Vancouver-based business networking and technology forum Tazzu hosted Vancouver’s first official WordPress Camp last Wednesday, showcasing the great features of WordPress as both a blogging platform and a content management system. The event, which was expected to bring in about 30 people, had a turn out of over 90 at The Network Hub in Downtown Vancouver, but everyone was more than happy to sit knee-to-knee to learn, share and be inspired.

I was very excited to speak for the first time on WordPress, which I’ve been using as a content management system for two years, and the large turnout made me a little nervous. However, from the comments afterwards I think it went really well and hopefully I was able to inspire the crowd to look at WP from a larger lens.

The event was sponsored by a variety of local companies, as well as Automattic, the developers of WordPress. The buzz generated in the local community has been outstanding and I would love to see an official WordCamp event with Automattic staff and a multi-day agenda in the future.

Jeff Kee

Presenting on “WP for Total Website Development”

WP as a CMS
Jeff discusses how you can use WP for commercial and small business websites. He outlined that with custom page templates and WP template tags, you can easily take your hosted WordPress installation to the next level and make it into a proper website. He praised WP for being one of the first blogging and CMS applications to use standards compliant XHTML/css design.

Plugins and Custom Tags

Jeff suggested that you use the power of the crowd already available in WP’s plugin library and use them to build your WP installation to manage the content on your site. Jeff showed examples of sites that he had built, where he was able to create his client’s site in WP using the same design as his client’s employer. Using plugins and custom tags, you can take any design and put dynamic WP elements into it, which makes development easier and gives the client more access to manage their content.

See Also:
Jeff’s Blog Post

Monica Hamburg

Presenting on “WP Blogging & Social Media”

Be Unique
Monica gave tips and tools on how to create a better social appeal for your blog and keep readers coming back. She suggests to first find your voice. Find something you’ll enjoy blogging about, and infuse it with a definite personality rather than being generic. Monica used two analogies - that of friends and how unique personalities are more attractive; and that of real estate and how rare properties are more valuable.

Interesting & Referencable
Monica suggested to create your blog posts with a combination of scannable content that is broken up into sections (especially for longer articles), has pictures, has an attractive title, and most obviously has a point. Content with value, which is unique and is referencable (something people would like to share), will bring more readers to your blog.

Be Sociable
Monica stressed to always include a link to your RSS feed prominently on your blog. Readers might forget you, but their feedreader will remind them of your content. In terms of commenting, Monica suggests to use positivity and tact when dealing with negative comments, and to also make good comments on other peoples’ sites who’ve contributed to yours. Finally, Monica suggests to take advantage of social media by creating effective summaries for social linking, and by importing your blog into your Facebook notes so that your friends list can also follow updates on your blog.

See Also:
Monica’s Followup Post & Presentation Screencast


WordPress Camp Vancouver

Rebecca Bollwitt

Presenting on “Adding Flickr Photos to WP”

Flickr Plugins
Rebecca took us through a guided tour of how to add photos from Flickr to your Wordpress blog. She referred to a few great plugins, which will help you to bring photos from your Flickr account into your posts (Flickr photo album), custom quick tags for posting (Quick Tags), and display your Flickr photos in your sidebar (Flickr RSS).

Optimize Image Size
Rebecca commented that she likes to use Flickr as she hosts her WP blog and hosting the images on Flickr saves bandwidth. If you want to host your own images, however, you should reduce their quality to discourage reprinting of the photo without permission and to make loading faster.

Respect the Creative License

Rebecca then discussed the Creative Commons License, which is a standard feature of Flickr accounts. By default, your Flickr photos will say “All Rights Reserved,” but you can customize your license to grant people different types of permissions. The whole crowd was intrigued and the subsequent discussion included questions and opinions on copyrights, commercial and non-commercial usage, and the specifics of the CCL. If a photo says All Rights Reserved, you can still e-mail the owner and request their permission, and often times they’ll allow you to use the picture. If there is no license information provided, assume that it is All Rights Reserved.

See Also:
Rebecca’s Live Blog & Presentation Summary

Duane Storey

Presenting on “WordPress and Mobile (iPhone) Blogging”

A Clear Leader
Duane started off his talk with information on the various mobile devices, such as Windows Mobile, Sidekick, Symbian, etc. and showed that 85% of iPhone users regularly surf the web, which is higher than all of the other devices. In addition, according to a study by Google, there are 50x more searches on Google made by iPhone users than users of other mobile devices. So it is clear that if you want to optimize your site for a mobile site, optimize for iPhone.

Be iPhone Friendly
Regular browsing on any mobile device is cumbersome because of the small screen size and the further reduced font sizes on the average website. Duane introduced his WPTouch plugin, which creates an iPhone friendly theme for your blog. The plugin has features for commenting, social bookmarking, and more, which made it a hit with the audience. Duane suggested the use of an iPhone simulator to test your site on the iPhone.

See Also:
Duane’s WordCamp Wrap-up

Break

The Network Hub was buzzing as the crowd of nearly 90 people chatted and stretched their tired legs.

Meanwhile, I was filling my parking meter and getting some fruit juice. ‘I’m next!’

Kulpreet Singh

Kulpreet Singh

Presenting on “Mashups, Catalogs & Portals in WP”

The Potential
I introduced the crowd to the concepts of mashups, portals and catalogs, which are used across the web. Mashups integrate data from various sources, whereas portals showcase one website’s various services, and catalogs display organized items from a database. My favourite two examples are Mashable and Mapdango, but the examples across the web are endless.

Custom Fields
If you’re working on a WordPress website and you haven’t used custom fields, you’re missing out. Custom fields are fields of customized information that you can attach to individual posts. They help you to expand posts from their conventional definition to any type of item, such as a product, book review, or member profile. They are the essential resource for using WordPress as a CMS, and can help you define further information for posts, such as a price, ISBN, rating, or even the weather at the time of your post.

Many Resources
I mentioned a few of the leading plugins to help you expand your WordPress installation into a customized content management system. Custom Field GUI helps you take the custom fields you use frequently, and put them directly into your post write panel. Taking it a step further, Custom Write Panel allows you to define form fields and the write panel for different types of posts. Enzymes allows you to refer to custom fields in other posts. For example, if you set a phone number as the custom field for a post, you can enter the field in another post. If the number changes, you can change it in one place and it will change everywhere that you refered to it. Lastly, Get Custom Fields gives you custom tags to include the custom fields from your posts into the code of your template.

See Also:
Kulpreet Singh’s Presentation Screencast

Bruce Byfield

Presenting on “The Joys of Amateur Blogging”

Get Over Yourselves & Write

Bruce began with a humorous tone explaining his journey into blogging and how his attitude towards bloggers changed over time. He said writing in general, but blogging in specific, serves the purposes similar to those of stretching — to warm up or to wind down. Bruce also pointed out that the audience is an added incentive.

But why?
What benefits does blogging afford someone? Bruce explained that often people write their thoughts, but the act of writing itself helps one to clarify thoughts and form one’s own point of view. In that sense, writing is great for personal needs. It helps you to explore yourself and deepen your thinking. But it’s important, Bruce notes, not to take yourself too seriously. You should enjoy the process and open yourself to whatever comes with it.

Discussion
Bruce’s presentation inspired an audience discussion on the benefits of personal blogging. Many bloggers in attendance saw it as empowering, to have a voice and an audience. Not only that, but with a blog hosted on a service like Wordpress.com, one’s blog could be archived and leave a legacy for future generations to explore.

See Also:
Bruce’s Followup Post & Presentation Notes

John Chow

Presenting on “How to Make Money Using a WP Blog”

Long Story Short
John Chow started out blogging about whatever interested him: technology, his hobbies, his daily life. However he set a goal to make a full time income on part time blogging (he defines part time as two hours a day). And now he has thousands of people following his RSS feed, and the blog makes approximately $30,000 a month.

Two Things

John explained that the process of making money on your blog boils down to two things: Get traffic, and optimize ads. John started out getting traffic to his blog using Digg. He did whatever he needed to do to promote his articles, which also earned him enemies, competition and copycats. Once you have traffic, John explains, you need to optimize and choose the ads that will give you the best earnings. He explained how Google Analytics advertising is only the beginning, whereas flat-rate advertising and affiliate marketing are his more powerful sources of ad revenue. John introduced two unique advertising tools - Adsense Deluxe, which is a WordPress plugin that helps you manage your Google Ads, and OIOPublisher.com, which helps you to sell advertising on your blog.

Make Your Decision
Although blogging to make money is characterized as evil, John comes off as a nice guy with a realistic attitude about the power of advertising. However many in the audience were uncomfortable with his tactics, there were just as many intrigued and wanting to know more. Whatever your stand on the topic of monetizing, John says, decide if you want to monetize your blog and then just do it, because advertising is not something you can hide or be subtle about.

See Also:
John’s Followup Post & Presentation Video

I’m Kulpreet Singh and I run SimrunMedia.com, a business consultancy specializing in integrated marketing communications and web development. As an entrepreneur and a volunteer, my goal is to help positive and inspiring causes prosper online. In my free time, I blog about marketing, creativity community, and culture at KulpreetSingh.com.