This past week has been crazy busy. The Chat Creative website finally went live yesterday, and now we have our Facebook Fan Page up and running as of today. I am so excited to have FUEL Brand Network on board with us, supporting us. I can't describe how big of a deal this is. Also, we are hooking up with Design Community Twitter Hours to work together on helping build the design community.
I am really grateful to Chris Wallace for his help and WordPress skills to help the Chat Creative site come together in such a short amount of time. Also a big amount of respect is due to Brad Colbow for his awesome illustration he did for me for the site. I have already promised these guys a beer or two. So now we just have to work out a time to meet up.
But above all I have to say how awesome my wife is. Her patience with me while I spent most of my free time working on the Chat Creative website is a blessing. I'm happy to have a wife who supports me and all my endeavors. Plus she plays roller derby, so she's pretty much a bad ass. If you're not already doing so, follow her on twitter @Sweet_Baby_Jane.
Thank you guys for all your support with Chat Creative.
The day started off with my alarm at 6 am. After meeting up with my brosephs Charles and Caleb at Starbucks we set off to the UTD campus for some early registration, an hour early to be precise. But I wanted to make sure we got great seats. Plus I was excited to meet some new people and hear from all the speakers.
Speaking of meeting new people, I had the pleasure of meeting Cali Lewis, from GeekBrief.tv. Cali started geekbrief.tv a few years ago with her husband to pursue her passion in new media. She was by far the best speaker at todays session. Her energy and passion for new media and building a community was very refreshing. Below are some of my notes over her presentation.
7 Rules for Building a Vibrant Community
What is it you want people to walk away from your blog with? Cali said that for geekbrief.tv it's a smile. I think for myself it would have to be a sense of belonging or that you learn something.
Rule #1 - Know thyself... Know they Blog!
* This can take a while and plenty of practice to know yourself and what you have to say. I kind of feel like I'm still getting there, but am gaining traction.
Rule #2 - Start compelling conversation!
* This is what I'm doing with chatcreative.com by attempting to bridge the gap for the design community, one step closer. This is what people like Aaron Irizarry, David and Marc Perel and others are doing with their blogs and videos.
Rule #3 - Be an asset!
* Add value. Start a conversation. This pretty much ties in with the previous rule.
Rule #4 - Make Friends Not Fans!
* We don't want to talk "at" our community, but rather talk "with" our community. Take Gary Vaynerchuck as the perfect example. Cali talks about meeting new media stars who treat their community as fans vs. friends. We don't need to separate ourselves as "unique" and "special" but just as ourselves... ordinary people who make mistakes. And when we have a great group of "friends" then they are much more forgiving when we make a mistake.
Listen to your community doesn't mean we have to change what we're doing.
Rule #5 - Show Appreciation!
* Cali really hits the nail on the head about being responsive and thankful to everyone who connects with us. Setting up google alerts is a great way you can watch what people are saying about you, and then respond.
Rule #6 - Take Breaks!
* This is something that I believe in whole-heartedly. Taking time to step away from the computer and get some fresh air, or whatever, is essential to regain focus. Take today for example, if we didn't have breaks every hour I would've gone crazy. There is only so long I can sit in front of a computer before I feel disconnected and burned out on ideas.
Rule #7 - Always Be Upgrading!
* We all have to start somewhere. Don't be afraid to make those first steps. But also, don't get stuck in a rut of doing the same thing over and over, especially if it isn't working. And remember, we can upgrade more than just our equipment. Think about your technique, whether in writing or designing or video blogging, and also the depth of your content. I always like to think there is room for improvement.
Some Last Words
I really enjoyed getting to meet some new people today and hear what they do. Among them were two really talented young men, 13 year-old Jackson Fall of livingdigitally.tv and 16 year-old Clay Griffiths who is working on a new theme called Headway. I was able to get a sneak peek at the theme on Friday night and have to say it's going to be a game changer for all other theme makers.
The first day of WordCamp Dallas 2009 ended on a high note at Sherlocks pub and grill with friends, both new and old, and a few beers. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow and hearing from Matt Mullenweg.
Today I wanted to let you guys know about the Dallas Wordcamp that will be going on next weekend (June 27 and June 28). Please register if you haven't already, there are going to be a ton of great door prizes and some great speakers. Matt Mullenweg will be speaking on Sunday afternoon about the state of WordPress as well as a Q&A session. I look forward to seeing everyone there.
Also I touch on an all too common subject... being honest. More importantly about not being afraid to voice our honest professional opinion. We don't have to be a jerk to say how we really feel, but if we never speak up no one will know. There's no such thing as a mind reader.
Managing my client relationships is something I'm learning right now. And I have to say that I haven't always been the best at it. It's easy for me to be laid back and wait for them to contact me instead of being more proactive. But the more independent work I get the more I see how important it is to stay in touch with my clients and make sure their needs are being met. Putting just a little bit of extra effort in can go a long ways.
Please forgive the camera shaking. I was holding it by hand and didn't realize how sensitive it was. I need to use a tripod next time.
Links Mentioned
Caleb White - Thanks for lending me the Flip Mino camera
Dallas WordCamp - Register now before it's too late
Garth Humbert - Looking forward to meeting this guy
Today is a special birthday vlog. This week has been crazy busy, with my Mom being in town and all. But I wanted to share a few things that have really struck me recently.
1. Yesterday I watched this clip of Gary Vaynerchuk at the 2008 Web Expo where he talks about doing what we love, and forgetting the rest. Not necessarily that we quit our day jobs, but that in our spare time we really dig deep in to what we our passionate about. And if we can turn our passion in to profit then that's even better.
I have a huge amount of respect for every single freelance/independent designer out there who is making a living. They are the ones pouring their hearts in to projects that they love, not projects for some other company or organization. One day I will cross that threshold, but for now I am going to kill it in my spare time.
2. Tinychat is blowing up. I've been on it at least 3-4 times over the last week, and it's a great way to put a face with the name of the people you talk to on twitter. I've had some great conversation already, but I'm really excited to explore the possibilities it offers us.
Earlier this morning I had a chat with fellow artist and twitterer Brad Colbow about his work. I've been following him on twitter and on his website for quite a while now, but tinychat allows us to break the visual barrier and meet semi face-to-face. While we were talking he showed me a board game he designed for his daughter last christmas called Soapy the kitty game. Brad is seriously talented.
Finally, I have to say I'm extremely grateful for Garth Humbert throwing a few projects my way. I met Garth through Aaron Irizarry and have to say he is another talented, freaking awesome guy I have met via twitter. I am really looking forward to collaborating with him on these couple of projects and whatever is to come in the future.
Here is a sneak peak snapshot of me sketching away on one of the projects. (via @charleswilliams)
Thanks everyone.
p.s. - If you haven't heard already, Squarespace is giving away 30 iPhones in 30 days. Genius marketing scheme? Or the end of twitter? Either way I want one.
I'm back with my second video blog, thanks again to all of you who left a comment, critique or other piece of advice. I value what you have to say and it's helping me get better at this.
Today I wanted to talk about relationships, and how important they are in the realm of social networking. Regardless of how many followers I have on Twitter, because sometimes it can be overwhelming, I am glad to have a group of people to really invest in. And that's what I think we should focus on, people not popularity.
Here in my first "official" video blog I talk about the design community and give some shout outs to a few people worth mentioning. I recorded this last night in bed, armed with just a few notes on what I wanted to talk about and my sleepy dogs for comfort.
This is part of a process where I'm learning things don't have to be perfect in order to be posted. So please, I would love to hear any and all comments (so long as they're constructive) and any tips to making it better. Hopefully this will become a regular part of my blog.
Just wanted to post a quick update about what's going on here at kylesteed.com. This past Friday I finally moved my site over to MediaTemple with great expectations. But things didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. On Saturday I migrated my site and came to find that I could only view my homepage, no other links would work, at all. So after some quick investigation I realized there was a permissions problem with my .htaccess file. Ok, boom, fixed that problem but my site was still lagging horribly. No kidding, I would have to wait at least a minute or two before my site would even load. I submitted a trouble ticket on Saturday and then Sunday ended up calling the 24/7 support desk at MT. I really didn't get much troubleshooting help besides being told to try and disable all plugins and see if that helps. Well it didn't.
Fast forward to about 30 minutes ago when I just installed a fresh version of WP and imported all my old content back in. Everything was running smoothly until I uploaded my theme and tried to activate it that I found the real problem all along. There is something in my theme that is causing the huge lag time on my site. But since I am working on a new theme I just wanted to get something simple and clean up here in the mean time. Thanks to @iandstewart for the fantastic thematic theme. It provides me a very clean look while I finish up my brand new look behind the scenes.
So with all that said and done I am very happy to be on Media Temple. The increase in speed is quite noticeable over my old host, GoDaddy. And another plus I was able to get an extra $40 credited to my account for mentioning the code "TWEETLUV". So Now I can purchase my wife's domain name and get her set up with her own website. She'll be happy about that.
Updated January 13, 2010 - My site is no longer hosted with MediaTemple, but instead I am now in the awesome care of Firehost.
