We’re running this event to meet the needs of people who now understand how to use WordPress – but maybe aren’t so sure about how to really work their content.

In this highly participative session, SMEs who are doing this through a variety of means will describe their approaches.

This evening event will be at the Village Hotel, Swansea on June 20th at 5.30pm , and you can book here.

And everyone attending will get to make some content which captures and conveys what makes them tick – uniquely.

Speakers include:

Adrian Bamford

Adrian Bamford is the director of a musical instrument retail business, Neath Music, and an experienced musician. He has worked all over the world as a professional live sound engineer, and has 20 years of experience in configuring large-cale professional sound systems.

Like most SME owners, he has had to acquired myriad skills; from administrating VAT through networking PCs to appealing against an increase in business rates. He is a many- times published technical journalist, a qualified further education lecturer, and holds recognised teacher status at the University of Glamorgan. He is currently studying towards an MSc in Leadership and Management Practice at the University of Glamorgan.

Deenna Barton

Deenna Barton runs Deenna’s Boutique in Neath, with her mum, Janice, selling high quality ladies fashion. But she offers her customers much more than a retail exchange, using her shop as a base for colour and style workshops and advice, and using video, online competitions and newsletters to build connection.

In March 2012, Deenna opened an online store pledging ‘We will work our socks off to make sure that you receive the same level of service as you would if you had visited us in- store’, and her customers now come from all over the UK.

A founder of Neath Business Consortium to help with town regeneration, Deenna is married to Simon, and mum to young Rhys. Like many of her customers, she is a busy working mum, active in her community, and this is what she reflects in her pioneering use of social media.

ps Some of you may be fretting that we’re down in Swansea for this one – we’re planning another meet-up with Joel Hugues further east, very soon.

It may have had a distinctively female skew in that these tweets needed RT ing several times:

‘We are at 220 High Street. Opposite Labour Party Office. Green tiled building. Mosaic Restaurant on ground floor. #mwwd13′

‘If you are looking for us Pippa @MrsMoti is walking up and down outside. #mwwd’

And these:

featured significantly.

As promised, here’s summary of some of the content and creators. Apologies to speakers if I’ve missed some of your pearls – may have been too transfixed to write them down…

Drill Down

Juliet Fay knows heaps about how to write and send e-mails online, especially through Mail Chimp.

She spoke about:

You had to be with us to see the full impact of Juliet using an actual drill, as she presented.

(Did this represent a missing part in the room? Freudians amongst you may ponder)

Here’s her own audio account of the day.

Massive Nos, I Phone Movies and Useful Software

With Jess Hughes we had a fascinating tour around the potential of video online :

Esther’s story is a fab tale of the personal and emotional turning into value on the job market. She’s just build her first large site and community forum for work.

The Speakers Have A ‘Who Can Stand In the Thinnest Way Competition’

Photo cropped by ed, as she did not win

Political Style: From Cardiff Bay to U.S.A.

Just 24, Laura Dunn has created a quirky, wonderful blog combining her main interests of politics and fashion. She’s written for the Huffington Post, Vanity Fair, Mrs O and Daily Beast as a result.
Here was her advice:

Laura’s self-possession and professionalism is amazing. Right at the start of her blogging, she created a media kit. Were we running the Labour Party’s Comms Dept, we’d snap her up now.

Michelle Davis did a lovely interview at the event with Laura.

Digital Literacy, Crap Detection and Endangered Octopus

A participative session with Sangeet Bhullar, who got us to voice our concerns about kids and the future, and then suggest solutions. Her work involves asking kids and adults ‘What does identity look like online?’ and ‘What does safely look like online?’.

She offered us:

Sangeet’s clients include the police. She reminded us that UK law applies off and online, and that sexting can result in listing on the sex offenders register.

(No readers here need take heed of this, thank goodness!)

You’re Nobody Until You’ve Posted From The Wrong Account

Helen Reynolds has won lots of social media awards, with her employers Monmouth County Council. She gave us grand examples of corporate indirectness, like ‘disimprove’ being used for ‘get worse’.

And her case study of Yammer being used effectively by foster carers, to champion their cause, was most inspiring.

Helen describes her mistakes – like posting a photo of a Michael Jackson lookalike instead of a royal. But the 25,000 hits she can get on a post speak for themselves.

Her key messages were:

You are nobody until you’ve posted from the wrong account…

And on that note, I’m almost done here.

A quick gripe before the thanks.

We had about 40 people booked on this event but probably half that turned up. We turned some people away. We may have to charge next time…

Thanks To:

Here’s to the next one.

WITH BLOKES WELCOME TOO

Thanks to Indycube’s support and collaboration, we thought we’d have a different type of event on Saturday March 23rd – a day workshop where all the speakers are female, but women and men are welcome to attend.

Again a free event, it takes place at Indycube Swansea, between 10am and 4pm.

We’ve 7 women speakers, all enthusiasts in different areas of digital activity.

With emphasis on the practical, we aim to bombard you with useful takeaways to help plan your own digital production in the future.

SUBJECTS AND SPEAKERS

BOOKING

Please book here if you would like to come. Chris Bolton is catering a light lunch and he will need to know numbers.

With thanks to them, this event is supported by the Welsh Government.

On Tuesday night I was lucky enough to listen to James Cryer talk about responsive design.

I have written a longer post about the evening which you can read about here.

Very briefly this is what I learnt (apologies if this is a bit basic):

• People use websites to find out what services are delivered by organisations;
• For large parts of society the Internet is the primary route they use;
• Many people are using mobile devices (mobile phones, tablets etc) to access the Internet;
• The percentage of people using mobile devices to do this is continuing to increase;
• Many websites have historically been designed to be viewed from a desktop or laptop computer; and
• Viewing a website designed for a large desktop screen, on a much smaller mobile phone screen can be a real hassle (go and try it out for yourself).

My understanding of responsive web design is that it’s about how websites are ‘responsive’ to the device on which they are viewed. The way in which content is displayed will change to ensure that the reader has the best possible viewing experience for the size of screen they are using. This isn’t just about getting smaller (desktop to mobile), James pointed out that getting bigger (desktop to large screen TV) also offers challenges.

Using responsive design is helpful if you want your service users to understand what your organisation does. The easier it is to find and read the content on your website, using whatever device people choose (increasingly likely to be a mobile phone), the better it is for everyone.

Again, apologies if this is a bit basic, I’m a content person. If I had to sum up the most important learning point for me was about understanding why responsive design is so important, particularly for organisations that deliver services through their websites. I have covered this in more depth in the post on my blog, under the snappy title of “every CEO should try to access the services their organisation delivers using a mobile phone, at least twice a month”

Thanks very much to James for an excellent presentation at the WordPress Users Wales meeting. A number of people asked for a link to James’ presentation, which is here.  http://www.slideshare.net/jamescryer/rwd-wordpress

Chris, @whatsthepont

Picture Source: I should mention that James recommended this book by Ethan Marcotte, Responsive Web Design, for anyone interested in the subject.

WordPress.com itself has had a responsive overhaul, as you are possibly aware.

And if a wordpress developer, designer or content-maker, whether we need to use responsive design – and how we use it – may be vexing…

We’re lucky to have James Cryer steering this session, who some of you may remember from our very first meeting.

It will be held at Indycube Castle Arcade, Cardiff on Tuesday, February 19th, from 5.30 -7.30.

Everyone is welcome and please register here .

The event is free but we will be crowdsourcing with a bucket some financial appreciation to Indycube, who have been once more kind enough to host us.

So if can hoist your wallets along with your lovely selves, that would be brilliant…. thanks!

photo by Helen Reynolds

Big thanks to generous hosts this year The Promised Land, Chapter Arts Centre, Indycube, and Software Alliance Wales. May good karma be returned to you soon.

And also thanks to our speakers who gave their time and expertise for free: Joel Hughes ( who spoke twice, the guy’s a saint), Nicky Getgood (mum now to baby Rowan and we wish you snuggles), Alessio Bernadelli (now at Times Educational Supplement ), Cathy Presland, internet marketer, and Helen Reynolds, social media manager for Monmouth Council – and some, too.

All of you who turned up, talked and joined in our collective enthusiasm and learning for WordPress are much appreciated.

Next year we hope to start off with events on responsive design, book production using WordPress, and Chris - newly in touch with his feminist side – intends to provide brown bag lunches for a do featuring just women speakers. But blokes are welcome too.

May all your themes and plug-ins be a go-go over yuletide.

We’d love to see you soon and have a good one.

from http://www.useit.com

B.t.w. they offer amazing workshops and support – quite the envy of those of us at seminar who live further east.

Based on wide experience of running blogging workshops, Joel talked about ‘the man in the pub’ approach and a need to avoid the ‘To Whom It May Concern’ voice, that tempts bloggers who haven’t yet found their voice. On his blog, he’s published a most helpful follow-up post curation for smes or anyone who wants to beef up their blogging.

Helen talked about what successful bloggers do, about the power of talking as a friend, and about kindness and generosity amongst bloggers. Those of you who are thinking ‘too touchy-feely by half’ here should note that one of Helen’s posts here has over 25,000 hits.

That pesky Mrs Motivator insisted on talking as well, mentioning eye tracking patterns, personas and action online. Her notes and slides are here.

Finally, just like to make special mention of Ena, Dot and Alessio and anyone else who travelled some distance to the workshop. We very much appreciate your support and effort. Those of you who heard Alessio talking at Chapter, showing the amazing interactions kids were having in science blogs, may like to know he is now working at the Times Educational Supplement. And James Cryer, who spoke at our first event now has a posh job at the BBC… Impressive, eh?

We are currently planning our next event and hope to run something longer, over a day perhaps, on e-publishing using WordPress.

Be really helpful if you could tell us whether a Saturday, Sunday or weekday would work best for you on this (we suspect the first two )… Just tweet or comment us, please.

Cheers!

Building Online Engagement With WordPress

Tuesday 20th of November 2012

The Village Hotel Swansea

Langdon Road (Off Fabian Way),
SA1 Waterfront,
Swansea,
SA1 8QY

5pm registration
5.30 – 7.30pm workshop
7.30pm buffet and networking

Have you wondered about blogging, producing e-books, videos or customer forums? Has time or anticipated cost put you off? And then there’s integrating all this with social media, to think about…

This 2 hour session will look at:

User Focus: why visitors engage with sites and return

Content: what content best suits your business strategy, market and skills

Design: how elements can mirror your customers and their priorities

Software Alliance Wales and WordPress Users Wales have invited expert practitioners including Joel Hughes of Jojet and Helen Reynolds. of ace digital comms to share case histories , tips, and answer any questions you may have.

About the Speakers:

Joel Hughes is an Internet Strategist – helping businesses and professionals make sense of the web and putting it to work for them; everything from websites to social media and beyond. Joel has an impressive 15 years experience in the IT industry and has worked in a variety of roles including design, technical programming, systems & database administration as well as project management and team leading. Joel is a experienced public speaker and training provider. His services are also available on a consultancy or non-executive director basis.

Helen Reynolds, Social Media manager at Monmouthshire council has been described as a ‘trailblazer’ ‘local government hero’ and ‘social media queen’. Awards include three at the Somecomms Social Media Awards 2011:

• Best use of YouTube
• The innovation award
•Best in-house team

Her innovations include introducing online twitter discussion between councillors and those they represent, and recruitment for social services using You Tube. Helen’s background prior to her current role was in advertising in the private sector.

Click here to register your place at this seminar or call us on 01792 295881

Thanks also to indycube for allowing us to use their fantastic venue at Castle Arcade.

Here is the long list of the favourite plug-ins that we talked about.

• YOAST (SEO for WordPress)
• Contact Form 7
• Next Gen Gallery
• Pretty Photo
• Smush.IT
• WP Google Fonts
• Theme Checker
• Better Front Page UI
• Google Analytics for WordPress
• XML Sitemap Feed
• Pixeline email Protector
• W3 Total Cache
• Event Manager
• Woo Commerce
• Poll Daddy

Please add your comments about why you love these plug-ins.

And don’t forget, check out the plug-in post by Geoff at halfblog.net

We thought we’d crowdsource best plug-ins for various purposes in WordPress, and attempt to identify if there is a dream-team of plug-ins, that all WordPress users can benefit from…

Some of you know a great deal about this – and we’d love to see you here.

No public speaking involved, just group chat and feedback.

As ever the event is free. Because of the arcade’s opening hours we are kicking off a little earlier than usual: 5.30 – 7.30pm.

The venue is upstairs in Castle Arcade, in what used to be a surf shop, just on top of Madame Fromage. Eventbrite sign in here

Headbands and kaftans are not obligatory.