Though it’s still in the early stages of getting organized, I’m thrilled to announce the recent discovery of BarCamp Sarasota! Some old friends along with some friends I’ve not yet been introduced to are responsible for making this happen.

Things have gotten underway with a new home on the web and a Ning group which is all accessible at the BarCamp Sarasota website. Already there’s been an organizational meeting and another one is on the calendar.

So… calling all techies, bloggers, social media types, programmers, eggheads, geeks, propellerheads, etc.

Get over there and check out what’s going on… then get involved!

Then perhaps if there are enough WordPress users around the Sarasota area, we can manage to put together a WordCamp too!

(With apologies to all of my Geek friends for the photo… I’d hate to be accused of trafficking in stereotypes! Especially when we’re planning the takeover of the world! Oh… and… for the record, that is NOT a picture of me… from any point in my life!)

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Since I’m a classic “early adopter,” this behavior might seem a bit odd. I assure you it’s entirely pragmatic. The upgrade process, though not complex, can take time — especially if the number of sites you’re working with is measured in the dozens (at least). Then there are the compatibility issues (or potential compatibility issues) with themes (not usually critical) and plug-ins (sometimes these are dealbreakers).

For example, my favorite statistical tracking plug-in had problems with WordPress 2.5 for months. I found some workarounds, but it’s hard to complain or apply too much pressure to a hardworking developer who writes these plug-ins and gives them away. (Ain’t it great?!)

2.7: A Big Fat Exception

Like many, I’ve been paying attention to the previews and the news about the 2.7 release candidates. Like I said, typically this pre-release “hype” doesn’t move me.

I have, however, been seriously looking forward to the re-write of the user interface for the backend of the system. What that means in plain English is that the WordPress developers have given you — as the owner or author of the site — a completely new system to look at and work with. The whole experience of writing on and managing your site is new. Most significantly, they engaged in significant usability testing that incorporated laser eye-tracking and other sophisticated ways of measuring whether or not we’re all going to like it and find it easier to use.

By the way, you can find a nifty preview video posted here to take a look at the new management console.

So… after noticing that the final release had been posted yesterday, I decided to go out on a limb and upgrade one of my newest sites. It’s a personal blog for me (David Johnson) and it’s brand new and doesn’t have many plug-ins installed — nor complex customization — so it seemed likely to be be a good place to test. Very little stuff to break.

The upgrade process was quick and painless. I always back everything up first (good habit), which was what took the longest. And aside from an annoying message about my favorite tagging plug-in which told me I’d have to switch (and which thankfully turned out to be false), there were zero complaints. Initially, I had problems with all the nifty new Ajax features, none of which seemed to work in my browser. After rebooting and otherwise trying to make the problems go away, it occurred to me to empty my browser’s cache. Since I’m a Firefox user and have the nifty “web developer toolbar” installed, this was a mere mouse-click and a few seconds of waiting — not nearly as painful as doing the same thing in Internet Explorer. Voila! Everything worked as pictured in the video.

The result? Let me tell you… it’s gorgeous. It’s delicious. It’s easy to use. It’s very well done.

I’ve not yet tested every single plug-in I use and recommend for compatibility yet, but I’ve now upgraded 3 of my sites. I’ll be shooting a training video on the upgrade process for members of our marketing training program, so let me know if you’re interested in getting your hands on that video (we’ll have a new enrollment opportunity coming up shortly). The members of that program that are currently in training will have the luxury of finishing their training using this delightful new version of WordPress. It’ll be good!

How ‘Bout You?

What?! You don’t have a WordPress-based website yet? Hmmmm… that probably explains why you’re not ranking well in the search engines for your real prospects’ actual searches. Stay tuned for help on that! Or better yet… subscribe to updates over at the Epiphany Marketing site!

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It just wouldn’t be right to let the day go by without throwing a little web party.  Have a look at that chocolate cake, will ya?

As for the site itself, we couldn’t have done it without WordPress, BigStockPhoto, and a bunch of great readers like you!

For an amusing trip down memory lane, here’s post #1 from September 9, 2006!

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I’ve come to believe that most of them (the businesses) are suffering from dysfunctional strategy.  Perhaps hypo-strategy is a better way to look at it — a sort of neglect where it comes to developing any overall business philosophy or vision.

Why would I say this?

Most small business websites do just about everything except what they should be doing.

Websites should do 3 4 things for a business:

1. Get you noticed
2. Turn prospects who notice you into raving lunatics who will stop at nothing to buy your products or services.
3. Give those prospects multiple ways to: contact you, interact with you, buy from you, and (depending on your business) receive their purchases immediately
4. Get you noticed some more.

If I were to reverse engineer the strategies behind most of the websites put up by small  businesses, I would conclude that the driving business goals were (in no particular order):

• Duplicate our print brochure (from 4 years ago) in HTML
• Show our competition that we can do do that (have a website) too
• Throw uncle/cousin/nephew/grandchild/friend-of-a-friend who “knows about the internet” a bone
• Show the world our lack of taste by giving us a crack at designing (rather than paying for real design work)
• Set it and forget it
• Make it as hard as possible for anyone who might need or product(s) and/or service(s) to actually find us
• Create yet another piece of marketing for which we have no means of measuring effectiveness and ROI

Hey… if you don’t need any more customers or any additional revenue, then by all means, build your website with some of these goals in mind.

But if you’d rather get some results, then there are a couple of things you need:

• Your own self-managed hosting account running Linux or Unix with Apache, PHP, and MySQL
  • There are lots of hosts, but I recommend 1and1.com
• WordPress
• A couple of hours to download, upload, install, and tinker

Why WordPress, you ask?  Two Three reasons:

1. It will get you noticed (as long as you have decent content)
2. It is user-updateable
3. It will get you noticed

Full disclosure:  it would be impossible for me to own any stock in WordPress, because it’s open-source (and they give it away), and the link to 1and1 is an affiliate link (meaning after you buy your account with them, they’ll issue me a small credit).

 ”But David, we don’t have anything worth putting into a blog… and we don’t want to have to keep writing all the time.”

Then just do us all a favor:  close your doors now.

Plus, you can use WordPress as a “content management system” in addition to using it to publish your frequent blog posts.

There’s a lot more to internet marketing than what we’ve mentioned, of course, but in a world where content is king, where frequently-updated content is the supreme king, and where everyone who needs what you’re selling will search for you (most likely using Google), you absolutely must turn on a customer magnet… or watch as your competition gets your future customers instead of you.

By the way, here are some snazzy examples of businesses using WordPress:

• Michael Pink at Selling Among Wolves
• Mountain Lighting Galleries, Hiawassee, Georgia
• Nourish The Dream (OK… a little shameless self-plug)
• Justin DeStoppelaire at C Service Consulting
• Dr. Kassicieh at Sarasota Neurology

There are lots more, of course.  But the main thing to look for is whether a particular business is getting noticed!

Are you?

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