barcamp nashville : live blogging

erin & i are attending barcamp nashville today. i'll be live blogging what i can, as i did last year. you can also follow my twitter, and the barcamp twitter feed.

the wifey and i are all settled in & registered. got a cool t-shirt and already ran into john.

wordpress 101 : power to the people via mitch canter in 'other camp'
why wordpress?

• dynamic
• easy to use
• open source, hundreds of plug-ins available
• powerful
• useful & free!
• is the last software you'll ever use to maintain a website

where can i get?

• www.wordpress.com & www.wordpress.org
• .org user downloads the software
• requirements php 4.2.x or above, mysql 4.0
• godaddy.com or dreamhost give good deals on hosting and will do a turn key application

why host it yourself?

• custom themes
• advanced heirarchy
• ability to host podcast (podpress & powerpress)
• you own content!

set up!

• copy wordpress to your site via ftp
• database name, database username, database password, database host, table prefix
• confirm, run the install
• name it, log back in, you're in!

files

• missed stuff
• sidebar, recent posts, recent comments, blog counter, page index, widgets, etc.
• footer
• index, brings in the template and 'the loop' displays posts in chronological order, can be customized for any theme design, runs using logical php

why so passionate about wordpress?

• you can edit or make changes without knowing code
• wordpress themes are designed just like regular web sites
• go from photoshop, to dreamweaver, then to wordpress, then internet (works well and custom)

successful social media overview by david bullock in 'basecamp'

what do to?

• small workable steps
• case study barack 2.0 (www.barack20.com), he was using twitter, linkedin, myspace, meetup, flickr, friendfeed, facebook, youtube
• obama, has over 100,000 followers on twitter, you can push a headline, you can be authentic, valuable to the people who are following you.
• a url now is a new premium. if you can find something cool and give to people you have added value to their life. do that often enough they start following you
• use email, twitter & be valuable across the medium
• twittterholic.com list barack leads
• mobile messaging, (trumpia) and you can send them a text message. obama campaign sent out txt collected over
• user generated content, "yes we can" if you create a story that people become interested in, they will create content on your behalf. over 10million views of yes we can video, 53,000 comments.
• product placement, xbox 360 burnout paradise
• widgets / calculators - visitor engagement. the use of the obama tax calculator
• know your numbers, bounce rate is critical, people come to site and then leave cause it's not what they want. low bounce rate.
• product creation & distribution, 81% conversion. go from video to podcast, transcribe it then put out ebook or newsletter from just one conversation then move it offline to magazine for monetizing
• barack 2.0 site folks interview the barack obama site creators, check out
• you can take a blog and podcast that is not monetized and make it work for you if you pay attention to the market

• twitter is actually a mailing list.. think about it
• engage people who have a lot of folks who are following them. they will ask, who is this person?
• instead of talking about cats & what eating, have stuff of value
• 140 characters is a headline

• your major marketing channels: your blog, your list, your customers/clients, your comments/commentators, internet-email/twitter/social media, offline-magazines/etc
• props brought up for jackson's urlzen

times up!

pr 2.0 the deer have guns now via steve horton & bill seaver in 'other camp'

• some book drops, missed those
• choose a tool, simple tool or high end
• monitor, set up rss feeds on google alerts for business, boss etc. if you are into/needing metrics you can go paid route
• who are the talkers about you? what is their motivation? how much influence do they have? who is in their network? (how are they connected)
• you can feed twitters searches into your rss feed
• learn the culture, if you are new to this space you need to learn the culture to give your 'pitch'.. its not a traditional media outlet
• second, become a participant, get on twitter, comment on blogs, join relevant discussion boards & forums. (there is active chatter in discussion boards, don't write off them completely)
• pitch bloggers strategically, don't pitch them like traditional media outlet.
• the p.o.s.t. method (from ground swell book, that was one of the book drops)
  
  • people, who is it that you are trying to reach, who is going to do the reaching? marketing & pr are increasingly coming together in the social media space (so true). put money into people cause people have time and time is what is needed to work.
  • objective, what are you trying to do, accomplish
  • strategy, how are you going about doing that?
  • technology, tech comes at the end when you identify objective people and strategy. that is the only time tech should come up. where most folks start the tech and back into it.
• creating really good content, create & enable. e.i.e.i.o (average american gets hit with 4000 advertisements)
  • entertain
  • inspire
  • educate
  • inform
  • outrage
• measure your engagement, are the things you are specifically concerned about influencing are they happening? where should people be talking us? where are you no where on the radar?
• make it easy for others to create content, be not afraid for people to create content for you. how easy is it for them to grab all the logos and images they would want to create content for you?
• maybe create a whole news room on site for such a thing
• don't cross the post it note car and others this day and time!

times up!

podcasting, blogging, etc via mitch canter in 'other camp'
what is new media?

• social, the collaborative efforts of us
• interactive, not just something we do and push to side, but interact with
• immersive, there is always something we do
• omnipotent, it only knows what we put in it, but once its on there its there forever
• adding & sharing information, ideas, and lives

three main categories

• blogs
• podcasts
• social networks

blogs

• a conjunction with web/log
• shares easily
• rss (really simple syndication)
• to start, find a topic you enjoy, sign up, start blogging
• "the power of the press is only available to those who can afford a press, we all have press' now"

podcast

• main fear is getting over the fear of your own voice
• takes the information from your brain and puts it out there for others to listen too
• start with a blog it has rss, software (audacity, protools, garageband)
• microphone
• really really easy
• record it
• upload it (archive.org)
• publish it (podcast.com bluberry.com, itunes)
• lots of podcasting directions, get your artwork ready before distributing through itunes
• 2mobile used for sending out video feed anywhere. is there a place for podcasts? let us know

social networks

• network for people meeting together, connecting together
• general networks (facebook, myspace, twitter)
• niche networks (deviant art, linkedin)
• why use? to connect with people, to share ideas
• search.twitter.com for rss searches on twitter & hashtags
• privacy issues? hopefully we will be smart enough not to put stuff on the net that we don't want others to know about
• tubemogul.com to send one video to 17 services, 5 for free
• throwing out friendfeed for putting a plug in on site to harness all the stuff you are doing

times up!

free! digital loss leaders in the new economy via josh goggans in 'other camp'
how can we understand using free products, or sold as a loss to generate more sales.
the rEvolution of free! driving the new economy

• technology is cheap. everything on the net has a fixed cost & it is fairly cheap to add more in distribution. as numbers grow the per user cost goes down. you can get more users and eyeballs by giving it away.
• attention economy, with the net you can distribute digital content to a vast majority that you were never able to reach before, because they have something valuable, time.
• youtube has a vast amount of content and users so they have a vast amount of resource of peoples times, so they are getting a lot of monetization from that
• google forced yahoo to give away its email services for free
• the downturn is driving the free economy, so people are looking to save money. when the economy is good people are willing to spend money for convenient (netflix, example) when the economy goes down people have more time

models of free!

• the direct cross subsidy (askaninja.com you watch videos for free but pay for , local rabbit room offers music for sale to the free fanbase)
• media business model, business is offering free content because someone else is paying for the advertisements (leo leporte's podcast network is subsidized by advertising niche audiences. city paper might be a local model)
• "freemium" multiple teirs of a product, one limited set is free, to get more unlimited framework is paid. (flickr as an example, basecamp as well)
• "gift economy" capitalize on the scarce resources of peoples time (google 411 as example instead of cellphones companies paid call, they are collecting the data for future efforts, noisetrade.com is a more local example)

rules for using free in the economy

• you need a business plan. you just can't go out giving away free stuff
• be transparent, if users are feeling you are shady they will walk away
• it needs to be free. if you say it is free it needs to be free, no clauses. they will feel slighted and never use anymore
• value to them/user
• needs to be easy, if it is a complicated process they will walk away

people will watch if it is unique information in how its presented, has to do with you, niche

times up!

digital enablement in rural tennessee via paul van hoesen in 'other camp'
need to educate the stakeholders in the community, particularly rural area as many times agricultural background

• we are 15th in per capita broadband penetration among developed countries
• the us ranks in the lower third of nation in terms of the rate of broadband adoption. ie. 2/3rds of the developed world is connecting its population to the internet faster than we are. the top third is doing this at 2x the rate of the us
• in about 2000 the rural and urban areas diverged as usability and for some groups if you are not online you are not part of the conversation puts rural communities out the conversation
• digital citizenship produces the unseen downward spiral. high tech workforces leave out those who are not familiar with tech
• realities of fall survey, 29% had no computer at home, 47% did not have broadband, large gaps in broadband availability
• connectedtennessee.org
• the school is an important place of exposure to technology. for some students, its is all the exposure they may ever have
• real transformation occurs when the major local stakeholders agree to work together toward a common goal
• technology quotient? measure of personal technology readiness, regions attractiveness to new industry and ability. needs digitally educated employee

digital citizenship

• essential life skill, having email, instant messaging address, being able to find online information, posting a resume, online banking, online purchasing, relational online networking tools
• essential life skills are now the essential business skills
• increasing the technology quotient can stimulate an upward economic development spiral
• how to increase? computer ownership at home, community labs or collaborative environments, technology incubators to have young with mentors in digital business by peers and connection to outside support groups

initiatives

• expand internet access to unserved areas of the country
• touch typing, train students in touch typing starting in 6th grade. you have to know 30 words a min to get into 8th grade in lauderdale county
• video as supplemental lesson
• lynda.com fab resource for online training

video production goals

• incorporation of video into non-cte classrooms, creative writing, science, school morning broadcast, school's psa
• incorporate into advanced cte classes, teach commercial software packages like adobe
• courses are very wide-ranging

how can the digital have help?

• connect with the school system once a month as volunteer
• classroom webinars
• build and online mentoring relationship
• volunteer to help a tech teacher get resources they might need
• volunteer with community non-profit
• offer tech training to work programs

times up!

took some lunch with wifey, john and chris. talked a lot of geocaching in rippy's

seo site clinc by john w ellis & jon henshaw in 'other camp'

• if sites are structured well you shouldn't need a site map
• its all about who is linking to you, amazon and others selling your product are getting the link love
• going through www.chefjoanna.com website

not too much from this.. hard to follow what felt like a consulting session

brand management & marketing foundations via pinky gonzales in 'base camp'

brand is like describing the wind. brand is different for every single person that observes it. the brand is one thing & the perception of the brand is another thing

• imaging (logos, typfaces, colorschemes, etc)
• reputation, it is important to tend to the reputation that coincides with your brand
• associations, you are defined in part by who you hang with and associate with. we define a brand based on the preconceptions that we know about that person. politicians work within that especially
• platform
• stereotypes, if you brand is in anyway associated with a stereotype it can get you brand out even quicker
• communication, how you communicate the functions, flickr uses casual error messages, southwest humor

know thyself. personal brand. madonna & bono classic examples. the better we know ourselves the better we know the brand we can develop.

personal brand

• appearance, says something about my brand
• personality traits, the way you are wired
• psychological attributes, the way you think
• spiritual views, some peoples entire brand is based on their spiritual views. it will help to dictate what your brand eventually is
• political opinions
• social associations
• occupation,

to know yourself is to know your perspective on the world. to understand your perspective on the world is to justify the strategic decisions you make for yourself and those you serve.

company brand

• logos, can be so iconic that you don't even need a word.
• names, we are in a new era for corporate name branding.. in part due to domain squatting, trademark is easier to own a misspelling than a correct spelling,.. amazon is a name that we have re-purposed, sprint & apple the same way. catagory killers, names that created the category itself, kleenex/xerox/q-tip. slogans, spend so much time and effort that we are now familiar.
• iconic brands,
• product brands, brands within a brand, ipod. sum of the brands reaches the overarching message
• marketing foundations, be genuine, who are we after? how do we communicate? our reach? be in touch.  know. be consistent. a solid strategy implemented consistently over time has no other option but to grow, but in our hyper society we sometimes want abandon. listen, persistently

times up!

make google your bitch by jon henshaw in 'base camp'

keywords and domains sitting in a tree..

• google loves keyword

keywords and domains shouldn't use birth control

• buy domains that relate keyword to your
• buy domains, with dashes can be read better
• create vertical micro-sites

vertical mini-site

• focus on the keywords in the domain
• reuse/rewrite content, rewrite a bit so it doesn't look like duplicate content
• contribute frequently, build wordpress suggestion
• build links and test with ppc as a landing page
• link liberally to main parent domain

own competitors' traffic

• register a keyword centric domain that includes the word 'reviews'
• create a review website (wp and a good theme)
• only write about your competitors. am i insane? possibly..

avoid nofollow (nofollow is something the google police came up with, an attribute to put on blog comments so i could build links, they won't pass 'link juice')

sans "nofollow"

• with rare exception, always try to build links that don't use nofollow
• its a popularity contest, they are looking for who all people follow
• use 'do follow' directories, the absence of nofollow
• keep track of social networks that are 'do follow'
• use raven's free firefox toolbar to highlight nofollow links

external, internal & inbound

• write blog entries and articles frequently
• link out to high quality, relevant websites often
• make a habit of referencing high traffic sites, it will stroke the ego
• internal linking will reinforce keywords and context to google
• make anchor text keyword specific - don't use 'click here'
• nofollow unimportant pages, re-emphasize the important pages in your site
• keep and eye on nofollow links
• advertising won't help much other than to temporarily advertise

reputation repair

• social networking profiles
• wikipedia entry
• create vertical micro-sites
• argh missed the last three..

not my best note taking, but it's been a day. i'm sure you understand.
times up! barcamp nashville is over for this session. will check the website for future video updates.