Fall is the season for going back to school (at least in the Northern hemisphere) and it the season for WordCamps!
WordCamps are informal conferences for WordPress users by WordPress users. Designed for the beginning blogger and the experienced professional, these WordCamps are community organized events created so WordPress users can learn and share together.  The topics covered range from everything imaginable about WordPress. This can include how to install WordPress, how to customize your themes,WordPress tips to make your post writing more efficient, using your WordPress installation as a Content Management System (CMS), writing plugins, setting up Multiple User networks like BuddyPress and more! WordCamps have been created the world over, from Alabama, to Mexico City to Romania to Nigeria to Texas.

The basic premise of WordCamp can be summed up as everyone has something to offer and something to learn, and that this about sharing not selling. WordCamps are inexpensive, so finances aren’t a barrier to participation. Attendees usually only pay a small portion of the actual cost of the conference, sponsors pay for the rest because they want to support community and blogging. Speakers usually speak for free, but in some cases their traveling expenses may be reimbursed. A loose set of rules have been established for WordCamps, but individual WordCamps may tweak them a little bit. This is the version of WordCamp ruled adopted by WordCamp Seattle.

1. All attendees must be treated equally. Everyone is a rock star.
2. All content created must be released under a Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or compatible license such as GPL.
3. All attendees must be allowed to participate. (subject to limitations of physical space, of course)
4. All sessions must obey the Law of 2 Feet – if you’re not getting what you want out of the session, you can and should walk out and do something else. There are usually other sessions to choose from so you can find what you are looking for.
5. The event must be WordPress focused – but may crossover to other aspects of new media, including podcasting, video, etc.
6. The financials of a WordCamp must be fully disclosed in an open ledger, except for any donor/sponsor who wishes to remain anonymous.

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, offers support and guidance to groups that want to start a WordCamp in their area. You can find out where WordCamps are happening at WordCamp Central.  There are several scheduled this fall and I will be involved in two of them. Last year, I attended my first WordCamp in Portland. I will be returning again on September 19-20th for my second WordCamp Portland. I was so excited about WordCamp that I became an organizer for the first ever WordCamp Seattle! Word Camp Seattle is 9/26/09 and I am very excited about it.

If you don’t have a WordCamp scheduled in your area, you have two options. The first is to do what I did and plan one! If you aren’t ready to take the plunge, you can participate in WordCamp virtually.  Most WordCamp websites will host slides and videos of the presentation. WordPress even added a special section to WordPressTV just for WordCamp videos. You can search online for blog posts about WordCamp. Last year, I live blogged from WordCamp Portland. You can read my posts about WordCamp Portland 08. I will be live blogging from WordCamp Portland and will try to live blog WordCamp Seattle as well. Stay tuned for posts from both of those WordCamps!

Video, Video, Video! This past week I am being inudated with video in the web is THE next best thing. Video has huge in the Adobe CS4 Launch Webinar. Video was the focuse of two webinars at 16 steps. Video kept coming up at WordCamp Portland.  I know it is a big deal, but it makes me cranky. A lot of my friends are totally addicted to YouTube, spending hours addicted to it. I just don’t understand it and I tend to click out of web pages as soon as I see a video loading.

During the expert panel at WordCamp Portland, I got a big AHA on why video blogs usually drive me nuts. We can process information must faster as text then audio and vidoe because we can control the speed of processing that information. You may gain more information in video and audio post but are you willing to sit there for it? Most of the times I am not. I am a skimmer and probably only read every word in 10% of the posts that I “read”.  Well, OK I might also be a bit of a control freak.   Lorraine also pointed out that it took over 30 hours to create the  10 minute video she created for her key note address. So the time sink is on the production, as well as the reception end. Most of the experts agreed that text blogging will remain the norm for quite awhile.

So should you video blog? Should you incorporate videos and You Tube clips into your blog? There is no question that videos on blogs are widely popular with many. Videos on your blog can definitely be a big draw to your blog for a lot of people. It depends on your audience, your topic, your resources and your own personality. I might post a video clip on this blog but I can guarantee that it will never be of me!

Tonight I will be attending a Un-conference with Jane Wells, one of the Usability Engineers at Automatic. She is working on making WordPress increasingly flexible and user friendly.  Her unConference is all about the best and worst of WordPress and what you want to see changed.  Add your comments here and I will have pass them on during the Unconference tonight. Be heard tonight in Portland whereever you are!  Even if you don’t get to this post before tonight, I will make sure that Jane has this link for future reference.

Plug-ins personalize your blog making it as unique as you are. Chris from CDCStudios has tested all of these and incorporates them into his blog as well as his clients.

DISQUS

Drop in replacement comment management system that allows threaded comments for more integrated discussions. It also has a ranking system and serves a frontline spam catcher to take a load off of Askimet. Out of all of the plug-ins that were new to me, these is by far the most intriguing to me.

Twitter Tools

Auto-tweet new blog posts, sidebar widget for your tweets, archive your tweets and tweet from your blog.

OpenID

A single digital identity for 30,000+ web sites. So if you use OpenID that is one less log in that your users have to remember if they are OpenID users. I HATE having a gazillion log ins. I do have an OpenID but only two of the sites that I use regularly have adopted this as of yet.

Clean Archives Reloaded

All of your posts in one place, shows number of comments and helps with SEO.

WP 2.5 Gallery Lightbox

No special short codes are needed to add this tnifty lightbox to your blog pages.

Super Cache

Creates cached version of your site that speeds up your site because there are less database queries. Logged in users don’t see cached pages, they will always see the current page. This is handy if you got comments pouring in. This is probably one of the most update plug-ins available to WordPress.

WP-Contact Form

Get your feedback securely and prevent spam to your email. It has drop down subject lists and prevents the need for a special email account. It is basically a secure php mailer that resides as it’s own page in your blog.

Mint

This is self hosted but it isn’t free. It does cost $30 per domain. It provides live stats tracking in a customizable dashboard. It has a number of plug-ins like an integration between feedburner and this. Stats update in about 3 minutes after visit. The high degree of customization and flexibility make this stats plug-in stand out among stats plug-ins.

YARPP

Uses a unique scoring system to automatically find relevant related posts. This can be added to each post or use it as a sidebar widget. You do need at least a handful of posts before this is going to show helpful information.

iPhone Webclip Manager

Simple custom bookmark icons for the iPhone. it doesn’t change even if your theme does so your readers keep the convention of your icon constant and easy to find on the iPhone.

WP-DBManager

Automatic backups and can backup to server or email. It will also do optimization to speed up your site. This is probably one of the easiest plugins to use and important. If you want to try a theme from a site other than WordPress, use this plug-in. Unfortunately some hackers are distributing themes that will delete your database tables!

WP Automatic Upgrade

Backs up all of your core files as it runs. Puts your site into maintenance mode while upgrade is progressing. It is all done with from the dashboard. If it is a security patch, it will do it automatically after a set amount of time to keep your site secure. Chris loves this, says it is the most important plugin he is presenting today. Others, including Lorelle, lament how it just plain does NOT work on some web servers and some others it is a bit buggy. This is especially true if the original install was a one button install versus a FTP install.

Sociable

This plugin allows you to choose from 67 different social media sites, try to keep the list under 10. More than that and the list is overwhelming to your users. This list is added to the end of your posts and make it easier for your users to promote your posts. Chris likes this better than Share This because the pop ups on Share this can be wonky on mobile devices.

Honorable Mention:

• Calais Autotagger - Help creating tags for your new posts
• Calais Archive Tagger - Help for creating tags on your archived posts
• Fluency Admin (theme) -Change the look of your admin panel
• iWphone (theme)-Optimize your blog for iPhones!
• Treasurelicious - What do you treasure?

The keynote address at WordCamp Portland is all about How WordPress has changed your life?

The Fairy Blog Mother aka Lorelle VanFossen, preached about the glories of WordPress.

WordPress lets you concentrate on expression, it allows you to actually blog without a ton of tweaking but  plenty of things to  tweak. Let’s talk themes and plug-ins! Crowd favorites here at WordCamp Portland included the DB backup, Askimet, Super cache, Related Posts, Maintenance mode.

In addition, WordPress helps the community by super fast blogs to address diasters such as Katrina and Gustav to a neighborhood responding to a catastrophic arson. The blog, in response to the arson, was up in less than an hour and raised money to aid the survivors.

Lorelle also gave lots of examples about the power of the WordPress community. Blogging community is not just about what you know but also who you know. This ranges from personal friendships to particpating in WordPress forums and networks, WordPress meetups and WordCamps like this one.

Matt’s WordPress philosophy is

• You give away your BEST work
• You  just give it away
• The universe will reward.

Well although Matt doesn’t sell the WordPress software it supports him quite well. How many others are making income as a side effect of providing free consulting, themes and plug-ins? Quite a few hands rose in the audience.

Many testamonials, presented here live or videotaped previously at BlogWorld, talked about how bloggers had found income, respect and a voice. The one that touched me the most was Glenda Watson Hyatt, a woman with cerebral palsy  who blogs with her left thumb. Practically non-verbal due to her disability, her life revolved around email. That changed when someone told her that WordPress was so easy that she could blog, even though she is limited to typing with just her left thumb. Known as the Left Thumb Blogger, she told her story about how people react to her so differently when they know her through her blog first. They already know that she is an intelligent woman with a lot to offer, who happens to have some disabilities. Her Do It Myself Blog and her story reminded me that I too can have a voice in the blogosphere even if I don’t have much of a physical voice any more.