Author Archives: Shelly K.

About Shelly K.

See you at WordCamp. It's going to be Austintacious, Baby! :)

Michael Jackson’s Personal …

Michael Jackson’s Personal Photography will be our photographer at WordCamp Austin 2013 (this Saturday). Yes it is our pleasure to have Harrison Funk covering WordCamp.

Enjoy his online portfolio here. http://www.harrisonfunk.com/

He’s worked around the world as a professional photographer and Harrison has settled in Austin now.

Yeah, I think it’s pretty cool. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a geek… being in the backend of WordPress is a little geeky. So yes, I think it’s pretty cool that a world renowned photographer is excited to spend 18 hours with us. (18 hours includes Friday, Saturday and post production.)

(And yes, the thorough and complete reader realizes this was in the press release post but as it was at the bottom I decided everyone didn’t read to the end and this should be written. :-)-S

(Oh, and when you meet Harrison, ask him if he does weddings. 😉

Volunteers Time Table This Saturday

WordCamp Austin 2013 Volunteer Roster

  • General Call to Volunteers for Friday May 17, 2013 – If you can come to the church on Friday May 17, 2013 to help with setup – chairs, A/V, etc. please come from 1:30 – 3:00 Friday afternoon to setup – it will go fast with so many hands.

  • Saturday Morning WordCamp Signage, Registration and Food Service people please show up at 7:00 am.

  • Volunteers helping with Speakers and Rooms please show up at 7:30 am.

  • All other volunteers show up at 8:00 am. If you received a different time in an email please arrive at the time in the email.

Thank you kindly to everyone who is stepping up. You know this is the biggest WordCamp we’ve done. The venue is gorgeous, fully equipped and brand new. All of our time and extra hands are going to setup the best venue we could imagine and then turn around and leave it better than it was – so the owners of the church can have an inspired Sunday in their building returned to them better than it was given. (Was that a run-on sentence? Someone let me know.) -S

In Case You Haven’t Seen It – The Schedule

The schedule is posted. In case you haven’t seen it:

Here’s the link to the WordCamp Schedule, Saturday May 18.

For Saturday’s WordCamp here’s the link to the Location and Directions.including GPS Coordinates to Austin Baptist Church Campus – 7016 Ribelin Ranch Drive in Austin, TX  78750.

Also, just to post the details: WordCamp is on Saturday May 18 in the hill country near 360 and 2222 (see first link above); and DevDay is Sunday in Downtown Austin at Capital Factory. For those of us DIY WordPress Campers it’s exciting to think about going to DevDay to get all the WordPress we can hold and hang with the developers. But let me warn you – DevDay is hardcore if you’re not a programmer – so you can think about going on Sunday because you think you’ll learn more, but I caution you non-developers who think you want to know this information… it can wear out a do-it-yourselfer (especially if you’re not a programmer).

More posts about DevDay will go up in the next couple of days.

Team Work and Work Flow

When you realize you can move further faster when you work with a team, you might choose to work with a team of writers, editors and proof readers. It takes systems to be successful. Some team players will know the ins and outs of WP, others will barely be able to log in and out. Your team can work together because WordPress can create the system that manages workflow including writing, editing, reviewing, and quality control. Dorian Speed covers custom post types, plugins and contributor roles in her session Hey Kids! Let’s Put on a Show: Building a Collaborative Website

It’s definitely worth getting the daily routine into a perpetual system so you can focus on your business rather than in your business.

View Your Site by IP Address

Have you ever thought, ‘I can just view my old site by the IP address while I move the domain to a new server… and then I can have both sites up at the same time’?  Well many of us have. Turns out, viewing a WP site just by it’s IP address isn’t as straight forward as we think it should be.

So how do I get to view my new and old sites at the same time? How do I move an existing site to a new host? Will there be search engine penalties? You may never need to move your site(s), or maybe you’ll just move it once, I’m here to tell you from personal experience the answer to how to view the same site in two places (via IP address or not) is NOT out there in the forums (I looked).

This is only 10 minutes of Chris Weigman‘s session on Moving Sites and Managing Domains.It’s scheduled for late afternoon so plan on staying for it.  This is a definite must for Do-It-Yourselfers if you have ever thought of moving your site.

WordCamp Volunteers – Calling WordCamp Volunteers

Hey Volunteers! You get the same great food, the t-shirt and more free stuff, but volunteers also get the inside scoop on the politics, gossip and secrets that go on behind the scenes.

Call for Volunteers

Introducers

If you will be in the same track all day it would be ideal to have you introduce the speakers in that session. Your interest in a specific series gives you an inside track on the flow and focus of your day. Even if it’s just half a day, that’s good too. If you want to spend quality time getting to know each speaker individually and are interested in this volunteer position please come to the Posh Meeting Monday Night at 6pm, 3027 North Lamar Blvd., Suite 202.

Tweeters and Posters

If it’s easy for you to blog and tweet on the fly we’ll need it in each session too. Everyone is encouraged to do this – last year we were a hot topic and we got in a posting war with WordCamp Seattle – aaahhh the memories :). Other Volunteer opportunities are also available find out more Monday night at 6 pm at Posh on Lamar (a few blocks south of Cafe Express near Seton Hospital).

How Do You Get to Know Someone to Get Ahead? It’s called Networking

If you’re new to WordPress or new to WordPress in Austin this is the perfect chance to meet the experts that are giving back to the community, the ones who have been doing it for years and now help the rest of us who follow in their expertise expecting their insights to brush off on us. You’ll be shoulder to shoulder with the ‘guy that knows everything’ or ‘knows everyone’ and will be able to capitalize on this resource in the future… it’s all about who you know or who knows you. So volunteer and get to know someone you can take advantage of… it’s called Networking.

Monday night at the 6pm Volunteers meeting we’ll take a head count for the volunteer’s food. (Yup. earliest morning  volunteers at WordCamp are greeted with breakfast tacos – this is one of those insider secrets I mentioned.  Sshhh, don’t talk about it out load ;-))

If you have already bought your ticket for WordCamp and are now deciding to volunteer please come to the short Volunteers meeting Monday night 6pm (before the regular 7pm Meetup also scheduled at Posh).

See You Monday night –

Hey WordPressers – Get Your T-Shirt

Hey Everyone –

To be sure you get your size in the FREE T-Shirt, buy your tickets now. We must turn in the shirt order by Sunday Noon (yes in 2 days). Please buy your ticket(s) now and reserve your shirt-size and your choice of BBQ, Vegan or Vegetarian for your FREE Lunch too.  All this for only $20? (you must be thinking…)

Yup. You get:
the T-Shirt (in your size buy now!)
Lunch (BBQ, Veg, or Veg) and Afternoon Snacks and the After Party at Mario’s Taco Express
Networking with the unique and talented ATX WordPress Community
4 Powerful Tracks each packed with 5 sessions (quick do the math)
More FREE Stuff!

WordCamp ATX is falling into place nicely as the schedule and speakers have been finalized. I’ve been e-talking with each of the speakers and they are all excited to be here – several are coming in from out of state – and are planning their presentations to the different levels of expertise we’ll have in the audience. These sessions are shaping up to be dynamic, entertaining and focused.

Looking forward to seeing you at WordCamp ATX Sat. May 18th.

Buy your ticket(s) now to be sure to get the T-Shirt in your size!

 

Survey Says – This is How We Use WP

what we doWordPress is big in the businesses of our members and more than 1/4 are in the business of  providing WordPress services.  But 1/3rd consider themselves newbies.  WordCamp sessions are designed for all levels and the topics are relevant to the work we do.

Content-Rich Sessions Come from Survey

who we areThe WP Austin Survey took place the first quarter of 2013 and 10% of our membership stepped-up to say what they wanted to learn more about. We heard from all skill levels – beginners to certified professionals with the largest category being novice WP user and the largest group of users were content developers or bloggers. The most popular topics are Responsive Design, with SEO and Google Webmaster always scoring high because 3/4 of people reported they use WP in their business.

A big thanks to Blossom Braemer for doing all the work to correlate the survey results.