We got to talk about WordCampNZ with Glenn so along I went. It’s all one take and no script plus Glenn live mixes website shots and streams the show on ustream.

There is a tiny video camera somewhere near the microphone but Glenn is over to the left and so the challenge is to talk directly to him and try not to think about the camera.

P.S. Jayson Bryant of  WineVaultTV and Vaughn Davis are regular guests and have both been to WordCampNZ where Jayson presented last time.

Michael presented some very practical insights last August at WordCampNZ. He works with many WordPress sites and is winner of NZ SEO competition.

“More than 50 search engine specialists battled it out over the past three months to attempt to seize the top position on google.co.nz for the keyword – “quadracentifiable” – a fictitious word invented specifically for the competition.

Top of the list when the competition closed at 5pm on November 28th, was the website run by Michael Brandon of SearchMasters , the winner of the inaugural New Zealand SEO Challenge.”…

“In the end it was, according to the winner, sheer hard-work, determination and time that won the competition. “The competition has been all about linking. Who has access to the most links, and the most powerful links from other websites into their competition website. If you need hundreds of other websites to link to you or to client websites, you need a good strategy, and you need it to be cost efficient. We wrote articles that contained links into our sites, then republished unique versions on many websites. The way we executed this proved to be the difference,” Brandon says.”

@simantics is Saquib Ahmed but my friends (and some of my more well acquainted foes) just call me Sim. I am a 20 year old student at the University of Auckland.

Saquibs website is Saquib.me and he used a live stream style tool called Coveritlive (thanks SocialMediaNZ) so that external people could ask questions and follow in the presentations in more detail. We said Status

“The live blog stream is very good if you were taking notes & wanted to check something Good work @simantics #wordcampnz http://ow.ly/2noMr”

There were many tweets from both rooms and much of that was also captured over at Be in the Room thanks to fine support by Lucy  @estateofflux and Be in the Room @eventsonfire.

• Rachel Cunliffe linked here saying, “Last weekend I had the pleasure of being the secon …”
• Jason Kemp linked here saying Thinking is What I Do and included some more photos by Kristina
• Kristina DC Hoeppner linked here saying, “WordCampNZ (Part 2). Aug 9th, 2010. by Kristina D. …”
• Kristina DC Hoeppner linked here saying, “(with apologies to Bill Bennett for writing 5 time …”
• Kristina D.C. Hoeppner. WordCampNZ (Part 3) My summaries of the presentations I listened to at WordCampNZ 2010 continues.
• Michael Brandon (Searchmasters) linked here saying, “Live Blog of WordCamp Auckland This page will be u …”
• Simon Young linked here saying, “WordCamp NZ, 7 August 2010 Unfortunately, I won’t …”

Here is another shot of Bill Bennett (by Kristina) whose presentation on Writing for the web in 300 words was a huge hit. (33,721 35,003 impressions on Twitter so far with clicks and FB actions not far behind)

1. Jayson Bryant – Winevault TV Getting your Video Blog Cranking
2. Rachel Cunliffe -  Cre8d Design Blog designer & Community site Designer – Custom Themes
3. Courtney Lambert – TV3 Social Media & Blogging for Corporates – @cjlambert
4. Michael Brandon SEO101 – search phrase selection, esp for WordPress
5. Richard Hollingum – TEDx Auckland Recommended for all – Making a Difference
6. Quintin Russ – Sitehost WordPress Security
7. Bill Bennett Writing for Blogs
8. Robert Popovic -LER09 BuddyPress Live & other advanced topics
9. Liz Quilty @RHLiz Advanced Hosting – VPS & Others
10. Alex Shiels – Automattic  Is My Blog Working Common problems and how to avoid them
11. Darren Wood Former Codeblack HTML 5 & CSS 3 & Why
12. Anthony Cole Custom Post Types in WP 3.0
13. Bren Faulknor- Murrell- (Mogul) Building Custom Plugins & Advanced WP
14. Dan Milward – Instinct WP e-Commerce Plugin – Inside the Tornado (with one of the worlds most popular WordPress plugins)
15. Suzanne Kendrick, Pippa Coom Community Management at Grey Lynn 2030
16. Sacha Dylan @kaupapa Who Are Your Audience
17. Justin & Sam VitalLink – Vital Gifts Facebook app
18. Matt Miller from Mogul
19. Jeff Ghazally Instinct
20. Jason Kemp DialogCRM
21. Vicky Teinaki who was not a speaker but took notes on twitter for everyone. Awesome work. We love that Jayson Bryant thanked her as one of the team. If we’d thought of that we would have to but actually she just did it. Luckily were able to find her some coffee and a Volt Espresso keepcup.  You can buy the reusuable cafe cups at Pyrenees Bakery / Deli / Cafe at 756 New North Road, Mt Albert.

Still a few sessions to go tomorrow but a great day. Thanks to all of you who came along and shared.

On Sunday morning we have Jeff Ghazally fresh back from WordCampUK, Matt Miller from Mogul & the wordcampnz editor Jason Kemp. Sunday Schedule here

We expect to drill into more live genius bar style specific examples and may even be able to fix, change or at least offer some pointers on the best options for actual sites. Enjoy.

Official kickoff is 9:15 am so you can sleep in a bit but if you want a great coffee – the coffee guy arrives at 8:15am and leaves by 10 so you may need to grab one on the way.

We trust that the speakers are enjoying their keepcups as a small token of our appreciation.

Custom Post Types have been made much easier with WordPress 3.0. There will be several experts on custom post types at WordCamp NZ this year and so we expect it will come up more than once.

The aim is to decode this concept for regular users as well as going into more technical detail for those who want that so this may well be two separate sessions or even a panel if that works.

Anthony and other speakers may well appear more than once. Part of the plan for Sunday generally is to facilitate some un-conference style sessions and workshops in response to feedback from Saturday and other questions.

For example – we know there are some new WordPress users who may want to learn more about various aspects of WordPress that many of us gloss over. So maybe there is a need for a refresher basics session as well. Let us know now or on the day what else you want to hear about.

Last November Anthony – Co-Organizer, Dan from Instinct – a key presenter and myself were at WordCamp Australia (#30) which was held in Sydney. Even though that was only 6 months ago there have been another 25 wordcamp events since then with the mothership event in San Francisco just finishing now.

There are several more in the next few months and so wordcampNZ will be about number 62. WordCamp UK and WordCamp Chicago among them.

What to Expect?

Lots of inspired and community minded people who love using technology in a way that is genuinely helpful. There will be presentations on Themes (design sets), Plugins (mini -applications)  and the glue that holds it all together.

It will be an opportunity to compare notes with others working across town or elsewhere including those working with incredible subject matter and projects.

From my personal experience (Jason) I have worked with every content management system from the early days up to Vignette and very big proprietary systems.  What sets WordPress apart is the speed with which is can be utilised by project people who have a passion without needing to get too fussed about the technical side. It just works.

As a project manager I look after more than 50 websites and every now and then I have to go rescue someone who is stuck, but the underlying logic and overall flexibility means we can always find an easy fix to almost any scenario out there.

As an English & Law graduate from way back I have been looking forward to the day when the technology can be pushed in almost any direction without most of the previous tech constraints.

WordcampNZ is an opportunity to break down more technology barriers and genuinely help businesses and personal enthusiasts alike to express themselves.

See you in Wellington on August 8th & 9th.