Introduction to WordPress Content Management Solution
Next Class:
06/14/2010 – 5 pm to 8 pm
For all levels of experience
Tired of feeling like you work to pay for your website, instead of your website working to pay you?
It used to be that web development required software engineers, and for some tasks and desirable functionality that is still true. But for many small businesses and organizations the financial burden of maintaining or making changes to their websites prevents them from being as dynamic as today’s social media craved customers require.
It really doesn’t have to be like anymore, the tools have evolved to point that can enable anyone who is capable of writing an email or a blog post to manage their website. Consider this your crash course in content management with WordPress. At the end of the class you’ll be able to use these tools to create and publish web pages, blog posts and manage multimedia content. You will understand the significance of SEO and content syndication, and you’ll have a better understanding of when to DIY and when to seek a professional.
We will cover (in non tech terms but actually English):
Content Management Systems (CMS)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Syndication (RSS)
Intro WordPress
Intro to Themes
Intro to Plugins
3 class hours – $150 per student – Limited to 20 students
It was really foggy and wet as I made my way from Manchester to Rindge but on the up side – it wasn’t snowing. Even in the rain and mist Franklin Pierce campus is gorgeous. How fortunate are the people who get to work and study in that atmosphere.
We started the morning listening to and learning from Kathy Eneguess, NHWHEL chair and president of White Mountains Community College in Berlin, NH. Kathy and I had met previously when I presented at the New England Regional Conference of Small Business Development Consultants held at the Mt. Washington Hotel last year. Kathy has a very cool way of being, she’s very engaging in subtle ways. Something about her knowing smile and the pace of her cadence tell me she’d be fun to just talk to, and at the same time I get the feeling she’s not likely to sit around wasting time “just talking” about anything. She seems to me, a very purposeful women.
Kathy was our MC of sorts and led the business activity of the conference as well and introduced us to our speakers, the first of whom was Kim Mooney, PhD. Kim is the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Franklin Pierce University (and our host for the day – thank you Franklin Pierce!). Kim told us about a Franklin Pierce certificate program for Women in Leadership. A great idea! The really awesome part to me is that this certificate program is open to, and designed for, non-matriculated students (yes!). I think this is the kind of opportunity to both learn from and to educate the business community. It is just exactly what we need all over the state. I’m certain the student aids in the room beamed as Kim also let it be known that she felt we could all learn from our students, especially with respect to the changing communication and technological landscape. I think she’s right.
The last speaker of the morning was Betsy Gardella, president and CEO of New Hampshire Public Radio. Betsy talked to us about change. She reflected on her days in college using computers, which involved punch cards and hoping for successful print outs. She admited that if not for “Spell Check” she may have never left her self-correcting typewriter. Things do change, and people do find new ways to communicate and participate. At NHPR she has seen change not only in how radio is consumed but in how the news is reported. So much comes from the listener now, as they are first “in-the-know”. NHPR has seen huge increase in their public insight network which now has four thousand members here in New Hampshire. I think the economy has probably played a big role in the adoption of social media. People want “to do something” in times of crisis, anything to help. Participating, responding and reporting all let us “do something”, I’ve recently become a member of the network myself (you can sign up too).
I led one two hour workshop on institutional social media policy development. We had some great conversation there and I was fortunate to have a great mix of individuals at varying levels of social media adoption at their respective organizations. After the workshop I hurried back to the hall to prepare for my keynote presentation.
I tweeted: 11:40 AM Apr 9th
“First session on sm policy complete..one person said it was the best two hrs of her life…only cost me a few $ 
#nhwhel #fb”
“Prepping for keynote…hope I don’t bore them or offend anyone…little nervous …I really respect these women. #nhwhel #fb”
See, I was really challenged to come up with the content for this session. I have so many shared core values with this group of women. I could have spoken about social media for marketing and advancement, or social media for community development and donor cultivation. I could have really enjoyed talking about social media as an educational resource and the use of these tools in the class rooms around the world. I could have talked a good talk about any of those topics, but I didn’t. Instead of entertaining these amazing educational leaders with the latest and greatest gadgets, I took the opportunity to ask them to make some real changes, I asked them to step up to social responsibility. I asked them for social media education. To make change at their institutions, demanding social media education for faculty and staff as well as students. You coulda heard a pin drop
Benn Stevens is an intern with Aleuromedia. Live Free or Die Laughing is a New Hampshire based comedy troupe with a conscience, Mike Koutrobis is a long time personal friend all round great guy.
Logo Project (authored by Benn Stevens)
Live Free or Die Laughing Logo Redesign.
When this opportunity first presented itself to me I thought, “awesome, a chance to do a logo design would be amazing,” and it was, BUT … I wasn’t prepared for how challenging it would actually be.
At the beginning of this project when I saw the original logo for Live Free or Die Laughing I thought that it was a clever logo, simple but not really attention getting. I believed that I could create a better one.
It was much harder than I had anticipated.
My project requirements were pretty simple I thought:
- create a logo that is easy to see
- create a logo that is recognizable
- keep with the New Hampshire theme
- keep the existing size and shape
- keep the existing text
I had some basic idea but those initial thoughts ended up setting my mind on one track and didn’t allow me to see other good ideas. I got stuck. I ended up going to friends for their thoughts, but they were a little less than helpful. In the end I came up with a few logo ideas (see “OMG I did that? 1-5″) that were way too simple, bland and worse than the original LFDL logo.
OMG I did that? 1
OMG I did that? 2
OMG I did that? 3
OMG I did that? 4
OMG I did that? 5
These logos efforts were nothing to be proud of, and I needed something to focus on that would get me unstuck.
After a some conversation with Kelley-Sue about reacquainting myself with the brand I was trying to represent visually. We talked about different ways we might actually die laughing in New Hamshire.
Once I had the juices flowing again and was able to come up with ideas that were more detailed, interesting and even entertaining. This second set of logos that I created were incredibly fun to play which made the project less like work overall. But I was still not there yet…
These logos, while fun, might lend someone to believe that laughter is found at the bottom of a bottle, and that is definitely not at all the message I was trying to deliver. So I went back it but with a much better attitude.
My first shot at this project, in all honesty, was something that I am not proud of, but something that I’m glad happened. It allowed me to break down the walls that I had built around myself and work in a more freeing atmosphere, hence the somewhat wild logos in the second batch. All in all, the spark of an idea, a kick in the pants, and a creative process is what really got me going on this project (and that conversation with Kelley-Sue is going to stay with me for a long time). “Sometime you need to get out of your own way. Let the creative juices flow.”
These are my final concepts. Hope you like them.
Next week I’ll get to present on behalf of the New Hampshire Women in Higher Education Leadership (NHWHEL) at their annual conference. This year’s conference at Franklin Pierce University is entitled “Leadership and Networking in a Technological World: The impact of Social Media and New Technologies on Communication, Collaboration, and Career Development.” That’s a lot of words (very nice impact on the SEO too)!
When Heidi Pettigrew called to ask if I’d be interested in being the lunchtime Keynote speaker, I was thrilled but for completely selfish reasons. Education is a core value for me and the lack of social media education in current curricula has been a real concern of mine over the past few of years. When I taught Social Media to Marketing and Business students for Daniel Webster College last year I was shocked at how little the students understood about how to use the tools for career advancement, or even how much of an impact the use of the tools would have on their future. We all know, that what we don’t know, can and usually does hurt us. Teaching about the changes in communication and consequence of these changes is imperative.
The NHWHEL conference presents an opportunity for me to tell a roomful of educators and higher ed leadership just exactly what I think is important. I’ll get to talk about our responsibility to teach students how to thrive in this rapidly changing world, where everything and everyone seems to be connected to something else. I’ll get to remind them that you can’t educate, really educate, unless you’re listening and learning too. We’ll get to reflect on the world before Google and imagine teaching and learning, globally, without it. Then we’ll look into the future, without walls without barriers, to collaborative education. I’d love to bring your message to that room too. What do you think is important for these folks to know? Leave a comment, tweet me or drop me a note.
I’ve also taken the opportunity to present at the conference on “Developing Your Institutional Social Media Policy and the 4 P’s”. The last thing I want is for a wonderful educator to find themselves unprotected or in conflict with their institution regarding the use of social media tools in their classrooms. The way I see it, one champion when armed with the right questions, can move an organization into a position of strength faster than an army of socmed savvy students. If we can get the institutions and educational organizations to develop social media plans and policies, then we can give educators freedom to communicate with their students, and empower students to learn, teach, collaborate and pretty much change the world.
If you want to know more about the four P’s you can find plenty in my slideshares or shoot me an email, I’ll almost always do what I can to help.
KTF
-KSL
CONFR – Social Media Workshop- Clip
February 2, 2010