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New plugin: Ipsum Maker

December 11, 2011 1 Comment
durdenipsum

Caution: Silly project ahead.

It’s no secret I build a lot of websites. During the build process, I’m constantly using lorem ipsum filler text to see how elements are going to lay out on the page. Normally that means heading over to lipsum.com to generate a few paragraphs. But seriously, that is some boring text! Which lead several people to create their own entertaining themed lorum ipsum generators. Some of my favorites being Bacon, Gangsta, Samuel L Jackson and one all about seafood. There’s also a couple for veggies and vegans.

Well, inspiration struck and I decided it was time to create my own lorum ipsum generator using quotes from my favorite movie of all time, Fight Club. You can check it out at DurdenIpsum.com.

But why keep all that fun to myself? I’ve released a generic version of the plugin so you can download it and make your own ipsum generator. If you do, please drop back by and leave a comment with a link to your new site.

Have fun!

Filed Under: Plugins, WordPress Tagged With: , ,

Taking back Twitter

November 18, 2011 4 Comments
twitbird

Back in February or 2009 I wrote a post called “I’m done with auto-follow on Twitter“. But, apparently I didn’t learn my lesson.

Once I started running 9seeds and was actively using social media to help ‘build our brand’, I started doing 2 things on Twitter that I ended up regretting. First, I turned auto-follow back on so that I could receive DMs from anybody was following. The second thing I did was for every conference I went to, I would follow the hash tag and then follow as many of the people I saw tweeting from the event. These both seemed like great ways of connecting with more people. Amazingly, it had almost the exact opposite effect.

The tipping point came about 3 months ago. I checked my Twitter account and noticed that I was following more than 6,000 people. But, that doesn’t mean I was reading all their tweets. There were so many tweets coming in that it was basically white noise. I had created a list of friends, family and community members I wanted to follow. Those were the tweets I was reading and interacting with. So, I decided to clean it up. I used Manage Flitter to unfollow about 3000 accounts. Most of those were people who had followed me, got me to auto-follow them back and then stopped following me. I was surprised at how many brands do that. It didn’t really help the white noise, unfortunately. The stream was still too much to deal with and I was stuck reading only my list.

In September I read this post by Chris Brogan where he talks about unfollowing the 131,000 people he was following in order to stop the crazy amount of DM spam he was getting on a daily basis. He took a fair amount of grief from people who were hurt by the fact that he unfollowed them. It’s funny how people can take something as meaningless as a twitter follow so personally.

But, the final straw for me was this post by Aaron Hockley where he writes about what he’d do differently if we here to start over on Twitter. While none of the past was Earth shattering or necessarily groundbreaking, two things he mentioned gave me that AHA moment I needed.

  • I would start a list for each of my top three areas of interest.
  • When I attend an event, I’d start a list for people I met at that event or those who were actively tweeting about the event. During the event, I’d monitor said list closely. After the event, I’d move relevant folks to another list and delete the event list.

Sometimes you need somebody else to point out what is right in front of you.

Over the past 3 days I’ve unfollowed roughly 3000 more accounts and am now down to roughly 350 that I still follow. And since I’m using a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel to do the unfollowing, there have been a few (a few dozen?) accounts that got unfollowed that I will end up following back. I’m still monitoring my list and plan to create a handful of other lists that will let me dive in to specific groups of people more easily. I will also be following Aaron’s lead and creating lists before heading off to my next conference so that I can easily add attendees to the list to see which I want to follow long term or possibly move them to a separate list.

If I unfollowed you, I promise it was nothing personal. We likely didn’t connect much on Twitter to begin with and unless you use some tool to let you know who unfollows you (insecure much?), you probably won’t even notice.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: ,

Site Launch: VegasTech.com

November 12, 2011 1 Comment
#VegasTech

I’ve been waiting several years for there to be an active tech community here in Las Vegas. I’d tried starting up meetup groups and other tech related happenings, but after some early success, they tend to fall in to the same traps; lack of interest and too many other things going on in Vegas to stand out.

Over the past year or so, we’re seeing a real shift here in Vegas. Zappos announced that they’d be moving their offices downtown and then started putting some cash in to other projects downtown in an effort to raise up the overall tech community. To say it’s working would be a understatement.

The idea came about for a website where we could list the people, companies, projects and events going on in the Vegas tech community. Since the hashtag #VegasTech had already been getting some traction, the domain name vegastech.com was purchased and a small group of us set out to build it. Today we launched the site, and I’m excited to see what happens.

Big thanks to Mark, Pat, John and Sara for your help putting the site together!

Filed Under: #VegasTech Tagged With:

Event Review: Digital World Expo

October 2, 2011 Leave a Comment
dwe-logo

This week I spent Monday and Tuesday Digital World Expo, the first of what will likely become an annual event here in Las Vegas. DWE was organized by Shawn Rorick who also founded the Las Vegas interactive Marketing Association.

When I first heard about the event, I reached out to Shawn to find out about being a presenter. As it turns out, my name had already crossed his desk and I was on his list for people to reach out to. Shortly after I was added to the list of presenters. Of course I would be doing a presentation on Monday and Tuesday talking about WordPress. But that was just the beginning of my involvement.

Shawn came to me with the idea for something he called the Digital Startup Speaker Series (DSSS), An Open Mic opportunity for startups to pitch their product or service to the attendees at DWE. Shawn asked that I, along with Jennifer Gosse from trac.ky (also a Vegas Startup) organize it. The idea and opportunity was too good to pass up, so I accepted.

The DSSS stage was at the back of the expo hall, so even the people who registered for free expo hall only passes were able to check out the presentations. Both days featured roughly a dozen startups giving 10 minute presentations. Here’s the list:

Monday: TripDibs, uStarPoker, Proximity Team, Ayloo, Rumgr, originate, Insure Monkey, Coupons for Humanity, Vote Giant, MeFundee

Tuesday: BloomWorlds, Video Receptionist, Stikki, Wedgies, 9seeds, Influential Networks, Dropbear, Blvd Media Group, Ticketometer, Tracky, Trademark Panda

While the overall crowd at the conference wasn’t very big, the area around the DSSS stayed busy both days. I watched as one after another of the startups would exit the stage and immediately end up in an in-depth conversation with groups of interested observers. The DSSS was a brilliant idea and gave some local startups a great opportunity to practice their pitch in front of a group of decision makers they may not otherwise have had access to. I’d have to say the DSSS was a great success!

Since I was busy helping to run the DSSS, I wasn’t able to attend any of the classes going on. Which is a bummer because I was really looking forward to catching a couple of them. My classes on Monday & Tuesday were both given to a pretty small group of people, but they were very interested in WordPress and learning more about it. Hopefully my overview gave them some pointers and pushed them in the right direction.

I’m definitely looking forward to DWE 2012. Now that they’ve got one under their belt, I’m sure next year’s event will be an even bigger success!

Filed Under: #VegasTech, Conferences Tagged With: ,

Swearing online and in person

September 21, 2011 20 Comments
Curses!

Curses!!! Foiled Again.

This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending my third WordCamp Portland event. As usual, it was a great event. It is consistently one of my favorite events of the year.

During one of the sessions led by Aaron Hockley, the topic of ‘personal brand’ (a term I’m not a big fan of, but for lack of a better one) came up. It’s something I wrestle with a bit and I wanted to throw my situation to the room and see what they had to say about it. I said something to the effect of:

If you hang out with me in person you’ll find that I swear. I swear a lot. I swear like a sailor. But, you will rarely, if ever, catch me swearing on my blog, Twitter or Facebook. This originally started because of my kids and just trying to keep my content clean in case they were around it. Then, I started a business and the line between my ‘personal brand’ and my business virtually disappeared. People who know me online know that I am VegasGeek and am also 9seeds. So, keeping it clean now seems like the right thing to do for the business.

After a bit of discussion, CamiKaos grabbed the mic and gave an interesting perspective. Cami had interviewed me back in 2009 at WordCamp Portland and she remarked that we had been chatting casually for a while before the interview, but as soon as the camera was on, Bam! I went in to ‘professional’ mode.

I asked Cami if she had noticed specifically that I don’t swear online. Without hesitation she said yes.

I immediately started thinking about the people I know both online and in person. Do I notice when they swear? (sure) Does it change the way I feel about that person? (nope) Do I notice when somebody swears in person, but doesn’t swear online? (not really) And, as a business owner, the most important question, would I choose not to work with somebody because they swear? (nope)

I brought this up at dinner after WordCamp. Todd said that I didn’t swear that much, but that the swearing increases proportionally based on the number of beers that have been consumed. It’s funny because it’s true.

I’m curious what you think.
- Do you think it hurts somebody’s ‘personal brand’ if they swear (online / in public)?
- Do you think a potential client would base a decision on it?
- Do you think somebody’s ‘personal brand’ extends to their company/job?
- Do you think this is all a moot point thanks to the amount of tattoos I have? :)

(image from flckr user joeshlabotnik)

Filed Under: Family, Personal Tagged With: , ,

WordCamp Portland – Round 3

August 31, 2011 8 Comments
wcpdx

One of my favorite WordCamp events each year is always the one up in Portland. No, not just because they had kegs of beer just inside the front door. Although that certainly didn’t suck. Their local WordPress community is awesome and invited in us outsiders with open arms. By the end of the first weekend there, I was ready to move in.

More than just my annual pilgrimage back to Portland for beer and Voodoo Doughnuts, I’m really excited for this year’s WCPDX since they are switching things up and doing mainly an unconference style event. If you aren’t sure what that is, rather than having a predetermined list of speakers with set times, anybody and everybody is encouraged to suggest topics for sessions. Then a vote happens and the most popular topics get turned in to sessions.

I’ve been to 20+ WordCamp events, and 2 of my favorite sessions I’ve sat in on were both unconference sessions. I found that the audience was more engaged and both sessions turned in to more of a discussion than a simple presentation. I got a lot out of both of those sessions and I expect a lot more of the same next month in PDX!

If you are planning on going to the event, start thinking about discussions you’d like to take part in. Then, when you get there, write it down on the suggestion board! I have a couple ideas in mind already myself.

See you there!

Filed Under: WordCamp, WordPress Tagged With: , , , ,

WordPress meetup date change

August 2, 2011 2 Comments

A funny thing happened while planning WordPress meetup. Turns out, I managed to plan it for a time when several of the WordPress peeps in Vegas will be out of town for WordCamp San Francisco. Oopsy.

After a quick bit of rearranging, we are now scheduled for Wednesday, August 10th, 7pm – 9pm at The Beat Coffeehouse in Downtown Las Vegas.

Sorry for the confusion and looking forward to seeing you all there!

Twitter Comments

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Filed Under: Meetup, WordPress

WordPress Meetup Hits Vegas!

July 28, 2011 2 Comments
WordPress Logo

Last week while attending my first Vegas Jelly event at The Beat Coffeehouse, I knew immediately that I had found what I’ve been trying to find for a long time; a place to host a regular WordPress meetup group. After exchanging a couple emails with the owner, I knew we were in business. Food, beer, central location, free WiFi and a place that’s happy to have us… Yep, this is what I’ve been searching for!

That being said, I’m very excited to announce…

WordPress Meetup – August 11th at The Beat

The when: Thursday, August 11th Wednesday, August 10th- 7pm to 9pm
The where: The Beat Coffeehouse – 520 Freemont St, downtown Las Vegas (inside the Emergency Arts building) – Map it
The what: An evening of WordPress, presentation and conversation

The plan is to run a monthly event on the 2nd or 3rd Thursday of each month. I’ve created a Facebook group where I’ll keep everybody up to date on when the event will be each month. If you have a WordPress site and need some help, know a bunch about WordPress and want to share some knowledge or just want to come out and talk about one heck of an awesome CMS, come on down! And, of course, if you know somebody who might be interested, send them the link or just drag them with you.

Presenters Welcome

My plan is to have a 10-15 minute presentation each month followed by some casual conversation. If you have an idea for a presentation, let me know and I’ll get you on the schedule for an upcoming event.

Like I said last week, the Vegas Tech Scene is on the rise. Jelly, Ignite, WordPress meetup and I think we’ll be hearing some news about WordCamp Las Vegas pretty darn soon. Stay tuned!

Twitter Comments

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Hire an assistant. Now!

July 25, 2011 17 Comments

When we started the company, there were three of us. The other two guys did the bulk of the design/development and I did some development, but mostly I ran the business. I spoke with all prospects, I managed all projects, dealt with accounting… all of it. Then earlier this year, one of those guys left to pursue other interests. Once he left, I took on the bulk of the design work on top of what was already on my plate. This was not a smart move.

For a couple months we rolled forward without making any significant changes to the way things were. We were working crazy hours to deal with everything on our plates and there was never a time when I felt like things were under control. I had lists of every shape and size. Notes on this project and that. But, there wasn’t anything that resembled a method to my madness. It was just… madness. Finally, when my stress level was reaching epic proportions, I made the decision. We need a project manager and we need one now!

As I started putting together the job description for this new position, I quickly realized that it wasn’t just a project manager I was looking for. I needed an assistant with project management skills. I interviewed half a dozen people for the position, but none felt perfect. As I was taking a couple of days to ponder my options, the exact person I had in mind for the position asked if the position was still available. Without a second thought, the position was hers. Welcome, Sarah.

Getting up to speed

Now that we had our person, the real fun begins. We set up an initial meeting to do a bit of a brain dump. I spoke for nearly 2 hours straight while she took notes. A lot of them. When the meeting ended and I saw the amount of information that had been floating around in my head, I was amazed. I knew I had been trying to manage a lot of information about a lot of projects, but seeing it all on paper was a real eye opener.

Over the next few weeks we worked together to find the processes that worked best for us. There is no such thing as a perfect solution when it comes to project management. We tried a few options and settled in on what felt comfortable. We’ve tweaked it over time and what we have now seems to be doing the trick. But, we’re still tweaking as we go.

Once we had the basic framework for project management in place, we started looking at all the areas of the business where she could take tasks off my plate. It should be no surprise that email was one of the first things that came up. On any given day I receive a handful emails from people looking for our services. I started by CC’ing Sarah on all client emails. Within a week she had taken over the ‘first line of defense’ answering the emails that have fairly standard responses. Over the next couple weeks she had taken over the bulk of all new prospect emails. If she did nothing else, she’d be worth her weight in gold! Lucky for me, this was only the beginning.

During those first couple weeks, Sarah turned my ramblings from that first meeting (along with all the emails and new prospects that had shown up since) in to an organized spreadsheet. We had tabs for existing projects, pipeline prospects and deals that we failed to capture. We’d meet a couple times a week to discuss each list. It’s amazing how a 10 minute meeting looking over a list can be so much more productive than 2 hours of pouring through your inbox trying to find all the details…

These are only a few of the things she’s taken off my desk so far. As we continue to refine our processes, I know there will be more.

The Payoff

As I said before, I had a lot of information floating around in my head. Since I was always so busy with everything that was on my plate at the moment, it was virtually impossible to step back and look ahead or behind. I was just rushing from project to project putting out whichever was the biggest fire.

About 4 weeks in to having Sarah on board I had that ‘A HA!’ moment that let me know I had made the right choice. I received an email from a prospect who I had talked to a couple months before. We had exchanged a few emails about a project, but it didn’t go anywhere and he ended up falling through the cracks. Sarah saw his name on that original list of prospects, reached out to him with a simple email asking if he was still in need of our services, and the next day he emails us asking for a contract and invoice so we could start his project. Without Sarah sending that email, it’s unlikely we would have landed that client.

While that is the most obvious example of the benefits of having an assistant, there are plenty of more subtle benefits as well. My time at my desk has been significantly more focused and productive now that I have less to manage on my own.

If I could give you just one piece of advice, stop trying to do it all yourself. Hire an assistant and in no time you’ll be wondering how you managed without them for so long.

Twitter Comments

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