More importantly, we are making it possible for you to participate in the protest. There are two options: a “Stop Censorship” ribbon and a full blackout. The blackout portion will be in effect January 18 from 8am to 8pm EST, while the ribbon will be displayed until January 24. Here’s how to join in:
1. Go to Settings → Protest SOPA/PIPA in your dashboard.
2. Select if you want to join the blackout or show a ribbon.
3. If you choose to join the blackout, you can edit the message that will be shown on your site during the blackout.
4. Preview what your protest will look like.
5. Click “Save Changes” button to activate your protest.
That’s it! Easy-peasy activism right at your fingertips.
The “Stop Censorship” ribbon will display in the upper corner of your site and links to americancensorship.org. It will display until January 24, 2012 (the Senate vote date).
If you choose to do the blackout in addition to the ribbon, then we will black out your site from 8am to 8pm EST along with the official strike. You can customize the message that will appear on your blacked-out site to tell people why this issue is important to you. Your site will return to just displaying the ribbon after the strike is over.
For those wishing to do this manually, if you are using the WordPress.com CSS Extra option or the full version of WordPress, you can do it manually by changing your stylesheet to feature:
html {background:black;}
body {display:none;}
If you are using the self-hosted version of WordPress, you may use the following:
If you are on WordPress.com and don’t have the CSS Extra feature and you wish to participate, you can use a banner instead. You can use the graphics from my National Blackout Day of Protest article or these updated ones which mention PIPA here. Hopefully, WordPress.com will come up with an option to make this easier, but until then, let your voice be heard anyway.
A colorful crowd sat in a room of Clark College’s computer technology wing Thursday night. About half of the 20 students were the usual suspects — aspiring programmers or web developers.
But the rest of the class included a fashion-design student, an addiction counselor-in-training, a school district employee and several others who don’t necessarily intend to write computer code for a living.
The mixed group was drawn in by software that’s running more and more of what people see online and by a woman who has been an apostle for that software since its early days.
Clark College rolled out its first “Introduction to WordPress” course this week. The course made for some online conversations in the blogging community, because it is very rare for a for-credit class to focus only on WordPress and because it is taught by blogging pioneer Lorelle VanFossen.
The course — CTEC 280 — is a temporary offering. It will be available again in the spring quarter, but would need to be vetted at the campus and state level before it could become a permanent entry in the college catalog. If it gets positive feedback from students and buy-in from administrators, the course may not only become permanent but be the foundation of a whole new associate degree program down the road.
WordPress has become ubiquitous and knowing it can be a great benefit for many careers. And it’s fun, apparently.
Thanks so much to Robert Hughes, head of the Computer Technology department at Clark College, for taking a huge risk in making WordPress such an important part of the curriculum this year, The Columbian and Jacques Von Lunen, Columbian staff writer, for taking so much time to talk to all of us and help us promote this exciting next step in WordPress education and outreach. I’d like to personally thank Aaron Hockley and Andrew Spittle for their friendship as well as their support and kind words to Jacques. These two are a huge part of the success in WordPress in general as well as here in the Portland, Oregon, area.
Most of all, I’d like to thank the students who suffered the intrusion of the reporter and photographer in the class with style and grace. They are the true heroes of this story as they have seen the future, it’s WordPress, and they wanted to be the first in line.
After reading Prove It: It’s Starts With Defining Who You Are as part of my Prove It Campaign, one of my best friends volunteered himself for a bio tearing and ripping as he is now involved in several startups that are gaining the attention of investors, which means everything he does online is now subject to close inspection.
To go under the fire of Lorelle’s eyes isn’t to be taken lightly. He is my friend and he trusts me to tell him the truth, even if it hurts. That takes a lot of courage. I also don’t expect him (nor you) to take any of these as cement rules. It’s up to each of you to take from this what you will and use it gently not with a baseball bat.
Kym Huynh is a partner of mine in Bitwire Media and we’ve done many podcast shows and projects together. I offer this as a disclosure, but also to help you understand that I know him very well, which may help or hinder this process.
Enough with the liability/disclosures/safety zone stuff. Let’s get to the good stuff.
Kym Huynh: Exposed
Kym has done something unusual with his site. The front page of Kym Huynh is a welcome page featuring his biography as a mission statement to introduce himself. It is written in first person. His About Page is a more extensive narrative resume written in third person. We’ll review both. Read More »
The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy. Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to reddit and many other sites you use everyday. Internet experts, organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, legal experts, journalists, and individuals have repeatedly expressed how dangerous this bill is. If we do nothing, Congress will likely pass the Protect IP Act (in the Senate) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House), and then the President will probably sign it into law. There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there’s a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation.
We’ve seen some amazing activism organized by redditors at /r/sopa and across the reddit community at large. You have made a difference in this fight; and as we near the next stage, and after much thought, talking with experts, and hearing the overwhelming voices from the reddit community, we have decided that we will be blacking out reddit on January 18th from 8am–8pm EST (1300–0100 UTC).
If you are on the self-hosted version of WordPress, Stop SOPA Ribbon WordPress Plugin. I’m sure there will be a SOPA Blackout WordPress Plugin coming soon.
If you are on WordPress.com, it’s harder to blackout your blog completely unless WordPress.com offers an option to black out our blogs in protest on January 18. So I’m offering an alternative.
Below are two graphic options for you to choose from (or make your own) to post on your blog. Create a future post for all day January 18 with one of these graphics filling the post. Click on them to get to the full size and copy and upload them to your site. You are welcome to use them freely.
Honestly, I’m not sure if congress is listening as the protests have been loud and long and the number of people signing the petitions is great, so it is more important than ever that our voices are heard. Stop this threat now.
As I prepared my annual public “Happy Birthday, Matt” post for Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress (with a lot of other amazing people), I spotted the birthday greeting by Jane Wells of the WordPress Foundation. She thanks Matt for all the ways her life has been changed since meeting him, a perfect way to say thank you and honor a man who has changed all of our lives, directly, indirectly, personally, and from afar.
I encourage you to publish your own tribute to how WordPress, WordPress.com, and the man behind the original vision, Matt Mullenweg on this day. I rarely gush here, but yesterday I taught my first college-level class on WordPress, so I’d say my personal story about how WordPress changed my life matters, too, as does yours, but mine first.
Thank you, Matt, for Helping Me Become Me.
Suddenly single and clueless about dating many years ago, as I do with everything I started with a list. The list boiled down the 26 traits I required in a mate. I found many with 22, 24, even 25, but only one eventually with all 26. Him I married, and my life has never been better, happier, more exciting, and safer during these last twenty years spent with my best friend.
As I look back through almost nine years (that many?) of knowing Matt Mullenweg, that list popped into my head. A quick mental glance back, I find he has almost all of the items on the list (how are your language skills now, Matt? Speaking two foreign languages was critical to my list!). On that list was “he must make me be me all the time.” Matt, while you don’t know this, that’s been a strong part of our relationship from day one. Thank you for that gift.
How has Matt Mullenweg changed my life? That’s a complicated question to answer as it involves how WordPress changed my life and the influence Matt has had, directly and indirectly, on my life. It’s hard to extract the two.
WordPress changed my life because it gave me a platform upon which to have my say – all my says. It not only made my main site at the time, Taking Your Camera on the Road, one of the oldest personal websites in the world, easier to maintain and use, it led me back down the old familiar college path of code hacking and whacking, and my life has never been the same.
Sitting in a steaming hot cupboard called an office in my flat in Tel Aviv in the late fall of 2003, I dug into WordPress, ripping out its innards and finding a way to make it work for me. I had over 2,000 static HTML web pages on my site. After two years researching and experimenting with the new crop of Content Management Systems, I was left with a horrible taste in my mouth and it wasn’t the water.
About August of 2003, I started hearing about this WordPress blog thing. I checked it out and found it simple, clean, and incredibly simple. I was staggered at the simplicity of it all. With one to three HTML pages of code, I could quickly easily update my site through the easy-to-use interface. No more search and replace, downloading, uploading, and hours (sometimes days on dial up) spent fixing one comma or tiny bit of text or code. With a few keystrokes, my work was on the web for all to see. I had a test site up and running in minutes, all ready to go. No jumping through hoops of code or high learning curves. Incredible!
I started creating a method to port over all 2,000 static HTML articles into WordPress. It took three or four months but I finally got it to work, learning more about server crap than I ever wanted to learn. Then WordPress 1.2 was released, bringing with it our first introduction to WordPress Plugins.
Mark Jaquith, Lorelle VanFossen and Aaron Brazell at WordCamp San Francisco
I’d been hanging out in the WordPress IRC with fellow fans and we’d been playing with all the ways we could get WordPress to sing and dance for us. My frustration with some of the early functionality of WordPress attracted some of the earliest developers of WordPress Plugins to me with solutions on how to make my site work better, faster, and cleaner. Many of the first WordPress Plugins were built for Camera on the Road, and many of the first hires for WordPress and Automattic teethed on that site.
Several of them made me the first official WordPress Plugins Crash Test Dummy and my inbox quickly filled with Plugin authors begging me to test (and break) their Plugins. What a time of joyous creativity and risk taking as we all broke our sites repeatedly and willingly to improve WordPress.
It was a dream to work with but the real magic came with WordPress 1.5 which introduced WordPress Themes and the power to really control what your site looked like and how. We watched in fascination with WordPress start spreading across the globe with intelligent early adopters “getting it” as I did the year before.
In 2004, digging through the first WordPress wiki, and brand new WordPress Codex, a frustrated moment to fix the horrible stream of misspellings of the word “separate” led me down the path towards creating a strong and usable online manual for WordPress users, which continues to help thousands daily. Oh, we had so much fun. I started pounding on the virtual heads of coders and developers to help explain what it was that WordPress did and how to do it.
In winter of 2004-2005, we moved from our move from the Middle East and human destruction and violence to a world of mother nature destruction and violence along the Gulf Coast of the United States (we arrived immediately after Hurricane Ivan and just before five hurricanes, including Katrina, destroyed much of the area). After a few weeks barely online during the move, I was eager to get back to work and refocused. I gathered as many people together virtually as possible and we had a six week campaign session of non-stop work on the WordPress Codex. We were blogging, networking, emailing, trying to get as many people as possible involved. I don’t know exactly how many but at least 100 people participated in building up the Codex over the six weeks.
I don’t think I slept more than a few hours every other day as people around the world talked constantly on the WordPress IRC and worked overtime to write articles to fill the WordPress Codex with technical know-how while others moved in to edit and clean up the documents and coders triple checked all our little bits of code. We sometimes had four or five people on any single article at a time. Many of the articles created during that insanity still bear the test of time today as valuable guides.
Donncha O'Caoimh and Lorelle, WordCamp 2007
Donncha O’Caoimh invited me to be among the first testers of WordPress.com in 2005, knowing I was an expert at breaking WordPress. Not sure what to do with it, I put it through the ringer by publishing a lot of the posts I’d already written on using WordPress on my other site, and promptly broke it. Several times. When WordPress.com went public, many flocked to find out what it could do (and promptly left because they couldn’t get their hands on the code – my, how times have changed). They published posts eagerly revealing what all the excitement was about, and in time went on to other things. I was the only one left continuing to talk about what WordPress.com could, and couldn’t, do, and I continue to do so seven years later.
People were desperate to know how this WordPress thing worked, not just WordPress.com but the whole WordPress deal. I was providing the hands-on, step-by-step instructions for all the little details not covered by any help files or the WordPress Codex. With no analytics or stats, I was as stunned as everyone when Matt introduced me at the 2007 WordCamp (the second one) as one of the top bloggers with over a million pageviews. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. I was doing what I had been doing all along, following the adage well of writing about what you know.
That WordCamp led to more, including the first official WordCamp outside of the United States in Israel a month or so later. I’ve been the keynote and featured speaker at dozens and dozens of WordCamps. I’ve lost count over the years. I was already traveling too much with my own work, and now I was gone five to seven months a year with WordCamps and web conferences added to the schedule. The longest I was on the road without coming home was eight weeks through three countries…no maybe longer. It’s all a blur of faces, business cards, WordPress blogs, WordPress Plugins, Themes, and new friends. Conversations started online were continued in person. I even did a year of that high-pace travel with a shattered left shoulder and damaged right hip from a sledding accident…which included time spent in hospitals and recovery in between flights. Totally nuts!
As I met more and more people passionate about WordPress, I kept hearing over and over again about how WordPress changed their lives. What? It’s just a publishing platform. Do you hear people swoon over how Dreamweaver or GoDaddy changed their lives? What about Microsoft or Apple? Do people actually start to cry when they talk about the impact these operating systems have had on their lives? Maybe they should, but with WordPress, I’ve seen it happen over and over again.
Matt and I were somewhere at a conference or WordCamp when a young woman came up and thanked him for creating WordPress. She started to describe how important WordPress was to her and burst into tears. Matt just gave her a hug until she got herself under control. It was amazing. Everyone around them was touched by the moment. I can bet that wasn’t the only time.
When WordCamp PDX (Portland, Oregon) came to me to be the keynote for their first WordCamp, Aaron Hockley asked me how we could spice things up a little. We came up with the WordPress Fairy Blog Mother, which led to an amazing experience for all, including me. What fun!
The keynote was titled How WordPress Changes Lives. I’d spent the previous two months at WordCamps and web conferences asking people how WordPress changed their lives and inviting them to have their say on camera. I was blown away by their responses. After showing the video, I invited audience members to step “up to the mic” and share their evangelical moment with WordPress – they did. Many did. Crying, laughing, and eager to tell people about the impact of WordPress on their lives. We were all truly humbled by the experience and I’ve shared these videos at WordCamps around the world and gotten similar responses.
Below are two of the videos I made on how WordPress changes lives. For the most part, they are similar but the one from Hawaii includes some noted Hawaiians having their say on how WordPress changes their lives.
What does any of this have to do with Matt Mullenweg? Everything and nothing.
Sure, I made these things happen myself, but he opened the door. One of the most powerful moments in my life was when Matt publicly defended me by saying, “because I like her blog.” I think I cried over that one.
So how has he really changed my life? Matt helped me most by his leadership and by setting an example.
He has been no end of fair to everyone and everything. I’m sure, like me, he’s had moments where he walked away and went into the bathroom or around the block to scream his head off or cry out of the frustration of idiot people or unbelievably ridiculous and painful situations. I’m sure he has, but never have I ever seen him lose his temper in public or knock someone down or walk over them just because he can. He’s always been kind, listened (when he’s heard it for the millionth time), and responded with compassion and yet truth – the real truth not the made up, suits-the-situation truth.
If he’s made a bad decision, he’s come out to say so. If he’s changed his mind about a long held policy, he’s explained to us all why and what changed his mind. While he’s kept some things close to the chest for professional reasons, he’s been open and honest when it was time for the truth to out. If there was a position that needed to be taken, be it philosophical or line in the cement, he’s taken it. I’ve seen him jump fast when someone’s rights were violated, eager to defend and protect. Even to the detriment of the masses, he’s always kept the big picture in mind, even if we couldn’t see it. With all the venom tossed in his direction over the years, at 18 years old as well as now, all these years later, he’s stood the test of time as a thoughtful, sincere, and can’t-help-but-like-him guy. I adore that kind of consistency.
To give you a glimpse into the world-wide community that now exists around WordPress thanks to the tireless traveling around the world non-stop to speak to anyone and everyone about WordPress, while I was in the hospital in Portland, Oregon, my friend Kym Huynh was at the first WordCamp Australia and got a picture to cheer me up of Matt holding up a sign he’d written saying, “Lorelle is awesome. Thank you! Matt.” Around the world we all stayed connected, through the good times and the bad.
Before he was twenty-one, Matt’s air miles rivaled the US Secretary of State. He traveled everywhere giving presentations on WordPress and meeting business people, convincing them WordPress was the right choice, but mostly answering their eager questions on how WordPress worked, how it could help them, and how could they help make it better. If you get a chance to ask him about some of his most adventurous (and oddball) WordCamps, take it. He’s got some brilliant stories to share.
His ability to trust others humbles me. He’s even admitted how hard it was for him to give up control and “trust the crowd,” but he learned that he had to in order to make WordPress and his other projects grow. He gives people a lot of rope to hang themselves, and those that don’t and exceed expectations, he rewards them.
Matt Mullenweg coordinates the WordPress Tattoo Competition at WordCamp San Francisco
When he left CNet (a REAL job), we discussed it on our weekly IRC meetings (the first “business” meetings for WordPress) and stood behind his decision to risk everything on his faith for WordPress and what it would become. We weren’t sure what it would become but we trusted him. He said his dream was to make enough money with WordPress and other projects so he could start hiring and paying those who contribute and “make it go.” When he hired his first official employee, Donncha O’Caoimh, it was a huge moment and we all shared in the thrill, even though we really had no idea what Donncha was working on. It was the first official WordPress employee. He was working on WordPressMU, which became WordPress.com then WordPress MS, and the rest is literally history as it now hosts millions of sites and is the main income producer that helps to keep WordPress free and open.
Matt taught me courage. Each way along the path to building WordPress and Automattic into the legends they are today, he’s taken huge risks. His risks started even before that, moving away from the known in Texas to the big unknown, crazy city of San Francisco while he was still so young. Walking away from a degree program and fascination with political science (and music) to be the guy behind a lot of coders and hackers making one of the most powerful publishing platforms in the world – don’t tell me that doesn’t take courage.
He also gave me the gift of power. This is a hard one to explain. In the WordPress Community, it doesn’t matter who you are. What matters is what you do and how you show yourself to the world. At a personal low point, my life was in upheaval, still reeling from five years spent living in a terrorist war zone and coming too close to more than my fair share of suicide bombings and attacks, followed by a year and a half of non-stop hurricane death and destruction…I was sitting in my trailer feeling like trailer trash indeed as I finally realized we had more leaks than walls, listening to the water drops drumming into buckets set on my dining table and couch, looking out over a beautiful but very isolated horse farm in the foothills of the Coastal Mountain Range of Oregon near Portland, barely able to get a cell signal or Internet connection, my father had just died and my family exploded, and my friend, David Bullock called with WordPress troubles. Can I help?
I dug into his site and fixed it, which led to another question and another, and soon he had me laughing as usual and the world shined again. Then he pointed out an error on the front page of the WordPress Codex. I hit edit and fixed it fast, embarrassed that such a blatant mistake was missed. I tried to apologize but he started shouting, “Oh, my god, you are brilliant. You are amazing. You are one of the most powerful people I know!”
“What?”
“You! You just changed the front page of the WordPress Codex! I know someone with the power to influence millions and change the WordPress Codex just like that. Amazing!”
Matt Mullenweg, Mark Jaquith, Andy Skelton at Automattic offices after WordCamp San Francisco, 2008
I tried to explain that anyone could change the WordPress Codex at any time – then I realized that he was right. One of the greatest gifts Matt Mullenweg gave to all of us is the ability to let our voices be heard not just through our blogs but in our power to help change and influence others. Anyone in the world can help another use WordPress better by editing and adding articles to the Codex. Anyone can help in the WordPress forums, giving someone else the help they once received on their path to WordPress enlightenment. Anyone can contribute bugs, fixes, patches, or code to WordPress. Anyone can write a WordPress Plugin or Theme. Anyone and everyone has the same power as I do, but until you realize that, you don’t know what a gift it is.
One of the most important things Matt has taught me – nay, reminded me – is that we all have a right to have our say and be heard. When Turkey was the first to ban WordPress.com blogs, followed not long after by China and Brazil, while few people seemed to care, Matt did. He didn’t give in. At the risk of his entire business, he stood up against international courts and did not stop the blogger from blogging, nor close their account or make any changes. His dedication to the true spirit of freedom of speech is found in the WordPress.com Terms of Service:
Our service is designed to give you as much control and ownership over what goes on your site as possible and encourage you to express yourself freely. However, be responsible in what you publish.
At a time when many countries around the world punish you or having your say, WordPress.com is a publishing platform reminds us that you have the right to have your say and be heard – for free – and that this right comes with a responsibility. What a gift to the world.
There are so many things on this list, I could spent hours describing them all. However, it’s your turn.
Happy Birthday, Matt, and thank you for helping to change so many lives. Don’t stop.
Small Biz Trends released “5 Website Resolutions to Put on Your List for 2012,” by my friend, Shashi Bellamkonda, with some great ideas on what needs to be on your New Year’s resolution list for your business this year for building content, web communications, community building, and embracing and integrating technology. I’d like to add some more ideas to his list as relates to blogging and WordPress.
Your WordPress To Do List This Year
Here are a few things you might want to strongly consider adding to your WordPress To Do List this year to help keep you on track and updated, but also to make your life easier with managing your WordPress site. Some of these may take a lot of time the first time you go to check them off your list, but make them regularly scheduled appointments, and the workload and time drops tremendously.
Update EVERYTHING:WordPress makes it easier than ever to quickly update your WordPress Plugins and Themes. So why haven’t you? For the most part, most worries about compatibility issues are gone if you stay on top of these. Commit this year to updating either when you see a notification or put it on your schedule for once a month checks (there might not be anything so what does it hurt to check) so you stay updated and not overwhelmed when you finally need to do something about them.
Commit to help WordPress improve: Every minute someone stumbles upon an issue with WordPress, WordPress Plugins, or Themes. Do you report it? Do you do anything about it? Usually not. Why not make a mental note that next time something happens you search to see if it has been reported or someone has a solution. If not, then go to the source and report it. That source could be in the WordPress Support Forums, WordPress.com Forums, bug reporter for WordPress, or directly to the WordPress Plugin or Theme author. The more we all pitch in to help WordPress improve, the better all of WordPress will be.
Clean Out the Unused Stuff: Check your WordPress Plugins list for inactive WordPress Plugins or one that you really aren’t using any more. We all have them. Why not clean out a little of the bloat and remove them. Same with Themes. We all download and test a dozen or more Themes before we find the right fix. Remove the ones you didn’t want.
Update Also Means Check Expiration Dates: The milk carton looks fine if you don’t pay attention to the expiration date or open it up and sniff. The same applies to WordPress Plugins and Themes you’ve been using for several years. If they haven’t been updated to include update notifications in the WordPress Administration Panels, how would you know it’s been updated or support has continued? You don’t know. You have to check manually unless you are familiar with the history of the Plugin. From the Plugins Panel, note the Version Number of the Plugin and click “Visit plugin site.” If there is a newer version, update it. If the author states they’ve discontinued work and support on the Plugin, it’s time to find a replacement. Hopefully WordPress will make this easier in the future or provide links directly to the WordPress Plugin Directory to verify activity and issues.
Time to Replace the Old?: While there are still WordPress Plugins and Themes that do what none other can do, there are dozens of contact form, subscription, related posts, etc., Plugins and Themes with similar customization. Is the one you are using the “best” for the tasks that you ask of it? Maybe it’s time to do a little checking around and see if there is another with more features you might need. Maybe not, but add it to your list to do a little checking this year. You could be missing out on something special.
Speed Up Your WordPress Experience: When I discover a Plugin, Theme function, or feature that will really speed up your WordPress experience I share it, but are you really taking advantage of all the ways you can make your WordPress experience easier and faster?
If you have a smartphone, get one of the many WordPress Mobile Apps so you can post faster on the go or when an idea strikes you (or you need to check comments, etc., faster). On my self-hosted versions of WordPress, I can’t function any more without File Gallery WordPress Plugin by Bruno “Aesqe” Babic which allows fast embedding of images into my posts. I dream of something like that coming to WordPress.com or put into the core. Many can’t live without Subscribe to Comments which makes it easier for commenters to track comments from your blog. Follow the bloggers offering tips on how to blog more efficiently with WordPress and follow their lead. Lifehacker and Smashing Magazine’s WordPress column often have great tips.
Track the Planets of WordPress: Whether for your feed reader or through your smartphone or table with Google Currents, make sure you include WordPress, Planet WordPress by Ozh, and Alltop – Top WordPress News to keep up with the latest news about WordPress. WordPress Planet is what used to come into your WordPress Dashboard Panel by default. Now it’s optional. It features the key leaders involved with WordPress. Planet WordPress by Ozh expands upon that core list to feature a wide range of WordPress experts, gurus, and innovators. Guy Kawasaki’s Alltop’s roundup of WordPress resources is excellent for quickly tracking the hottest topics in WordPress. There are more, but these three are my top sources for WordPress news.
Give Back a Little: Most of us learned how to use WordPress from others. If you are desperate for help, you head to the WordPress Support Forums or WordPress.com Forums or the WordPress Codex for help, right? Why not make a commitment this year to spend a little time in the forums or working with the documentations team to help others. And that Plugin or Theme you depend upon? Why not offer them a donation to help them keep their bills paid and keep their enthusiasm alive.
If you’re reading this blog you probably know the thrill of posting and getting feedback is addictive, and once you have a taste of that it’s hard to go back. You rode a bike before you drove a car, and both opened up your horizons in a way you hadn’t imagined before. That’s why blogging just won’t quit no matter how many times it’s declared dead.
Blogging (with WordPress) is the natural evolution of the lighter publishing methods — at some point you’ll have more to say than fits in 140 characters, is too important to put in Facebook’s generic chrome, or you’ve matured to the point you want more flexibility and control around your words and ideas.
There will always be a need for a place to say more than a tweet or status. You need a place to ramble, rant, and rave, so come back to your blog to deepen the conversation.
One of My Favorite Questions to Ask: I personally hate the “What do you do” question. I love “Why do you do what you do?” or “How do you do what you do?” questions. Consider tackling some of those on your blog.
Behind the Scenes: In addition to understanding how you do what you do, why not take us behind the scenes so we better understand the various tasks, decisions, and get a glimpse of your life behind the web wall. Jane Wells of the WordPress Foundation gave us all a glimpse of a typical 24 hour period in her life packed with all the things she has to do with her life and work. Why not share a day in the life or a moment in your life so we get a better understanding of the bigger picture that is you.
Update Who You Are: You may have kept your Facebook and LinkedIn profile pages updated, but what about your About Page? Join me in my Prove It Campaign this year to update your About page and bio and make improvements throughout your site to improve how you showcase yourself and what you do.
Sell Less Make More: A business friend of mine said that her new motto was “sell less make more.” It sounded like a dichotomy until she reminded me of one of my mottoes: Make them come to you, don’t chase after them. If you focus totally on the sales pitch, you come off as desperate and begging. Anticipate the initial boost in sales fading quickly. If you concentrate on building a reputation and community around your work, sales over the long haul will be better and last longer, and your community will do much of the work for you when it comes to “selling.” Take another look at how you promote your work or products and see how you can use your blog and social media to sell less and make more.
Where are You Driving Customers?: The focus right now in the industry is to drive customers to Facebook. Great, if your customers are there, but that’s not the point. What happens once they arrive on Facebook? If you are living for a Like, think otherwise. Move them from your Facebook pages to your site so they can experience the full you. Bring them home to where ALL the content and experience is you and your business. Same applies to all your social media micro-blogging. You want their route through the social web to end up on your site, so bring them home, and make sure you’ve cleaned the house before you welcome guests.
Tell the Why: It isn’t just a matter of telling the what, add more to the conversation by telling the why. I often think the “why” is more important that the what. It helps me make my decisions by understanding yours. Show us the why.
Bring Conversation Back to Your Blog: Too many of us are spreading the conversations around our social networks and forgetting that some of the best conversations happen at home with friends. Write blog posts that inspire conversations and use the social web to invite them to join you in your living room.
Bring Back Laughter: We’ve all gotten too serious with ourselves. Once in a while, make a point of funding the finny. Yes, I wrote that write. We all need a giggle once in a while, for our own health. We also love sharing the funny, so do something spontaneous, silly, and bring some fun back to your blog. Even the workplace doesn’t have to be all serious all the time. Show us you have a funny bone and you know how to use it.
Risk a Little: When Liz Strauss nagged me to bring my sick and twisted sense of humor to Lorelle on WordPress to help people get a glimpse of the person behind the blog, I was terrified. She made it fun for me, as did my husband who held my hand through the process (seriously – it was that scary for me), and we all were there for the release of “10 Really Rad Righteous Blogging Tips” by my “alter-evil” Lorraine (Liz named her). A little thing to others, it was a huge turning point for me with “Lorelle on WordPress.” After years of writing in second person (on purpose), I was coming out from behind the curtain. The next three years were my biggest in over twenty years of blogging and web publishing because of that small first step risk with my blog. What risks can you take with your blog and its content? That’s up to you, but look around for those tiny risk steps you can take that might spice things up or turn them on their head. For me, Lorraine made a second appearance on Liz’s blog to great response, which occasionally makes me want to bring her out of her box more often.
Clean House: I’m as guilty as the rest of you with out-of-date and funky information and stuff in my sidebar. Make a commitment to clean up the clutter and clean house so your blog is a fun place to visit and play.
Update Avatars and Gravatars: Did you know that if you register with WordPress.com or Gravatar, when you comment on a WordPress blog anywhere in the world, the odds are likely your Gravatar image will appear. We fuss a lot over our avatar images on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, but when was the last time you updated your Gravatar? Hmmm?
Create a Draft in Your Drafts: I just glanced at my draft list for this site. I have 55 Drafts haunting me. My goal this year is to get that number to zero. Maybe it’s a good one for you. Go through your blog to-do lists of post content and ideas and start cracking on them. Got a bunch of obsolete ideas and can’t find a way to make them work? Delete them. Don’t let them drain your energy.
Get Detail Oriented This Year: To quote Eddie Izzard, “It’s always the smallest thing that f*** things up.” Make this year the year you put on your magnifying classes and pay close attention to all the details on your blog and fix them. My laundry list is long. Fix dead links, kill off dead pages (removed over 100 this past year! WOOHOOO!), update most popular posts, add tags to posts lacking, clean up categories to be more coherent and specific, fix spellings previously missed, check bylines to ensure they are visible and linking to an author page and not something else, clean up post titles so they are more keyword and reader friendly, update badges and repeated graphics and icons… You have your own list so start paying attention and checking them off. You never know when the smallest detail will make the biggest difference in your blog – and in your life.
Blog Better: I’m finding a lot of experienced bloggers still don’t know how to write a blog post correctly. It’s not just writing a blog post to meet web standards but to write one that helps readers read your blog. I’ll be doing a series of posts on this, and to get you started, read The 10 HTML Tags You Must Know to Blog. Commit to blogging better with just a few improvements to your post structure and formats.
What’s Unsaid?: We all have those things we wish we’d said but didn’t, or wished we’d blogged. They are often not written down, so write them down and start blogging them. Leave nothing unfinished if it was meant to be finished in your life. Remember, a blog isn’t just a website stuffed with promotional material. It’s also your legacy. Leave a good one.
As I travel the world talking to designers, developers, and coders wanting to base their business on WordPress, I’m often asked how much they should charge to which I respond “less than I do but more than you are currently.” Too many under-charge, making it harder for professionals to keep their rates reasonable.
According to Collier’s research, most designers are charging for blog design and core development USD $1,000 to $3,000 when the going rate is $1,000 to $5,000. This is an appropriate but high figure compared to what I’m hearing in conferences and workshops. They tell me that they are charging $25 to $500 for a full WordPress website, including installation and setup. Read More »
Who are you on the web? How do you describe yourself? What words do you use to tell the world who you are, what you stand for or represent, what you do, how you do it, and why they should want to get to know you and work with you?
Preparing to teach my WordPress course at Clark College, with thoughts on Campaign 2011: Prove It! tickling the brain stem, I did some guest teaching for their new social media course. The first program was my popular “Your Blog is Your Business Card” presentation. When you network in the business world today, you need to have a site to call “home” which lists your contact information, resume/CV, portfolio, and represents you on the web.
The key page on the site is your About Page, the biography that showcases who you are, what you do, and how you do it, telling people of your worth and value to them. Most importantly, it must tell them why they should care about you and anything you do, why they should trust you, and why they should want to get to know you.
The students’ homework was to write a bio, their About Page, on the WordPress.com blogs they created for the class. I returned two weeks later to review and critique.
I’ve received permission to use the bio from the student who bravely went first for the verbal bleeding-red-pen-slashing. I’ve changed the name and a couple details to protect him.
Here are my guidelines for such biography torture tests, the same ones I give my clients.
This is not personal.
Don’t take it personally. While it’s about you, it’s not about “you.”
It’s about the content.
My criticism may or may not represent my thoughts personally, but they do represent world perspectives and stereotypical judgements – Devil’s advocate, if you will.
This is a lesson. Learn. Process. Filter. Use what is applicable.
It can all be changed at any time.
Here is the first paragraph of his bio, a work of perfection for the opening salvos.
My name is Steve Jones. I’m 47 years old and live in Vancouver, Washington. I have a wife and a son and a grown up daughter in college.
Every year I create a personal campaign. It’s my own personal soap box that I stand on throughout the year to make a point. In the past I tackled copyright issues, freedom of speech, breaking global language barriers on the web, creativity, education, and more. You helped me spread the word and slowly, the world has changed. This year is a good one for me. Puts me, and you, in the proverbial spotlight.
PROVE IT!
I never understood my mother’s reference to the “proof is in the pudding” but I believe it to mean that you better walk the walk and talk the talk not talk the walk. So prove it. To yourself. To the world.
I’m guilty of this. I have traveled all over the world teaching, speaking before audiences of hundreds and thousands, offering training programs and workshops, and what do I have to prove what I do that? Not much here. You can Google me and find a ton of stuff all scattered around. You can find some presentations on WordPress.tv, too. I’ve written for a variety of magazines and websites, and while I brag about it, I rarely put it on a visible resume. I’ve gotten away with this for a long time, but now it’s time to start tooting my own horn and proving that I know of what I speak. So expect some changes around here soon.
I could give you a thousand bad examples of WordPress experts, web developers, designers, programmers, WordPress Themers, Plugin authors, SEO experts, social media masters, marketing and advertising geniuses, and even fellow bloggers who really are great at what they do, but their sites don’t speak well of them. Their energies are either too far spread out or poorly represented. Honestly, does your site speak well of you? Or does your LinkedIn profile say more about you than your own site or business card? Or has that gone ignored, too?
I’m taking a (w)holistic approach to my campaign of “Prove It!.” It’s not just about the blog any more. It’s about everything you do on the web. It all has to speak well of you and bring fans and friends back home to your blog to find you, the real you.
To learn or find out by experience: I’m going to dig into how to help you prove to the world that you are who you say you are and do what you can do, and put those lessons into practice myself. We’ll learn together how to help your site walk the walk and talk the talk.
To test the truth, validity, or genuineness of: Part of “transparency” is the proof. So you say your site has X number of traffic, but what does that mean? Really? Where is the proof? Are you blindly taking actions on your site because of personal preference or perceived response, or facts and figures? We’re going to look more into analytics and how to test and validate the “proof in your pudding.”
To establish the existence, truth or validity of: As with the previous definition, we’re going to dig the truth out even if it hurts. Do you make claims without proof? Do you come up with stats and figures and not link to real sources to support them? We’re going to talk about how to get those sources fast, and how to change your style so you speak truth with supporting evidence. We’re also going to look at how to identify fraud on the Internet, even though most of us know fake when we see it, we’re going to be talking about how to test for fake, and what to do when you get caught (even for tiny infractions).
To demonstrate as having a particular quality or worth: Many of us are afraid to toot our own horn, to brag about our accomplishments. Some, like me, believe the proof is in our pudding as our work speaks for itself. Sometimes it does, sometimes it whispers. I’ll show you examples we can learn from, good and bad, on how someone proves their worth and value, and how they can improve it. We all need to brag a little, so let’s learn how to find the balance between arrogant and informative.
To show oneself to be worthy or capable: Martin’s site is a prime example. He not only tells you what he can do, his site proves it. Does your site prove you are worthy and capable? Mine does, if you dig deep and long enough. Does yours? Mine needs to do it faster, as yours probably does, too. We’ll talk about how to make your site tell the world you are worth hiring, worth working with, and worth knowing, as well as worth coming back for more.
Yes, we will tear apart WordPress blogs and sites to tear off the mask behind the blogger. Yes, I will revive my very popular Blog Clutter: WTF Is That Doing There? series which I’m turning into an ebook for release this year. Yes, we will look at WordPress Theme elements and WordPress Plugins to help make this process easier.
I’ve a huge list of topics to cover to help you uncover yourself on the web. If you have some suggestions or ideas on topics you wish covered this year on this subject, I’m all ears.
Are you with me? Isn’t it time you threw off your cloak of invisibility and came out into the light to shine? Isn’t it time that you learned how to use your WordPress site to show off what you can do and how well you do it? Isn’t it time we all heard your story and came to adore you as I do?
Beginning in January 2012, I will be teaching “Introduction to WordPress,” a four credit class at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon.
While many schools are beginning to offer WordPress courses, few are offering credit classes and Clark College approached me to make that happen here in the Pacific Northwest. This is just the first step in a whole series of college courses we’re working on in and around WordPress at Clark.
Beginning January 10 through March 20 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, this 10 week class (20 hours) is from 6-8PM. Registration is through Clark College. Contact the Clark College Computer Technology Office (CTEC), Reesa McAllister at 360-992-2106 for details. You will need the following when you call: Item Number 4538 and Course ID CTEC 280.
What Will You Learn?
This is special projects class and an introduction to WordPress. I will be teaching the basics of how to set up a WordPress.com and WordPress site, how to blog with WordPress, editing and content management, analytics, SEO, multiple contributions, and an introduction to WordPress Themes and Plugins.
This is an ideal class for those wishing to learn or expand their core WordPress skills, add them to their skill set, or earn ongoing education credit for work. With so many employers looking for WordPress expertise from their advertising, marketing, social media, web, and IT departments, this is an ideal program.
Here are details:
What is WordPress?
How to setup a WordPress.com blog.
Categories, tags, and content organization and navigation.
Web publishing with the visual editor, HTML editor, QuickPress/PressThis, mobile, and alternative publishing tools.
Publishing multimedia with WordPress.
Content development and management.
Introduction to basic core site customization (header art, widgets, etc.).
Introduction to dynamic web page generation.
Introduction to dynamic web design.
Introduction to WordPress Themes.
How to use Post Format Types.
Comments and spam management.
Multiple users and authors (permissions/authorities).
Managing multiple contributors.
Basic analytics and statistics with WordPress.com Stats.
WordPress and SEO.
Introduction to WordPress hybrid sites.
How to create and manage custom menus.
WordPress Widget functionality and customization.
Understanding WordPress interactivity through trackbacks, pingbacks, and pings.
WordPress feed management, integration, and customization.
Integration of social media to and from WordPress.
Managing a private or restricted access WordPress site.
Introduction to WordPress Plugins.
WordPress installation options.
Troubleshooting WordPress.
Introduction to WordPress development for employers and clients.
This is a flexible program based upon student abilities, and I will expand the topics if students are ready to grasp new material quickly, possibly moving into WordPress Theme design and development and the basics of writing WordPress Plugins, and more in depth code. This class will be repeated in Spring Quarter, and we should have more options by Fall, so get ready if you can’t make it this quarter.
The class is open to registered students, but they are working on making a few exceptions for the general public to attend, if space is available. The limit is 20 students. The course fees for Washington State and border counties of Oregon is $100 a credit which comes to $434.20 with fees and tuition. The class is already half full, so if you are interested, call them immediately.
Related courses available from Clark College include HTML Fundamentals (MW or Saturdays or online) and Introduction to PHP (Mondays and Wednesday evenings) to complement the WordPress class. Check their Course Catalog for more information.
This is a long-time dream of mine to help educate the future web development and designer leaders. I’ve taught WordPress, blogging, social media, and web multimedia publishing since 1997 around the world, so it’s wonderful to finally have a place to call home and a college eager to work with WordPress and me.
I’m working with the Computer Technology department at the college to build this into an ongoing part of the web development curriculum, creating multiple levels of WordPress and related topic classes. If you are an experienced WordPress instructor or wish to bring a WordPress or related topic class to your own college or university, please contact me. We’re working on a new degree curriculum built around WordPress and would love your insights.
The WordPress development and UI team put a lot of work into WordPress comments. Did you know there are 18 features to a single WordPress comment not counting the comment content itself? Rarely do we stop to consider these powerful features in WordPress, so let’s take time now to understand all the different features and what you can do on the WordPress Comments Panel.
A. The Checkbox
The checkbox is actually one of your most powerful allies in the pursuit of mass comment editing. In Cleaning Up Post Tags with WordPress Bulk Edit I go through the step-by-step details on how to use the bulk edit feature of WordPress to clean up posts, and while most of the powerful bulk editing features are necessary on the Comments panel, it works the same way.
To select many comments and apply a single action to them:
Select the checkbox for the comments you with to include in the action.
From the Bulk Actions dropdown menu, choose from Approve, Unapprove, Mark as Spam, Move to Trash.
Click Apply.
This is ideal for managing a lot of spam comments, many comments waiting for approval, and cleaning up multiple comments. Read More »
I’m often asked which content management system for web publishing I recommend. While I’m clearly biased towards you-know-what, at last there is a WordPress Plugin that can help you show others which one they should consider.
BeAutomated lists WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, DotNetNuke, CMS Made Simple, Liferay, TYPO3, eZ Publish, Alfresco, Umbraco, MODx, Tiki, SilverStripe, e107, and Knoops and compares their download rate. It’s really fascinating to watch.
If you provide web publishing and WordPress-centric products and services, this could be a great way to promote the popularity of WordPress and help your clients make the decision towards WordPress. At the least, it helps people compare WordPress to other web publishing options.
For people just into numbers, it’s fascinating to see which web publishing platforms are still active and engaged.
What insights do you get from watching that counter?
The numbers are based upon annual published statistics. You can add your own stats to the counter to customize it the WordPress Plugin for your own unique scorecard, real or imagined. They offer a variety of counters to test and get started with including the number of mythological creatures created, Mobile Phone Shipment Stats, PC Shipment Stats, and Animal Kill Counter Stats, with more fun stat examples on the way.
If you have some interesting stat numbers (and their sources) you think would be good ideas for them to add to their WordPress Plugin example page, let me or them know as they are always on the look out for fun ideas and ways to use their popular beCounted WordPress Plugin.
We make jokes about Renaissance men, but I’d like to introduce you to a Renaissance woman in the truest sense of the reference. Maria Langer is a lot of things, in addition to a dear friend. Even before we were on a first name basis, she was a mentor and inspiration to me. In honor of the 8th anniversary of her first blogging attempt, I’d like to introduce you to her.
Maria Langer is a commercial helicopter pilot. She owns a helicopter tour and charter business near Phoenix, Arizona.
She’s a writer. Not just any type of writer. She’s a prolific writer.
In addition to articles in manages ranging from aircraft to computers, she’s the author of more than 75 non-fiction books including one of the first books on WordPress, WordPress 2: Visual QuickStart Guide in 2006.
She’s authored many technical guides such as the Visual QuickStart Guides covering Excel, Mac, Outlook, Mac OS, Quicken, Quickbooks, Word, Filemaker Pro, PageMill, AOL, and much more. Other books include Putting Your Small Business on the Web, Macintosh Slick Tricks, Murphy’s Laws of Macs, Mac Power Toolkit, and Dragon Dictate 2.5: Visual QuickStart Guide (due soon).
Her first book was published in 1991 – exactly TWENTY years ago so congrats on that anniversary, too – so she’s seen the amazing evolution of books from print to digital and stuck with it as one of the earliest published authors in the ebook market.
Maria did some ghostwriting for John Dvorak as well as for numerous other software and computer experts, so you might have been touched by work of another that could have been hers!
She writes, narrates, and creates video training materials for a variety of software and clients.
She’s also a web developer, creating websites and blogs since 1997.
She’s a photographer. Her beautiful work rotates in the header art of her blog, An Eclectic Mind.
She’s a popular speaker, dazzling the audience at Macworld Expo and other web and software conferences.
She’s a teacher of software applications for online universities including as a long time popular teacher with Lynda.
She’s also a good friend and wonderful person, reaching out and mentoring so many, always willing to go that extra mile to help and give unconditional support.
She goes on long trips on her motorcycle, and if you show up at the right time of year, you may find her not home but camping or out in the desert riding a horse.
Maria started blogging on October 9, 2003, and now runs seven different blogs. I couldn’t even begin to estimate the thousands of blog posts she’s added to the wealth of information and knowledge on the web, not counting all her activity on Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and other social sites.
And she isn’t stopping.
This isn’t a eulogy. It’s a celebration. One long past due.
Maria is traveling and working all the time, sharing her expertise and love for computer technology, flying, traveling, animals, and nature as far as she can.
Help me recognize and honor this amazing blogger and educator on her 8th blogging anniversary! Give Maria a shout out and let her know if you’ve been influenced or helped by any of her work over the past 20 years!
You can learn more about the amazing work of this beautiful person at:
It takes a moment to change the lives of an entire village. For USD $12 a month you can change an entire community in Indonesia. Help us at SOBConNW to change the world one village at a time.
One thing I know to be true about bloggers and the WordPress Community, they know how to move mountains, virtual and physical. Help me move this mountain and make a difference in the world around us.
Over the past few weeks I’ve listened, read, watched, and pondered a quilt of stories around the World Trade Center attacks of September 11, 2001, as the world celebrates/honors/remembers the event 10 years later.
There are first hand stories of those who were in the buildings, rescuing people or escaping; stories by watchers, waiters, victims, and victimized; works by writers, poets, bloggers, singers, musicians, actors, sculptures, painters, quilters, and just regular folks tell the story from their perspective for better or worse or just to preserve the moment in history.
I’ve found studies that show today’s school children know little or nothing of the events of September 11, 2001, and many textbooks have little or no mention of the plane hijackings and their results. Living in Israel at the time, I kept replaying the Holocaust mantra in my own head, “Never forget, always remember.” Yet, it seems that some groups do want to forget, or at least step lightly around the historical event.
As I coped with my own personal experience which I will share in another post, I will never forget my dearest friend, the actress, director, and playwright, Naomi Yoeli, grabbing me when we realized what was happening. She stared deep into my eyes with the beautiful intensity that defines her spirit, and said the immortal words, “Today the world is changed. Nothing will be the same. This is history. Do you understand me? History.”
As the day approaches, I’m hearing a few groans and gripes about being overwhelmed with 9/11 stories. This is normal. For those without a personal connection, we can only take so much of the stories.
As Naomi said, I think it’s important that we do share our memories, our history of that moment. That we preserve our own unique experiences of those moments when billions around the world watched the first tower burn as a second plane blasted into the second tower, as rumors of a third hijacked plane, then a fourth, became reality, one turning the side of the Pentagon into a burning hole and the other crashing into a field, then the incredible story of the passengers who brought down the plane rather than cause more death and destruction of innocents.
To help you share your own story, here are a few tips. Remember, it’s your story, it’s your personal experience, adventure, and perspective. These tips are not to change or influence what you write about September 11, 2001. They are only to help you share your story so the world will never forget and always remember.
Share What You Know
We want to know your personal experience, so share what you know.
Keeping the experience personal and intimate, you bring us into your experience. We share your thoughts. We feel your feelings. We walk (or run) down the path with you.
Helping you learn more about blogging and WordPress every day with help, tips, advice, and techniques for blogging and using WordPress and WordPress.com. The blogging help you need. Now.
Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging
Social Media for Crafters
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Matt and I were somewhere at a conference or WordCamp when a young woman came up and thanked him for creating WordPress. She started to describe how important WordPress was to her and burst into tears. Matt just gave her a hug until she got herself under control. It was amazing. Everyone around them was touched by the moment. I can bet that wasn’t the only time. 
Update EVERYTHING: 
Create a Draft in Your Drafts: I just glanced at my draft list for this site. I have 55 Drafts haunting me. My goal this year is to get that number to zero. Maybe it’s a good one for you. Go through your blog to-do lists of post content and ideas and start cracking on them. Got a bunch of obsolete ideas and can’t find a way to make them work? Delete them. Don’t let them drain your energy.
I’m often asked which content management system for web publishing I recommend. While I’m clearly biased towards you-know-what, at last there is a WordPress Plugin that can help you show others which one they should consider. 
As I coped with 
18+ Things You Can Do on the WordPress Comments Panel
The WordPress development and UI team put a lot of work into WordPress comments. Did you know there are 18 features to a single WordPress comment not counting the comment content itself? Rarely do we stop to consider these powerful features in WordPress, so let’s take time now to understand all the different features and what you can do on the WordPress Comments Panel.
A. The Checkbox
To select many comments and apply a single action to them:
This is ideal for managing a lot of spam comments, many comments waiting for approval, and cleaning up multiple comments.
Read More »
Reach out and touch someone social: