Wordcamp Savannah 2010

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending WordCamp Savannah.

“WordCamps are low-key community conferences that celebrate all things WordPress and bring together local WordPress users, developers and fans.”

To read more about this particular WordCamp, visit WordCamp in Savannah GA.

Before I talk about the actual event itself, let me drop a little bit of background on my history with WordPress.

How Did I Find WordPress?

I’ve been working with web development as well as programming in different languages since I was a teen. There is just something about submitting and retrieving data using code and a database tickles my fancy.

For extra cash, as well as the stimulation of programming itself, I was developing websites for friends of mine.  While doing this I was also creating my own Content Management System to enable my clients to log into their websites and make changes on their own.

Little did I know how important this kind of action would become in the next couple of years.

After having made it pretty far along with the CMS I stumbled upon a free piece of software called WordPress. As soon as I installed it and tried it out, I immediately knew I would never need to work on my own CMS again.

WordPress was not quite where it is today, but was leaps and bounds farther along than my solo CMS, as well had a large support environment online, and plenty of people focused on making it better and safer.

Since that day I have been programming less and hacking more. WordPress gives me a strong  platform to grow on

Having been developing a CMS, the background functionality of WordPress enticed me.

Enter WordCamp Savannah 2010

Now that I have been using the software for a while and spreading goodwill about it, I decided to take the plunge and really see about getting involved in this community. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I enjoy putting on and hosting events myself, and something that I have noticed is when you bring together a large group of people, many times it is hard to maintain a certain vibe. There is a good chance for controversy.

WordCamp Savannah smashed that idea.

Every single person that I met, and I talked to quite a few, was kind, generous, and generally just cool to be around.

That vibe resonated throughout the entire event and alone would have made it worthwhile to be there.

Add in the fact that several of the core members of the WordPress team showed up to present and just hang out and share…

No egos to be found found here, just people sharing a similar interest and trying to build a great community. Everyone, regardless of title or experience or responsibility was down to earth.

As a developer I was able to really get my nerd on in the developer track and was stimulated and inspired.

The biggest thing that I noticed about this event was that everyone is giving. Giving of their time, their knowledge, whatever they have to give, they are giving it.

This also inspired me and has given me the desire to give back to this community as well.

I am not exactly sure how or when or where I will fall within this community in the future, for now I will continue to use and support it.

Keep an eye out people, you will be seeing a lot more of me in the future

If you have any kind of online presence, a business site, a blog, anything…and you have not experience WordPress or WordCamp, I challenge you to check them out.  I promise you will find something you like.

As an added bonus I wanted to share some links to some of the amazing people I met while there. All of these people are heavily involved in WordPress and know things that you can learn

Daryl Koopersmish – Developer
John James Jacoby – Developer
Ptah Dunbar – Developer
Mark Jaquith – Developer
Jane Wells UX designer + Amazing Coordinator
Sara Cannon – Designer
Andrew Nacin – Developer
http://ma.tt – Founder
Amanda Plum – PR
Nikolay – Translations
Otto – Developer
Chris Cree – New Media
Matt Thomas – Design/Development

Other WordPress attendy reviews

WordPress Savannah 2010 – Steven Miller
New Tricks – Judi Knight
Just Ask Kim – Kimberly Castleberry

Official WordCamp Savannah Sites

WordCamp Savannah 2010
WordCamp Savannah TwitterWP MU – Slides From WordCamp Presentations
Foursquare Listing

Sure I have skill sets that I can utilize to make some money, but there is way more to it than that. While I kind of knew in the back of my mind that I would be doing most everything myself, I thought for sure it would be easier.

One of my biggest struggles has always been finding the time to get everything done.

At first I was trying to dabble in several ventures at one time, which ultimately lead to me not putting in enough time and effort on any of them.  Once I decided to let go of the ones that were taking up more of my time, and making me less money, I saw a great increase in my productivity.

That said, it was still not enough.  Clearing my plate of extra work definitely opened up some free time for me to tackle some other objectives in my main venture, currently web presence development, but still felt overwhelmed at times.

Now that I have been doing it for some time and have built up a little client base, the struggle has returned.  Not only do I want to keep growing this business, but I also have to make sure my current clients are taken care of.

This is hard to do when you are actively the

• Salesman
• Accountant
• Developer
• Manager
• and so on
• and so forth…

Driving several hours a week to meet with new and old clients. Spending hours on the phone per week working out technical difficulties and putting out fires, as well trying to chat with new potential clients.

As you can probably see, these things could easily be broken up into jobs of their own for separate people.

Here is where it gets good. While I feel like I am almost ready to bring on another person, I am still more interested in fine tuning my own FULL LOAD work skills. My mind set that if I do figure out some better systems to help me be more productive now, in the future I will be able to take on even MORE. From what I understand, it is only going to get harder as this beast grows larger.

Now here is the kicker, there is one thing that I am doing now and doing daily that really helps me knock things out.

The 50 minute timer.

Yes, you read correct, a regular old timer.  I am not sure where I first read or heard about this idea, and I have definitely found many others who already do this, but it is a life saver.

Before I started timing my work schedule and actually sticking to it, I would have a list of 10 things to do in one day, and maybe get one or two of them complete. I would be bouncing all over with out much focus.

Now that I am actually making myself sit down and work on just one thing for 50 minutes, my productivity throughout the day has increased.  Unfortunately I do not seem to ever have a full 8 hours in a row to sit down and do 50 minute blocks of work. This system does however give me a little more control over my list, and the result is that I fit in at least four, if not more, of these blocks a day which is way more than I was getting done before.

So, if you are not already working on some kind of similar system, just give it a try. Most phones have timers on them, if not there are some free timers available online.

Close down everything besides your one task at hand, start the 50 minute timer, and see how you do. I promise you will get more done in that 50 minutes that you have all morning

This event is being hosted by the Atlanta WordPress on meetup.com at the Urban Oasis and is called “Rocking Optimized WordPress Posts: How to Write Them and Plugins that Help“.

Search Engine Optimization is something that I have been working with and researching for a few years now. Over time I have had some great success by testing the waters and seeing what does and does not work. I am really looking forward to sharing some of that knowledge with this group and also hope to learn some new things myself.

Using the WordPress platform is a great way to make your SEO life easier. During this presentation I will be showing everyone exactly where and how to optimize their website pages and posts, as well throwing out a few simple tips and tricks to help your chances of ranking high in the search engines.

These concepts that I will be going over are easy for anyone to pick up on, so people on all levels are welcome to come and learn.

If you are a SEO expert on your own, I would love to talk with you and share some ideas on methods, strategy, and whatever other interesting things we can talk about. Come out and “meet up”.

This event is open to everyone and will be a great networking evening for Atlanta business people.

RSVP here: http://www.meetup.com/wordpress-atlanta/calendar/13947621/

If you have any questions let me know.

See you then!

If you havn’t heard me talking about my upcoming music festival, then I suppose I have not be talking loud enough!

Coming up this Saturday, July 17th, at Lenny’s in Atlanta, I am throwing my very first Music and Art FESTIVAL. That’s right…a FESTIVAL!

For a long time now, I have wanted to set up a music and art event that would bring together people from different scenes, outlooks, view points, etc. My personal music collection is broad, there is no one style of music that I listen to, I listen to all styles. I listen to GOOD music.

Good music is surely a personal taste thing, but being a musician, and understanding not only the fundamentals, but also theory, song writing, structure, and more, I know when music is unappealing on a musical level.

The thing is, I do not think I am alone in this.  I am pretty confident that many people who really enjoy music for what it is, really enjoy good music.  The problem is filtering through all the mediocre and terrible crap in order to find the really good stuff…and there is sooooo much music so I can see why people just give up and listen to whatever is on the radio, it’s easy.

The Hijacking Music Collective is some what of a filter for quality music here in Atlanta. The Hijacking Music Festival is taking that another step farther and bringing in other types of artists such as painters, photographers, dancers, and some other entertainers as well.

We want people that spend any amount of time at this event to be constantly bombarded with high quality visual and audible artwork that is stimulating, thoughtful, and creative. We want people to come out of their comfort zones and embrace something new that might change the way they view things in the future for the better.

Really, when it all boils down, we want to open some minds.

This is easily the largest event I have ever coordinated and put on and I am really looking forward to it and would LOVE to have your support.

Please come out and support an amazing local music and art scene here in Atlanta and party with us!

For more information about the Hijacking Music Festival, or to download a FREE Digital CD Sampler including all bands performing at the festival, visit: http://hijackingmusic.com/hijacking-music-festival-2010

This particular spot in the yard was chosen because it gets quite a bit of sun during the day.  We even did just a little limb hacking on some trees to open up the suns space a little more.  One would think this is prime real estate if you were a “6+ hour sun light” plant.

Behind the garden is a bench. This bench was creatively covered in ’semi transparent’ deck stain…a few too many times and is now very white.  I will say it definitely keeps the water out.

Just behind that is our fire pit. It is pretty large and in charge, but we can not use it until October =/

As you can see here, I have two 4 ft x 8 ft raised beds. They were a bit overgrown from not being tended to for about a month, so we had to do some weeding before we could even get some plants in there. Super High Quality photo images brought to you by blackberry storm.

I had thought about just tilling up a big section of the yard right there, but I figured using the beds would look a little cleaner, and also offer a little assistance in keeping critters out if/when I install some chicken wire fence around them…yes, chicken wire.

After just returning my parents weed eater back to them, I was left having to use a pair of gloves and hands to pull the weeds.  With some help from my friends we knocked it out quickly.

In this photo you can see everything that we started with in order to create the garden.

• Top Soil
• Conditioner
• Blue Berry Bush
• Green/Red Bell Peppers
• Jalapeno Pepper
• Roma Tomato
• Solar Fire Tomato(supposedly does well in heat)
• Watermelon
• Cucumber

Next step, spread out dirt and conditioner, then till it all up and mix with the existing dirt.  This was intense but we definitely created a nice home for the new plants.

Done! Garden beds mixed and tilled, ready for plants.  On the left are the Tomato’s, and Peppers.  The two Tomato’s in the back were given to me by my parents and are not doing so great.

On the right you can see the Watermelon, Blue Berry, and Cucumber.  Thinking about moving the Blue Berry to a location outside of the garden.

Below you will find my potted plants which are all doing great. Surprising considering every one of my attempts with them last year failed.

• Basil x2, both purchased from farmers markets
• Oregano, this died last year and grew back in the same pot
• Cherry Tomato’s, sprouted by a friend of mine’s neighbor

Once the cherry tomato’s are a little larger, I think I am going to replace the two other failing tomato plants with them.

So there it is, my garden 2010.  Hope you like it…hope it feeds me soon!

Are you growing anything? If so leave me a comment and tell me what it is. The same goes for any tips or tricks you might have that can help me out!