WPCPT3 Report

Last night’s WordPress Cape Town 3 Meetup was a huge success. The Events Room at the Bandwidth Barn was packed with WordPress enthusiasts. The event was a social and educational gathering for people interested in WordPress. This growing blogging and CMS platform is growing worldwide and communities are forming all over. WordPress is only 5 years old, but has a strong backing due to the ease-of-use and robustness of the platform.

First off Johann Botha spoke on WordPress Security, and I must admit that he highlighted many security issues that I was not aware of. Johann’s personal website is at www.swimgeek.com, and one of the companies that he has co-founded is an ISP called Frogfoot Networks (who were one of the sponsors of the event). Johann highlighted vulnerabilities of WordPress, and the common reasons for hacking – like email spam, SEO spam, etc. He mentioned a few methods of improving security, 2 of which are to implement strict file permission settings (especially on themes, etc), and Apache htpassword protection.
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Intense R&D

As I’ve said many times before, I love the industry that we’re in. It’s so unique and exciting. And we have so many advantages that others don’t. We can work whether it’s raining or sunny. We can work at the office, on the couch, in bed, at a coffee shop, on the plane – and it wont make a difference (I’ve done all that, by the way!). I’ve even gone to the mountains and started work on my laptop. Also, once a client needed assistance while I was driving to the airport. When I got to the airport parking lot I could go online and assist him, what an awesome feeling! The examples of this type of thing are endless, as many in this industry will agree.

As I’ve heard some wise people say, every advantage has a disadvantage. I guess for us – with all the advantages I’ve mentioned – there are some disadvantages. Maybe “disadvantages” is a strong word, I don’t know. I’m referring to the intense and continuous R&D (Research and Development) that our industry demands. There is absolutely no way anyone playing in the Web 2.0 space can ever feel comfortable. Things are changing so rapidly that any day, any minute, we can expect a new wave in the industry. If you watch the conversations on Twitter, people are always saying which articles they’re busy reading, and referring and sharing websites with the rest of us. It’s continuous. This happens literally 24/7. I read so much on a daily basis, and yet I have so many “pending” bookmarks which I still need to get to. But as an expert in this field, that’s part of the process.
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Intense R&D

As I’ve said many times before, I love the industry that we’re in. It’s so unique and exciting. And we have so many advantages that others don’t. We can work whether it’s raining or sunny. We can work at the office, on the couch, in bed, at a coffee shop, on the plane – and it wont make a difference (I’ve done all that, by the way!). I’ve even gone to the mountains and started work on my laptop. Also, once a client needed assistance while I was driving to the airport. When I got to the airport parking lot I could go online and assist him, what an awesome feeling! The examples of this type of thing are endless, as many in this industry will agree.

As I’ve heard some wise people say, every advantage has a disadvantage. I guess for us – with all the advantages I’ve mentioned – there are some disadvantages. Maybe “disadvantages” is a strong word, I don’t know. I’m referring to the intense and continuous R&D (Research and Development) that our industry demands. There is absolutely no way anyone playing in the Web 2.0 space can ever feel comfortable. Things are changing so rapidly that any day, any minute, we can expect a new wave in the industry. If you watch the conversations on Twitter, people are always saying which articles they’re busy reading, and referring and sharing websites with the rest of us. It’s continuous. This happens literally 24/7. I read so much on a daily basis, and yet I have so many “pending” bookmarks which I still need to get to. But as an expert in this field, that’s part of the process.
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The Methodology of Experts

Last week I picked up a magazine which had a close up picture of Tiger Woods on the cover. The cover story was about his enormous wealth and success. Looking at the magazine I thought about what it takes to achieve that level of success. Hours of training on a daily basis? Lots of sacrifices? Of course.

Do you know Anthony Robbins? He’s a world famous motivational speaker and personal development coach. I’ve been listening to his talks for a few years. He’s also written a few books. A few days ago I listened to one of his talks again, and he said that when he was doing research, he read over 700 books on personal development.

Can you believe that?
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Link Love

What I really love about Web 2.0 – The Human Web as I call it – is that everyone loves to share. People share links, feelings, ideas, photos, videos – it’s phenomenal. It again brings me to our interpersonal lives as human beings. Don’t we share the same things with family and friends? Of course we do. And the spirit of Web 2.0 is that everyone is family, everyone is your friend, and everyone is worthy of sharing with.

You gotta love it!!!
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WordPress Cape Town Meetup 3

WordPress, for those of you who don’t know, is a Blogging platform which has now moved into the CMS arena as well. It’s a very versatile platform, and boasts growing communities worldwide that support it fully. In Cape Town there’s a community like this. I’m very excited that this week brings the third WordPress Cape Town Meetup. A few months ago we gathered the River Club in Obs for the first meetup. The second meetup I hosted here at the Bandwidth Barn, and the third is coming up. Nur from Nomad-One is organizing this one, and he’s been pretty busy I tell you.
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Printed media still exists

Last year I was approached by Your Business Magazine to write an article about Facebook for them. I was only too happy to do this, and early this year it was published.

< < To the left is a pic of me holding up the printed article in one of the Web 2.0 seminars I delivered this year.

The article was only published in the February / March 2008 edition of the magazine, and I was quite chuffed because they have a very strong national distribution channel. What’s more is that about 2 weeks ago I secured a business lead from it in Pretoria. Just 1 lead yes, but I’m sure many people have read the article, and many people have seen my name, or my company’s name. This adds to “frequency” of your brand.

Frequency is something I speak about very often in seminars. It is the activity of communicating your brand very frequently. Not on a large scale, even in small bite sizes, but frequently. There is a particular brand in South Africa – I’m not going to mention their name because that’s not the point – that was in the media a lot a few years ago. Then they just disappeared from the “eyes and ears” of the public. The business was still running, but they weren’t doing any brand communication. Years later they started advertising again. To everyone’s surprise of course. This company – of course – does not understand about brand communication.
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10 Tips to Stay Motivated, Sane and Productive

Freelancentral.co.za’s Jo Duxbury has written an article for Freelanceswitch.com, a very well known freelancing community website. Firstly the post, 10 Tips to Stay Motivated, Sane and Productive, is highly beneficial, so I suggest that you go and have a look. I think it applies to more than just freelancers though, I think it applies also to entrepreneurs, and bloggers in particular. These 3 groups of people – freelancers, entrepreneurs, and bloggers often need help to stay motivated and focused. It’s very difficult to “keep your eye on the ball” and remain on course.

Even just this weekend, I spent hours blogging and it’s really tough. It relates to what Stephen Covey would call “keeping the end in mind” – but that thinking is not always easy. I must say though, that I’ve learned my lesson. These hours of work, blogging, reading, doing research, networking, etc – it’s all worth it. I’m pleased to say that I’ve seen the positive effects of consistent activity.
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Do you need to map your mind?

Being an entrepreneur you always find yourself overloaded with ideas. Making notes on paper is an option, but you soon find out that it’s not the very best option. To layout notes in my head I then tried Powerpoint. Wrong choice for a mind map. Don’t get me wrong, Powerpoint is great, but strictly for presentations. Last night I posted a note on Twitter (that syncs with my Facebook status updates) that I was looking for mind mapping software. As usual, I got quite a few replies.

My Google search led me to Personal Brain, but for some reason I couldn’t get it to work. Freemind came up more than once from my social networks – as well as in Google, so I downloaded and installed. The end product (of a mind map that Freemind created) was what I was looking for, but when playing around with it I seemed to have difficulty getting a map done quickly and easily. I like ease of use, because I tend to use applications a lot if I have an important purpose.
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The Power of Conversation

Yesterday I wrote a post titled “Jo Duxbury – South Africa’s Freelance Expert” – within a matter of minutes Pam Sykes sent me a message on Twitter about Jo. Pam and Jo have since been in contact, and I’m looking on and loving it. This is what Social Networking is about. I said in this post that Web 2.0 allows for people to create conversations and opportunities. It’s so fantastic.

Next week I’m meeting with someone I found on Jo’s online portfolio at Freelancentral.co.za, and this might be the move to take my business to the next level. And this happened due to a conversation as well. Albeit this conversation – between Jo and I – was offline and in person, the principle still applies: Opportunities exist within people. Doing it online only increases the frequency and volume, and I am on a mission to expand this message to PR agencies and marketers especially.

I’m going to be famous yet again, I was interviewed yesterday by a magazine, but I’ll tell you about that in my next post…

Photo by Gauravonomics

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