Archives for January 2011

Managing Your Editorial Calendar in WordPress

by Jeff Hester · Jan 31, 2011

I can see the headline now: “Time travel is now a reality,” says leading WordPress scientist.

One of the features that many people either 1. never learned about or 2. forget that it is there is the ability to schedule posts for publication at a specific date and time.

By default, when you initially publish a post or page, or save a draft, WordPress will grab the current date and time and use this as the publication date. You can override this to either back-date a post or post date for future publishing. This is great for scheduling posts when you know you want to announce something when you will be offline, or when you need to embargo information until a particular time.

To change the publish date, simply click the edit link in the Publish block and you’ll gave options to set the month, day, year and time of the post. Yes, time travel really is possible.

Note that if you select a date in the future, the Publish button smartly changes to a Schedule button. Pretty clever.

If you are going for consistency over time, another great tool is the Editorial Calendar plugin available in the WordPress plugin repository. This adds a new Calendar link in your Posts menu, which then displays a scrollable calendar showing all your posts plotted over it. From here you can add new posts, schedule posts for future publication and get a clear picture of when articles need to be ready. Here’s a screencast from the plugin author Zack Grossbart that shows all the bells and whistles.

I’m using this more and more as I add rigor to my publishing schedule as part of my project for 365 posts in 365 days. I’m able to slot in topics that I know I want to cover, and do it on a timeline that makes sense. I can collect my thoughts in a draft mode, then polish up the post before publication. If I finish early, I just schedule the post to go live on the selected date.

What tips and techniques do you use to manage your editorial calendar?

U.S. Speed Sport Goes Live

by Jeff Hester · Jan 30, 2011

One of my latest projects went live this weekend. U.S. Speed Sport is devoted to the memory of one of the pioneers of hot rodding, Ted McMullen and his company U.S. Speed Sport.

It’s a WordPress powered site using a custom theme I built on the Studiopress Genesis framework. Why build on the Genesis framework? Genesis provides strong search engine optimization out-of-the-box, dead-simple WordPress upgrades and a great set of core widgets. Now the client can add pages, customize menus and change images on the homepage or headers without requiring a developer.

U.S. Speed Sport also uses Gravity Forms for intelligent form design and handling, and Slickr Flickr to integrate photo galleries hosted on Flickr.

Check out U.S. Speed Sport.

Seth Godin Returns to Orange County

by Jeff Hester · Jan 29, 2011

Seth Godin is coming to Orange County! Godin’s twelve books — all of them bestsellers — deal with the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. His blog is considered the most popular marketing blog in the world. And he’s coming to Orange County and you can hear him speak.

On March 2, Seth will be speaking at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. The event — organized by Bryan Elliot as part of Linked Orange County — is a great opportunity to hear from the innovative thought leader who usually is only seen at exclusive events like TED. Tickets are available now, and this is likely to sell out.

I’ve read several of his books, including The Big Moo, Small is the New Big, and Linchpin. He has a way of cutting through the crap and addressing your customer (be they internal or external) in a whole new way. Check out all of Seth Godin’s books (affiliate link).

What’s your take on Seth Godin? Let me know if you going on March 2, and I’ll make a point to say hello.

Meet Me at WordCamp San Francisco

by Jeff Hester · Jan 28, 2011

This year WordCamp San Francisco celebrates it’s fifth anniversary. I attended the first WordCamp SF way back in 2007. It was a much more intimate affair back then, and the sense of community was unmistakable.

Five years later, the event has grown to three days, and a much bigger venue than that humble beginning. The dates for WordCamp SF and venue have been confirmed: August 12-14 at the Mission Bay Conference Center. According to Jane Wells, the tentative plan is to focus programming for publishers on Friday, bloggers on Saturday, and developers on Sunday.

Who should go to WordCamp SF?

If you work with WordPress, whether for your own sites or clients, WordCamp provides a unique opportunity for intensive learning and community building. You’ll rub elbows with others who love and use WordPress, everyone from designers and developers to small-time bloggers and big corporate names (yes, they use WordPress too!).

wordcamp2007 — The first ever WordCamp SF back in 2007

WordCamp SF is the biggest and original WordCamp, and is where Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg delivers his annual State of the Word address. WordCamp SF is different from the many excellent local WordCamps. While the local events generally focus more exclusively on WordPress, the San Francisco event pulls in some big name speakers talking about bigger topics.

I highly recommend attending a local WordCamp for the intensive learning and networking opportunity with local WordPress folks. For me, I attend WordCamp OC (I helped Brandon Dove and Jeffrey Zinn of Pixel Jar organize last year) and WordCamp LA. This year, I’ll probably be found at WordCamp San Diego, too.

Another great local option? Check out Meetup.com for local WordPress user groups. We are fortunate here in Orange County to have a very active group organized by Jeff Turner and Steve Zehngut of Zeek Interactive.

If you can swing the trip to San Francisco, also attend WordCamp SF for the inside scoop and the inspiration. It’s a big event, and like any big conference, it helps to network with other attendees before you go to make the most of the trip.

You can find a complete list of local WordCamp events at WordCamp Central. For instance, this very weekend there’s WordCamp Phoenix (Hey guys, look forward to hearing all about it!).

Mark your calendars for WordCamp SF, and be sure to let me know if you are planning on attending. We’ll meet up for a cold beverage!

Visualize Your Professional Network with InMaps

by Jeff Hester · Jan 27, 2011

LinkedIn Labs has introduced InMaps – a visualization of your LinkedIn network. I first heard about InMaps via a Tweet from fellow #SMMOCer Mel Aclaro. LinkedIn wisely made sharing easy, and so a quick search will find plenty of fresh tweets about this as people discover the new feature.

I gave InMaps a quick spin and quickly discovered LinkedIn’s not-so-subtle ulterior motive: You can’t create a visualization unless you have at least 50 connections and your profile is at least 75% complete.

I’ll bet you a cold beverage that LinkedIn enjoys an sudden surge in both profile completion and network connections as a result.

For LinkedIn, it’s a brilliant move. By offering something sexy that people want (the groovy diagrams) but requiring them to step up and engage on a deeper level, the entire network wins. And (theoretically) they drive the behavior that they want from their community — people sharing deeper knowledge about their experience and connections.

How can we bring change to our community/organization/business/world? One small incentive at a time.

If you care, you can check out my visualization, create your own, or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Happy Birthday, Annie!

by Jeff Hester · Jan 26, 2011

Today is a very special day. My sweetheart is celebrating The Big Five-Oh. She likes to tease me saying she’s been waiting for me for 50 years, but I think she has that backwards.

Somersault

You’re the warmth in my summer breeze
You’re the ivory to my ebony keys
You would share your last jelly bean
You would somersault in sand with me

-Zero 7

Annie, I look forward to the next 50 years and the adventures that lie ahead!

Happy Birthday!

And for those who might be confused, Annie = Joan.

If I Were The Boss…

by Jeff Hester · Jan 25, 2011

Knowledge management (KM) can help transform an organization as people begin to connect, leveraging the best knowledge and expertise to improve work processes and deliverables. Last week, I discussed what KM means on a personal level. In many ways, KM thinking is a mindset. The KM mind questions the value of everything, and challenges us to upend the status quo and discover innovative solutions.

One of the ways I sharpen my own KM mindset is through discussion and collaboration with other KM professionals and evangelists. Early today in one of those groups — KMers.org — we discussed how we would run things (from a KM mindset) “if I were the boss.”

Rob Swanwick moderated this tweet chat, seeding the conversation with three questions on “how we would run things (from a KM mindset)”:

If I ran conferences…
If I ran all meetings…
If I controlled the direction for social media in my organization…

This led to a lively discussion with Rob Swanwick, Kate Bowers, Stan Garfield, Barbara Fillip, Liz Williams and others. While there were some excellent, practical tips for running conferences, meetings and managing social media, there was one key concept that particularly stuck out above all else:

THE REAL VALUE LIES IN RELATIONSHIPS

I used to get excited about what I would learn at a conference. It’s taken a few years, but now I understand that the real value isn’t in the content of any particular presentation or discussion, but in the relationships forged and strengthened. Recent research at IBM and MIT confirms this, even going so far as to put a dollar value on those connections. In their estimation, each contact is worth $948 in revenue.

Putting aside the absurdity of assigning a dollar value to a relationship, I suggest that the real value is much, much higher. And we understand this, intrinsically. During our tweet chat, I posed the following question to illustrate this point:

While this in no way diminishes the value of the chat, discussion or presentation itself, it does drive home the point that what really matters is the connections. In knowing you, I am a better person. And vice versa. Together we are smarter, more productive, more interesting, more capable than we could ever be on our own. Our diverse perspectives and experience blend to create a wonderful collaborative stew.

If you’re interested in more, you can read the full tweet chat transcript, and continue the dialogue. If you are a KMer, please join is each Tuesday at noon Eastern time for our weekly tweet chat, hosted at KMers.org, and share your thoughts on the future of KM.