I attended the WordCamp in Zurich last Saturday.
It’s been a while since I attended a similar geek event and I
enjoyed listening to others.
It was encouraging to hear about WordPress. I’ve used WordPress
since September 2004. And it’s
truly a great sign of continuity that WordPress is still here.
Not only that, but there’s a thriving community and a company
that want to keep it that way as well.
Secondly, it was encouraging to hear from other bloggers and web
developers.
Here’s a quick run through my Twitter notes and faves (like a
Storify summary of Tatort on Spiegel.de ;-)).
First talk I listened to was on trends in
enterprise blogs. I found this talk useful for my day job.
Content must be easy to share, e.g excerpts and images
”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
Comments are being disabled on Enterprise WordPress sites
#wcch”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
Large, enterprise blogs have switched off commenting and are
experimenting with new forms of integrating user interaction,
e.g. by using annotations, or by asking specific questions, or
moving comments entirely to Facebook.
Quartz experimenting with new kinds of comments: annotations
”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
NYT integrates reader comments or they ask specific questions
#wcch”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
Techcrunch moved comments to Facebook, away from wordpress
#wcch”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
What @qz observes in terms
of #longform
(via @rosso) #wcch
pic.twitter.com/EvlD8jGrQf”” Christoph Hess (@christophhess)
May 3, 2014
Regarding content length, short texts and long analysis articles
(aka Longreads) work best.
It’s the mid-length texts between 500 and 800 words that are read
least frequently.
And many of the enterprise sites use extensive email marketing to
bring readers to their site.
Next talk that inspired me was by Vitaly Friedman. He had a fun
starting point by looking at typewriter art in the late 19th
century, which led to ASCI art and teletext.
If the Internet hadn’t appeared, we would all be teletext
designers and developers.
Vitaly Friedman: we are Teletext Designers 2.0 #wcch
”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
I think I’ll print this tweet on dead wood and post it on my
office door:
Delightful ux + value > value > pain #wcch
”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
Vitaly had some excellent UX examples. His message: details
matter for usability.
“URLs are the most valuable currency we have on the web” ”“
Vitaly @smashingmag #wcch
pic.twitter.com/zrFo4wyg08”” Sara Rosso (@rosso) May 3,
2014
Another very enjoyable talk was by Paolo on virtual offices and
distributed teams. First thing to note it’s not only about tools.
The tools should not be the first thing you try to solve when
setting up a distributed team. Three common mistakes are
Trying to mimic a local office setupMeasuring work based on the
wrong metricsSuffering instead of embracing change
Common mistakes: 1 mimic local setup, 2 wrong metrics, 3 suffer
instead of embracing change”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
Recruiting is a very important part of distributed teams. And
because your team is in different places and different timezones,
managers need to empower their team members. Managers must trust
team members to perform and deliver their work packages in time,
in high quality.
Mayor advantage with distributed teams: reducing interruptions,
according to @p3ob7o
#wcch”” Michael Herb (@michael_herb) May
3, 2014
Managers: Give up being a proxy. Give them power to make
decisions and enable direct communication. think peer-to-peer
@p3ob7o #wcch”” Achim Heger (@schlauberg) May
3, 2014
Distributed teams: don’t start with tools but they are part of
it #wcch”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
Next talk:
Successful blogging? Learn how to become yourself. This guy is
funny and to the point, so read his blog at http://t.co/WbuadIBMYp #wcch”” Juliette Fong (@Jufo) May 3,
2014
I liked Christian Leu’s humorous
talk about how to become a successful blogger. His point was
there are tonnes of articles on successful blogging. There’s no
point in repeating this.
Reasons why less traffic: writing less; many bloggers moved to
Twitter #wcch”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
Many long-term bloggers have moved to Twitter and are blogging
less. Main reason given by many is lack of time. As a result,
@leumund presented 10
simple tips to find more time for blogging.
It’s important to stay true to yourself.
Tip 1 ”“ Be yourself
”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
.@leumund : Blogging
on your own domain is getting more difficult”” âœ___CollectThisTweet (@nchenga) May
3, 2014
In summary, it was an enjoyable day.
Videos of the talks will be published WordPress.tv at some point.
Observation: There were several talks on maintaining multilingual
sites with WordPress. For me this is a sign, that WordPress is
used increasingly in a Swiss business environment. Many Swiss
websites (even for SMEs) need to display in German, French,
Italian and English. My humble tip: Consider
using Drupal instead of WordPress for multilingual sites.
Maintaining multi-language sites is part of the Drupal core.
While listening to others present, I thought of two WordPress
presentations which I could present to share some of my more
recent learnings and experience:
Idea no. 1: POSSE and IndieWeb plugins for WordPress ”“ Using
Webmention plugin, an URL shortener and Jetpack’s Publicize
(see
corresponding entry)Idea no.2: Security for non-techies ”“ Make
your WordPress site less vulnerable, even if you’re a
non-developer; about WordPress resources, plugins, advice, where to
get help
Further links:
Blogging in an imperfectly multilingual world
Live blogging
notes by Evren Kiefer
On communication within a distributed team
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nchenga’s Web
2.0 roundup: Links and comments Blog resource links The slides For the #recipe
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