and back to internet access that actually works!!) and I got to say – even though I’ve been working for the past week in a different location, it’s still nice to get away from the daily grind and get out of your zone for a bit.  I feel really renewed and I can’t wait to get back into the swing of things tomorrow.

Social South, in case you haven’t heard me talk about it, really changed the way I look at the business I’m in.  Number one, being a designer that speaks developer and marketer is a great thing to be – it’s almost like I’m the trilingual translator in the room – whether it’s CMYK or CPM or C++ (OK, so I don’t know C++ but I do know what it IS) I can usually hold my own in conversation.

But, beyond that, I have had a lot of my faith in humanity restored by what I saw this weekend.  Esra’a Al Shafei’s keynote was absolutely amazing.  Any review I would say wouldn’t do it justice.  My final takeaways, although not nearly as as profound, are still important to me.  They are:

1. There’s some amazing talent out there, both from Birmingham and beyond.  I’ve emailed a lot of people from here who do a lot of things – a truly diverse group.
2. Social media isn’t just about the technology.  Anything we do, whether online or offline, plays into our personality.  And having the offline is just as important as the online – there will never be a substitute for an in-face meeting or real interaction with real people.  Social Media enhances those relationships.
3. I really need to break out into the church space.  I never realized how passionate I am about it until the Saturday session about Church and Social Media – can’t wait for those slides to come out so I can pour over them again.
4. There are some great people in Birmingham.  If I had to choose another city to move to, it’d be that.

I’ll add to this list as I find more, and as people remind me of more, but after a vacation, I need a vacation (or at least a good night’s sleep).

Today was Day 1 of the Social South conference in Birmingham, and everything was definitely in full swing from the get-go.  Although it’s late, I do have some takeaways I want to talk about so I can get them out of my brain and onto the blog.

1. No one is an expert in Social Media – it’s too new of a medium for anyone to be an expert.  Calling yourself an expert only makes it apparent that you aren’t really an expert.
2. People seem to really love Robert Scoble here.  Apparently, in 10-15 years, all of us will be like him and will have our own spheres of influence. 
3. It’s not how many followers you have, it’s how many fans you have (and no, you don’t need 10K followers to have fans).
4. It doesn’t matter how much social media you use – if your product sucks, it will always suck.  Put out a better product.
5. Above average is the new average – you can’t do anything less online, because people expect the extra mile.
6. Being a designer that understands marketing in a room full of marketers is a fun place to be

Honestly, it all boils down to taking care of people by putting out great content.  By providing great content, you provide your readers with a reason to trust what you say. As that trust builds over time, they start to tell others, who tell others, who tell others still, until you can become one of the Rockstars that people talk about so much in this field.

Tomorrow’s going to be just as awesome, I can tell, so I’ll see you guys there!

Ever since I heard about SoSo back, waaaaaay back a year ago I’ve been looking forward to when it would come to fruition.  Well, tomorrow, that day finally arrives.  It’s been a while in the making, but the Magic City becomes abuzz with speakers, social media enthusiasts and others who are interested in learning or teaching their craft.

There are high level speakers (the keynote is Richard Binhammer & Lionel Menchaca from Dell and even a speaker livecasting from Bahrain).  And, there’s me, a not-so-high level (compared to some of the other talent that’s going to be there).  I’ll be doing a roundtable discussion with fellow WordPress enthusiast Andre Natta and Jeff Vreeland tomorrow afternoon.

I’m also going to (hopefully) be videoing myself interviewing my friends and coworkers there to see what they plan on learning, if nothing else for practice when I start doing the videoblogging on here I want to do.

So, If you’re coming, see you there, and make sure to hook up with me and say hello!

So a few of us are road tripping bright and (freaking) early to Chattanooga to hit up the BarCamp.  I’ll hopefully be doing a session on WordPress, and I hope to see you there.  If you’re following me on Twitter, please feel free to stop me and let me know who you are – I love meeting new people.

I’ll have pictures going up as I take them, as well as TwitCaming my session.

• Nathan Ketsdever knows everything you need to know about SEO.  Ever.  And he can tell you all of it in one hour.  It’s not that there’s not a lot of information; he just talks really fast!
• The Gang War between Macs and PC ever intensifies, and the lines have been drawn.
• The Birmingham tech community is strong, and not just with coders.  There are some great designers, developers, and entrepreneurs in Birmingham
• The office space in Birmingham is frickin’ sweet!

Seriously, I had a great time today at BarCampBham.  They have a lot of other events happening this year (including WordCamp and SocialSouth) so stay tuned because I’ll be talking about them on here I’m sure.

I’m down here at the Innovation Depot in Birmingham, AL for BarCampBirmingham, and even though I was a little late I’m really digging what I’ve seen so far. There’s a really tech-savvy crowd here today, with a lot of really new and interesting topics (mobile web, twitter for business, and even some other WordPress developers). 

I didn’t get a good look at the session board (just saw this session I’m in right now) but I’m really looking forward to seeing what other people are speaking on.

I’ll be tweeting/blogging about it today (trying to get back into a blogging habit is hard, after all), but I hope to share some of the great things I learn, because I think it’s going to be quite a bit.

So, by far, today’s PodCampNashville was one of the most fun events that I’ve been to in the last while. I made a lot of new connections, but the best part was hanging out at the after party and just reveling in the “real life” of things.  Sure, we all met online, but it’s a driving community spirit that keeps us all coming back for more (that, and the fact that @TROnash still has a #gpsassassins smack-down coming, but that’s beside the point).

I think my presentation went well, but it was little strange having people come up to me and say they came just to see my presentation.  It’s a little unnerving sometimes; having people who look to you in that manner is a heavy responsibility… one I take with great honor and responsibility.  Honestly, John Morgan, I’m not sure how you don’t crack under the pressure sometimes

For those of you who were at my presentation, and for those of you who missed it, here are the slides below:

And, (insert shameless plug) if you’re looking for a podcast delivered daily with a bite-sized chunk of WordPress goodness… feel free to subscribe to the WordPulse podcast!

Oh, and here’s the video from NewsChannel5 in Nashville.  I *think* I’m up on stage giving the presentation… can’t tell, though.