If you have the slightest interest in WordPress, content management systems, blogging, or the Portland tech community you should definitely make it to WordCamp Portland on September 18th and 19th. The event is an absolute steal at $40! You’ll get a chance to see and hear presentations on a fantastic variety of subjects, in a classic casually-brilliant Portland environment. My talk is on analytics, of course. The title is Measure Twice, Blog Once, and it will cover a variety of methods and tools that can help you get more actionable data on your WordPress site. The list of WordCamp Portland speakers and registration for WordCamp Portland. Hope to see you there!
Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
Adam is Speaking at WordCamp Portland Next Month
Portland Web Analytics Wednesday – May 2010
Just a quick post to let everyone know that we are sponsoring Web Analytics Wednesday next week with Webtrends. Bill Kent from Response Capture will be presenting on their landing page optimization techniques and findings. This should be a very interesting presentation for anyone with an interest in analytics, but also in general landing page optimization (you PPC folks, I’m looking at you). So please come out and have some free drinks and food and socialize with the local analytics community. Hope to see you there!
Oregon Entrepreneurs Network Academic Outreach at Work
As most of our colleagues in Portland know, SwellPath is a big supporter of Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and the entrepreneur community in Portland. I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel for aspiring young entrepreneurs in Portland. Students from the University of Portland, Willamette University, and Portland State University were invited. I put together a write-up on the event on the OEN Community site. Check it out if you have a chance. It is great to see both the universities participating in this, and OEN as well.
Web Analytics Wednesday at eROI
Our friends at eROI are graciously hosting the first Portland Web Analytics Wednesday of 2010 on January 27th, and Adam will be giving a short presentation on real-time analytics. We will be on the 4th floor at eROI, which is located at 505 Northwest Couch Street. As always, everyone is welcome, from existing Web Analytics practitioners to those with even a passing interest in the field.
The event will begin roughly at 5:30pm, with drinks and snacks provided by eROI and SwellPath Interactive. There will be a short presentation by Adam Ware from SwellPath Interactive on options and applications for real-time analytics reporting. Several tracking platforms and tools will be covered, potential application of real-time reporting in various online marketing programs will be discussed, and then some short case-studies and examples will be presented.
The expected schedule is as follows:
5:30 – 6:30: Networking/Drinks/Snacks
6:30 – 7:00: Presentation by Adam Ware from SwellPath
7:00 – 8:00: Questions/Discussion/Networking
More information and please RSVP on Upcoming, and on the WAW website.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Takeaways from WordCamp Portland
I’ve finally had a chance to put down some thoughts about WordCamp Portland, which was hosted at WebTrends last weekend. First off, what an amazing event. The group dynamic was fantastic; it was a great mix of developers, marketers, bloggers, general WordPress users, designers, and others. Second, hats off to Aaron Hockley (@ahockley), Besty Richter (@betsywhim), Dale Chumbley (@dalechumbley), and all of the other volunteers and people that made it possible. Next, props to the other sponsors for putting their money where their blogs are and enabling a stellar setup. Finally, what’s a conference without great presenters? I took away great nuggets from every presentation I attended (and watched); which I can’t always say after leaving an conference. I can’t possibly cover them all, but I want to point a few takeaways that I found the most beneficial for medium-to-large businesses using WordPress as a blogging solution, or even as their complete CMS.
Speeding Up WordPress
Jason Grigs (@grigs) kicked off the event with Speed Up WordPress, an awesome presentation for WordPress administrators (i.e. users) that outlines several methods for speeding up delivery of your WordPress content. This is excellent for those of us running heavily customized sites with many plugins, or those with high numbers of daily visitors. From database efficiencies, to caching, to image optimization, and more; I guarantee there is something in this presentation you are neglecting on your WordPress installation (unless your Jason, or maybe @turoczy now).
Scaling WordPress to the Next Level
Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt), the founder of WordPress, did a Q+A session on day one that was great. I’d never seen Matt speak, and I was blown away by how engaging he was. With the growth of the WordPress empire, I really believe Matt is one of the most influential internet entrepreneurs ever.
One of the last questions Matt answered was in regards to how WordPress is being used for sites that are far from being blogs, and sites that see massive traffic. I had a similar question queued up, because as we make recommendations to some of our larger clients, regarding content management system decisions, we want to be confident that WordPress is being developed to handle the “non-traditional” things it is being made to do by users and developers. Matt’s reply to this question gave me confidence that WordPress will be able to handle the load as developers customize it more and more, and larger sites push the product.
More Takeaways
Many more takeaways from the event, here are a few:
Duane Storyey (@duanestorey) developer of WPtouch, gave a great preso on WPtouch and mobile web development in general.
Shayne Sanderson (@shaynesanderson) showed us how awesome the WP Ecommerce plugin has become, and how it can be used in WordPress MU.
Will Norris (@willnorris) on How Not to Build a WordPress Plugin, for developers (a bit beyond me, but interesting).
There were many many more awesome presentations and breakout sessions. Check the Twitter feed for #wcpdx, and checkout the official WordCamp Portland site for links to streams, descriptions on presentations, and other good info.
Get Free Bacon From Bac’n
[UPDATE] Congrats to @WyattWerner on winning the Bac’n! Thanks Wyatt, everyone that “entered”, and all WordCamp Portland attendees!
SwellPath is Sponsoring WordCamp Portland
We here at SwellPath are big advocates for WordPress, as you may have noticed our site is built on WordPress. I’ve been building sites in WordPress for a few years now, and I am continually impressed with the support and offering of plugins and themes, as well as the progress and improvements that are constantly made to the platform. You can learn more about WordCamp Portland here, and learn more about WordPress here. Hope to see you at WordCamp!
SwellPath Launch Party Photos
A few weeks ago we had our launch party/open house. Here are some photos our good friend Justin Meyers took at the event:
Thanks to everyone who came!
SwellPath Open House
After months of beta, our new offices are finally presentable enough for a launch party! April 2nd, come over for an open house; we’ll be serving drinks and hors d’oeuvres, and a chance to meet our clients, partners, friends, staff, and see our new digs. We’re now down in the Pearl, so we coordinated it to coincide with First Thursday in April.
If you want to bring kids, feel free, there will be some little ones running around.
Location:
SwellPath Headquarters
401 NW 13th Ave
Portland, OR 97209
Google Maps Shizzow
Thursday, April 2, 5:30 – 8:30
See you then!
Beyond the Pageview: DevGroup NW Meeting Next Week
Next Thursday, March 19th, I’ll be presenting at Devgroup NW’s monthly meeting, which is also part of the Webvisions Speaker Series. The presentation is Beyond the Pageview: What’s Going On with Your Dynamic Content?. Here’s a description:
Tracking activity on web sites used to be all about the pageviews and visit paths. Now dynamic content means most interaction is taking place between page loads. Getting web analytics tracking involved in this interaction is still often overlooked, avoided, or feared. This session examines good and bad ways to integrate web analytics tracking beginning in the design phase, and how doing so can benefit designers and developers as much as it benefits marketers. Learn how visitors are interacting with your work, and use the knowledge to drive your own personal design and development decisions.
Complete information can be found here: http://www.webvisionsevent.com/wp/?p=131
Hope to see you there!
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