Announced on Friday of last week, WordCamp Whistler is happening on January 24, 2009 at the Fairmont Hotel in Whistler B.C. Registration is open for attendees as well as speaker submissions on topics relating to all things WordPress.

If you ever wanted to find a room full of people that are passionate about what WordPress is, things it can do, and tips on pushing it above and beyond your expectations, events like this are a great place to start learning. Sign on up and plan for a weekend in one of the most beautiful areas of British Columbia, not to mention a 2010 Winter Olympics venue. Skiing and snowboarding skills are not required, but you’re welcome to mix some fun on the slopes into your planning of the weekend.

Please visit wordcampwhistler.com for the most up to date details.

I wrote this recently on my personal site although it’s the prefect content for our business site as well.

Over the last few weeks my company, sixty4media, has themed, coded, and tweaked quite a few WordPress sites (and even more over the years before we even had the company). I am often asked what I use to code or theme so here are some of the basic tools that make my life a whole lot easier.

MAMP
MAMP allows you to run a mini WordPress web server from your computer so that you can theme sites locally, without having them published online or on a development site.

FTP
You need a good FTP application for uploading files and images on the fly. I’m using Cyberduck right now but I’ve had many suggestions for more productive tools (and I can’t for the life of me remember the one that Tod recommended).

Smultron
For Mac OS X and Leopard
A great text editor (used for PHP files) that works nicely with Cyberduck by selecting it as your file editor under preferences. It colour-codes nicely and is very simple to use.

CSS Edit
MacRabbit - CSS Edit (for Macs only)
All in one CSS editing tool. Allows you to eyedrop colours, shows your properties in a sidebar, knows where to place brackets etc. and even auto-completes some elements. In the sidebar it also displays colours on anything that has a background colour ie. if your footer is blue, it will show up blue in the sidebar list.

WordPress Codex
This last one isn’t downloadable, the codex is an online resource for all issues, questions, and reference materials in the WordPress realm.

John is usually on top of all the latest applications and is even a beta tester for some upgraded versions of the software listed above. He’s great at staying on the cutting edge and then passing the knowledge on to me so I’m sure my staple apps will probably change soon, but for now - they’re great basics.

Last month I wrote about using Twitter for Business and it was the most popular post we’ve had on sixty4media to date.

Tech Crunch just released some Twitter stats and the proof is in the numbers: Twitter is here, now, and it’ll be staying for quite some time.

Twitter is having its hockey stick moment in terms of its growth just shooting up. Last week it may have delivered its billionth Tweet, at least nominally. And it looks like it is approaching escape velocity. If it doesn’t break up from all the pressure and is able to keep its service up and running more or less, it could soon—gasp!—break into the mainstream. [TechCrunch]

When I was first on Facebook some people laughed, “Why would you need to do that? Who wants to know all that?” and since they’ve recorded 15.8 billion page views in 2007 [TechCrunch]. Twitter was next. It is the latest platform (even though it’s been around since 2006) to start slowly and build momentum - just like the Tech Crunch article says, this could now be going mainstream - and it can definitely be used for Business.

The popularity of social networking is skyrocketing and it’s encouraging to see Twitter taking off. However, even though it is a microblogging platform, there is still such a stigma attached to blogging in general. I’m waiting for the day someone can say “I’m a blogger” and not be immediately pictured sitting in their parents’ basement in their pajamas writing a diary blog entry about their cat.

All of these social media sites are tools that can help you and your business reach the world, or your own specific local audience. Websites these days can have the full functions of a blog but not necessarily be just a blog. They become content management systems that can integrate blogs, pages, Facebook and Twitter updates. It’s for this reason that all of these technologies (together) are so beneficial. It’s where your audience is, so it’s where you need to be.

Earlier this week Chris Briekss of 6S Marketing launched his list of “Top Twitterers In Vancouver” and within a few hours I was chatting with Gillian Shaw of The Vancouver Sun. As a result, the list was published in yesterday’s paper and sixty4media got a nice shout out.

TOP TWITTERERS IN VANCOUVER
1. http://twitter.com/miss604 — Rebecca Bollwit is a Vancouver blogger and specialist in new media and senior partner in sixty4media.com
2. http://twitter.com/buzzbishop
3. http://twitter.com/hummingbird604
4. http://twitter.com/todmaffin
5. http://twitter.com/techvibes
6. http://twitter.com/dbarefoot
7. http://twitter.com/kk
8. http://twitter.com/wilhelmus
9. http://twitter.com/ColleenCoplick
10. http://twitter.com/tyfn … (Read the rest in the Vancouver Sun)

Rebecca Bollwitt, Miss604 on Twitter, senior partner at 64Media.com sixty4media.com and Twitter veteran, is also on the Top 20 list. “It started out for me just being personal update, like your Facebook status but not on Facebook,” Bollwitt said. “For me personally, it turned into more of a marketing tool for my company… …Once I got on I just started seeing who other people were following and seeing who was adding who. It creates this huge global chain of information-sharing.

It’s always fun to see your company name in the “Business” section of the largest paper in the city. If you’d like to add sixty4media on Twitter you can find us @sixty4media.

Today I’ll be speaking at the Making a Scene Conference on Granville Island. This annual event provides presentations, workshops, and panels about the professional theatre industry. I was asked to sit on a panel, “The New Face of Marketing”, to hopefully address questions about blogger outreach and online marketing.

Making a Scene runs from November 13th until the 16th, passes start at around $75.00.

As a blogger (on my personal site) who is sometimes approached by other businesses, PR firms or marketers, the one thing that makes me click “delete” on an email almost instantly is the opening phrase, “Dear Sir or Madam”. Aside from using the correct pronouns you don’t want to sound like a press release, a robot or a faceless entity when dealing with bloggers and the same goes for running your own business blog.

Last April I attended Open Web Vancouver and sat in on two amazing keynotes, one of which was by Tim Bray. I have since used some of his quotes in presentations and have seen his sentiments echoed across the social media sphere since they are simple, accurate, and they make the most sense.

On the topic of writing your content, here are a few suggestions:

Be human: Don’t have an eleven step editorial process ie. if you’ve ever been in an organization that needs to put out a press release. You may have experienced that it could take 2 weeks for 2 page release and “then you end up with something no human being would have ever written…. or now would want to read.”[From Miss604 Live Blog]

Think about the text you put on your site. Write long, then cut short. If you have 100 words you can fit into a screen without scrolling, write 150. Then, slash back to 75 and see if you’ve got the right message. “Say what you have to say with the fewest possible words.” [Crawford Kilian at the IMC]

Aside from writing in a readable and comfortable tone for your audience you also need to put a face to your blog. This doesn’t mean hundreds of self portraits from your webcam, it just means that people, clients, and customers respond better to names. “Admin” or “Company Name” as an author on your site may not be as well received as “Betty”, “Jim”, or “Sue from Marketing”.

Example: Carnival Cruise Lines

The final tip is to not dupe your audience. If you are an official blog of ABC Company, please state that in your sidebar or on your about page ie. “This is the official blog of ABC Company”. That way it lets readers know you are a reliable resource, and you are accountable for your content. Disclosure is everything.

For many reasons, some companies may be apprehensive about sharing too much or being too transparent in the online realm and that is a valid concern. However, having a reliable, strong, and open community within your business blogging space can still be achieved if you are calm and professional. Write in a readable tone, disclose your objectives, address readers as people (have authors that are “real” people), and start conversations with your audience.

Most importantly, read other blogs (especially if they are in the same industry as you). You can see what others are doing right, have discussions, and make real and lasting connections.

It never hurts to say it too many times because we realize that not everyone pays attention to the information streams like we do. Check your WordPress installation and make sure that you are running the latest version, 2.6.3. This latest update was announced over a week ago, so we’re doing our best to help extend the news in case you missed it.

This update is very important to the security of any install of WordPress that you are running. You can read more details about it here.

After several successful WordCamps in Vancouver, Kulpreet got the wheels in motion for the next event, coming this winter. Last night on Twitter something magical also happened - the idea of having the event in Whistler was hatched and so planning for WordCamp Whistler is now underway.

Read Duane’s blog post for a preview, view the Facebook event, and feel free to sign up on the wiki. More details to come in over the next little while. sixty4media will once again be involved as an organizer as well as presenting.

WordPress is an open source blog publishing application powering millions of blogs worldwide.

Tonight great and curious minds will be gathering at the Vancouver Rowing Club for the first, Interesting Vancouver event which, “is a multi-disciplinary conference for and by the curious and creative minds of Vancouver. Speakers come from a host of backgrounds such as sciences, academia, marketing, technology, art, and more.”

There is a line up of 15 speakers and I have the pleasure of running the live blog tonight in case you are looking for notes later on. As this is also sold out, check out Miss604.com for the coverage if you are unable to attend.

Speakers include:
Tom Williams, David Young, James Sherrett, Darren Barefoot, James Glave, James Chutter, Naomi Devine, Shannon LaBelle, Cheryl Stephens, Colin Keddie, Irwin Oostindie, Roy Yen, Jeffrey Ellis, Dr. David Ng, and Joe Solomon.

“Doors open at 6:00pm. Interestingness beings at 7:00pm sharp.”

It’s been just over three months since I dove into the deep end of self-employment and I’m having a blast so far. So much so, that I thought Wednesday was Friday - either I accomplished enough work in 3 workdays to make my body think it was Friday or I’ve been so buried by projects I haven’t noticed what day it is on the calendar. Either way, I’m really excited about what sixty4media has been doing; we have clients across North America, my freelance writing is going strong, and I’ve had the time to speak at events like Ideas on Tap and plan the successful Food Bank food drive we just had at Third Tuesday.

The only snag I’ve encountered is the need for a meeting place when I collaborate with clients or do interviews. Since I work out of the home I suppose I could enlist the services of Workspace (I hear they have amazing coffee) or The Network Hub, however I have just been heading to coffee shops for this purpose.

A few weeks ago I hit four seperate coffee shops across town (for four different meetings/interviews), and seeing as how I make sure to purchase something at every location, I was pretty buzzed on coffee (or peanut butter cookies) by the time the afternoon rolled around - I recommend switching to water on days like those.

So what do I look for when I want to pick a coffee shop? The most important item is wifi, and the most extensive listing of internet-juiced venues around can be found on this site. You can also check the FreeTheNet map and browse by neighbourhood downtown.

Next, they need to have a good atmosphere; perhaps some couches or loungers along with tables and chairs that offer enough of a buffer between you and the other patrons. Also be sure to find a spot away from the barista as bubbling steamy coffee-making noises can be rather loud at times.

Note to coffee shops, if you’re going to offer and advertise free wifi, please make sure you have enough power outlets as well (I know my friend Raul would appreciate that one).

Working with friends occasionally is also highly recommended (especially if you miss having an office crew). I know, it sounds terribly geeky but if I meet up with a friend in a coffee shop we not only get to have a treat and catch up, we can also plug in and work on our various projects. It allows for instant feedback or help should we need any problem solving or comments about a new post or idea.

A few spots that I can recommend downtown (that may also have other stores around the Lower Mainland) include Waves, Blenz, and Raging Bean in Yaletown. Take 5 Cafes also have wifi, and if you need a full breakfast or lunch on the go, there’s always Cactus Club or The Templeton on Granville as well.

It’s only been just over a year since I started blogging remotely (on my lunch break while working a 9-5 job). Now that I’m free to be wherever I want, whenever I want, I actually do miss office camaraderie and in all honesty (in some strange way) I actually love cubicles. But being able to wake up early, head to the gym, come home, put on a pot of coffee and accomplish a ton of work before 9am is still pretty awesome.

I love being my own boss although I think the only drawback is that I can get burnt out easily since my projects, events, and commitments could have me out several evenings a week - on top of the work I do all day. Mandatory down-time is recommended, which is why you may notice me blogging less over the weekends on my personal site.

As sixty4media grows, I look forward to meeting more people, getting out and about, and expanding our operation. Until that time I’m enjoying all the city has to offer a young business like us, especially great remote working spaces (and coffee).