WordCamp Victoria 2012 has been announced for January 14, 2012. As a WordPress developer, I’ve attended my fair share of WordCamps, from San Francisco to the Fraser Valley, and organized WordCamp Whistler as well as WordCamp Vancouver. It’s always a pleasure to attend the event organized in our province’s capital as well. Last year I presented “WordPress Plugins to Make Your Blogging Life Easier” showcasing several basic plugins and how you can select the right one for your needs.

I have been asked to be a keynote speaker for WordCamp Victoria 2012 and have prepared the following outline for my talk:

Time Management with WordPress
One of the questions I get asked most often is “when will I find time to blog”. While most of my tips can be applied to almost any platform, there are specific features of WordPress that can save you a lot of publishing time. From the WordPress mobile application (for iPhone), to pairing WordPress with plugins and social media management tools, I’ll discuss ways that you can optimize your blogging time as well as your time spent offline.

Other topics on the schedule so far include multi-site installation, multimedia plugins, social comments, Drupal to WordPress, and more.

Tickets are currently on sale for $22.40 for a full day of WordPress-related talks. It’s a great way to learn more about the platform and network with the online community on Vancouver Island.

WordPress.com powers over 50 million blogs and in total, the WordPress platform powers 22% of all new websites created. This open source content management system is used by your favourite international new outlet to your favourite knitting blog. Miss604.com has been proudly powered by WordPress since 2006 and my company, sixty4media, has been building custom WordPress sites since 2008.

Cross-posted by Rebecca from Miss604.com

WordCamp Fraser Valley returns for its 3rd year of talks and workshops in Surrey on November 20th, 2010. WordPress is the top blogging platform in the world however it is also used to power millions of websites that you visit each and every day. Its endless theme and plugin capabilities make it one of the reasons why I have been building a business around the platform since 2008.

My company develops WordPress websites, specializing in social media newsrooms that tie blog and multimedia functions into a much more robust website platform. Along with Brave New Code, we hosted WordCamp Vancouver this year and received a fantastic response. I’m hoping that those interested in WordPress, from design and code to using it as a writing tool, will check out WordCamp Fraser Valley this weekend as well.

Speakers include my husband (and business partner) John Bollwitt who is an engineer at CHUM Radio Vancouver. He’ll be talking about how companies can built intranet sites using WordPress to keep their teams informed and in the loop. John has been using WordPress since 2005 and got me hooked on the platform in 2006.

He’ll be joined on the roster by Tris Hussey (author of Using WordPress), Dave Zille, Lynn Robson, and Kulpreet Singh. Raul Pacheco, Danny Bradbury, and Leah Cross will also address how to write and publish your various forms of content using WordPress.

Tickets are still available for $45 so if you’ve ever been curious about WordPress as a user, writer, or developer, these sessions and networking opportunities can’t be beat.

I’ve been interviewed at least a dozen times about how social media people are covering the Olympics in Vancouver. However, I think an equally interesting story is how traditional media outlets are using social media to add to their coverage.

CTV Olympics Video
The official broadcaster of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games has been posting footage to YouTube. The type of event action videos that would get pulled down with a cease & desist letter from the IOC are up and running in full glory on the CTV Olympics channel. Although you cannot embed the videos, you can watch clips of medal moments and even streaming replays of televised events on their main website.

Government of BC
The Province of British Columbia has been capturing Olympic moments and posting them to their official YouTube channel as well. They have athlete interviews, montages, and even an interview with yours truly.

They don’t have Games footage but they have been everywhere around town, profiling businesses and the fan experience.

Global has added a video section to their website and although they’re not posting the videos as shareable items on YouTube, they are blogging and tweeting to enhance their coverage. Same goes for the CBC who has a Road to the Games section of their site, acting as a 2010 newsroom complete with sidebar event listings. You can read more about their coverage game plan in my post from last week.

With such restrictions for non-official broadcasters these Olympics haven’t necessarily made journalists out of citizens, they’ve made the mainstream realize that social media can help them with their coverage — and it can make it that much more interesting.

This weekend I presented a quick “Who, What, When, Where, Why” of blogging and online branding for the Travel Media Association of Canada. The conference took place at the brand new Pinnacle Pier in North Vancouver and had a spectacular view of Vancouver from across the inlet. Unfortunately I couldn’t setup my shiny new Epson projector (due to the shining sun through the un-treated floor to ceiling windows) so I did the talk unassisted. I did however promise participants that I would post my slides on Slideshare regardless.

| Get your Presentation Pack

This is my presentation pack from Slideshare in case you would like to view any of my recent slide decks from speaking engagements. The one for TMAC does not have accompanying sound but I’ll try to make it a slidecast in the near future. Enjoy!

Technorati, the authority on blog listings and ranks, has released their 2009 State of the Blogosphere. This annual report looks at household incomes of bloggers, genders, topics, measures of success and more. Here are a few interesting stats:

Who are the Bloggers

The “Why” of Blogging

The “How” of Blogging

Each part of the report is being released day by day with new articles to follow later this week.

I few weeks ago I was asked to take part in the Cool Twitter Conference, a global event circuit that is making its way to Vancouver this Friday, October 23rd.

CBC Radio’s Steve Pratt will be the keynote and speakers include The Vancouver Sun’s Gillian Shaw, The Georgia Straight’s Stephen Hui, Adam Loving, Eric Becker, Kari Quaas, Ray Levesque, and Lauri Stevens.

My talk will be about using Twitter for personal and business use — knowing when to separate them and also how to remain professional while still being personable and friendly.

Tickets for the event are currently on sale and you can also purchase a voluntary carbon offset. After Vancouver, the conference moves to Anchorage, then on to Orange County, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and off to Dubai November 18th.

Rebecca was invited to the Massive Tech Show this week to be on a panel regarding social media and what it can do for businesses. The annual event takes place in downtown Vancouver, and it’s pretty tough to say no to something we have such an interest in while not having to go too far to talk about it.

The Massive Technology Show is a three-part, interactive event that showcases technology for business. In one action packed day, Massive connects business professionals with high tech companies, giving them a chance to learn about technology in a user friendly environment. [massivetechshow.com]

She made a couple of posts on her personal blog here and here. You’re invited to read more of her take there.