Picking Your Tech Battles

The internet changes rapidly. Right when you grow accustomed to one style, a new one emerges. Apple vs. Windows. MySpace vs. Facebook. HTML5 vs. Flash. You participated in at least one of these epic beefs, and it wasn’t easy to take a side. Maybe you waited it out, dual booting and double posting until the outcome of the battle became evident. Maybe you were an early adapter who had to constantly justify your decision to everyone else. Whatever the case, information is the key to making good decisions.

Knowing Is Half the Battle

This August, for the first time, WordCamp—WordPress’s conference for casual users, businesses and developers alike—will be held in Houston, TX, and I’m going. I’ve been blogging for a number of years, so I’m fairly familiar with WordPress. But beyond knowing AP style and how to interpret analytical data, these are all the tools I bring to the party. I can do better, and I sure as heck know it. There are a lot of techniques that can help you run a successful blog, and although I’ve been learning as much as I can wherever I can, it’s just not enough. So WordCamp, here I come!

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg will be speaking there, so that’s definitely worth something. I want to know if his creation has developed the way he planned, or if it became an unstoppable behemoth that he was happy to unleash on the public. (Frankly, I suspect that I’ll wind up hearing the usual, “Yay! Team” stuff from him, but one can hope.) Regardless, follow me on Twitter to get all the nuggets of wisdom in 140 characters or less.

Aside from the keynote speaker, though, I’m looking forward to something a little different. See, I’m a social media fangirl (seriously, I do community management for a charity in my down time), and I’m tired of people professing their expertise when they know about as much as the average user. What do the real experts know? WordPress pros will be in attendance at WordCamp, so if I’m going to learn from them anywhere, this is it. Of course I want to know more about blog monetization, SEO, marketing and increasing rate of interaction, but more importantly, I want to know whether I’m rocking social media harder than the pros, or if I’m such a noobcake that I need to go get a …for Dummies book.

Bottom Line: WordCamp Means Better Results for You

It’s not that I’m sure of myself or that I’m uncertain of my abilities. That isn’t the case. I know I can write, edit and analyze better than many people. No, my bigger problem is the internet itself. There must be at least a million ways to screw up a blog post before it’s ever even typed out. From poor web address choices to bad platform decisions, wonky RSS feeds to inadequate online brand management, the number of potential disasters is astounding. Surely the pros at WordCamp will know how to fix existing issues as well as how to better manage communities.

Because, in my opinion, that’s what blogging is all about: flexibility and social interaction. Stay tuned for the follow up post after the event in August!

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