WordCamp Utah 2008 Wrap Up

Had a great time at WordCamp Utah on Saturday. The Open Source Technology Center at Novell was great. There was plenty of water and snacks. And there were plenty of people in attendance.

I have to give thanks to Joseph Scott for pulling off such a great event.

Here are some pictures I took at WordCamp. I'm using the NextGen Gallery plug-in instead of Flickr. While I use the gallery feature to store pictures, audio and video, I didn't use it to actually show a gallery of photos.

After some struggle to get the gallery manager to work right, I think I finally have it figured out. I think the issue was more user error than application error.

[album=1,extend]

And a link to my presentation video from Ustream. Thanks to RockyMountainVoices.com and Jake Spurlock for the video.

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WordCamp Coming To Utah

Joseph Scott mentioned to me at PodCampSLC that he was interested in having a WordCamp here in Utah. I thought it was a fantastic idea. So over the past few weeks we've talked about it and it looks like the event is going forward.

Because this is a community event, it's important that everyone get involved early. We only have a few months to put a great camp together. Please join us on April 10th at 6:30, Applebees in Draper, for a first draft WordCamp Utah meet-up. There's a lot to cover and we need as many people as possible to help out. Let us know you're coming on upcoming.org.

Another thing we want is bloggers to present topics at WordCamp. There will be a spot on the WordCamp Utah site to register and sign up to present.

This is a great opportunity to meet other WordPress bloggers, learn more about the platform, network, and get some great ideas to succeed.

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CouchCast With Rocky Mountain Voices Brad Baldwin

Visit CouchCast.org for all of our shows. Come and be part of this sometimes wacky, sometimes funny and sometimes techie podcast. Hosted by Robert Merrill, Matthew Reinbold and Thom Allen.

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CouchCast With Automattics Joseph Scott

Visit CouchCast.org for all of our shows. Come and be part of this wacky funny sometimes techy, sometimes not, podcast. Hosted by Robert Merrill, Matthew Reinbold and Thom Allen.

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CouchCast With SocialOptimizes Jesse Stay

Visit CouchCast.org for all of our shows. Come and be part of this wacky funny sometimes techy, sometimes not, podcast. Hosted by Robert Merrill, Matthew Reinbold and Thom Allen.

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PodCampSLC Is Getting Close

We only have five days before PodCampSLC kicks off. The current schedule we have at the moment:

9-10 Come by and get your name tag, get a seat, and schedule your discussions
10-11 Kick off and Keynote by Michael Harper, Professor, Utah Valley University
11:15-12:15 Attend Session 1, join another discussion, or start your own
12:15-1:15 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Attend Session 2, join another discussion, or start your own
2:45-3:45 Attend Session 3, join another discussion, or start your own
4 Wrap up, comments and final thoughts

There will be a Podcasting Genius Bar -- Completely open access to recorders, cameras, software, and experts. Michael Harper, from UVSC/UVU, is driving this offering. Please contact Michael with suggestions or to volunteer -- harpermi AT uvsc DOT edu.

We need to be out of the building as soon as we can after the wrap up.

Bring your friends, business associates, anyone who is interested in sharing ideas or learning more about new media. Thanks, and we'll see you there.

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Great Meetup With Matt Mullenweg Of Automattic

Had the great opportunity to meet with Matt Mullenweg of Automattic (creators of Wordpress) today. He was in Salt Lake City and was kind enough to attend a lunch. There were about 40 people there and I met a lot of new local Salt Lake bloggers. I hope these new found friends will attend future events. Building a strong blogger community is important for everyone. Thanks for the fun.

Thanks to Joseph Scott for getting this lunch put together.

Pictures from the lunch on Flickr.

(P.S. Sorry Matt for spelling your last name wrong, what a moron I am.)

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January Codeaway Rocked, Literally

Thanks to Laura Moncur and Matthew Reinbold, and host location Wasatch Wingz, for putting on a killer Codeaway. There were nearly 20 people in attendance. Rock band was playing the entire time. The wings were incredible and there was plenty of shop talk.

If you didn't come you really missed out. Look for the next Codeaway announcement at codeaway.org.

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Changes For PodCampSLC

Hello everyone, I hope you've had a great holiday. I wanted to take some time and talk about the PodCampSLC event that was scheduled for January 26th, 2008.

When Lorri Randle and I set out a few months ago to put on a PodCamp here in Salt Lake, we had no idea just how much of a challenge we were facing. There was a lot of excitement on our part and we wanted to make sure we had a great community event. The idea behind a PodCamp is the un-conference, or attendee driven content, and this a very exciting platform to present topics on new media. We know there are a considerable number of podcaster, blogger and vloggers in the Salt Lake City and surrounding area, and we really wanted to get this group together.

There were some significant hurdles early on regarding the location. While we struggled for several weeks to secure a location that was feasible for this type of event, we were eventually able to work something out with a local technology related school, Neumont University, to let us use their campus for the PodCampSLC event. We felt this was a critical part of the success of PodCamp.

Our next hurdle were the Holidays, that included Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. We also knew everyone's attentions would be focused on something other than PodCamp. Over the past few weeks we have received a number of emails regarding the date. The one thing I've been adamant about is the date would not change, no matter what. We can change the location, the content, or anything else about PodCamp, but not the date. But what we've heard from a considerable number of people who want to attend, January just isn't a good month for them, for many different reasons.

Since this is a community event, we want the entire community to be involved. This isn't just my event. So, we think it makes sense to push the event out a few months to give everyone time to put it on their calendar, and we get an opportunity to spread the word. It pains me actually, to make a change like this. But hey, nothing is perfect and neither are we. We just want to make sure we can all participate and get something out of PodCamp.

With that said, the new date of PodCampSLC will be March 15th, 2008, from 10AM to 4PM. Check in will take place from 9AM-10AM.

We hope everyone in the Salt Lake City and surrounding areas will look at this as a huge opportunity to help grow the new media community even more. We have some really outstanding people here and I'm so excited to get to meet and learn from everyone. Please help us spread the word. Include the date, the place and the time in your blog posts, your podcast's, let's create some excitement.

If you have made travel plans to get here, and this puts you in a real bind, please contact me off-line and I'll see if there is something I can do.

There are a number of volunteer activities we could really use your help with. I'll be outlining those in another blog entry, we are just looking for the community to get involved. That's what this is all about, our community. Make it ROCK!

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Utah Geek/Blogger Dinner Tonight

Tonight is the Utah Geek/Blogger dinner at Sampan at the Southtowne Mall in Sandy. Here is a link to the details.

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Final CodeAway Of The Year Tomorrow

Tomorrow, Saturday November 17th is CodeAway. From 1-5, come and talk shop, code, games and eat treats. As usual the Moncur's are graciously hosting the get together. Free WiFi and a cozy atmosphere are guaranteed. If you come, bring a friend and something to share with everyone.

Visit the CodeAway website for more details and location information. See you there.

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Props To My Peeps

I've slacked over the past few weeks on my weekly props and thought it was a good time get back at it.

This weeks prop goes out to Brad Baldwin. I recently connected with Brad at a really great pizza place in Draper Utah. Brad is a driving force behind Rocky Mountain Voices. I've known who Brad is for some time but was never able to meet. He reached out through LinkedIn which is pretty cool.

One thing I've learned about Brad is he really wants to build a strong community of new media providers and consumers. There are a number of podcasters and videocasters in the Intermountain West and Rocky Mountain Voices is set as the place to find all of these gems. If you're a podcaster or videocaster, or your business needs help getting started, Brad and his production company may be the answer.

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Excellent Utah Facebook Developer Garage

Yesterday was the second Utah Facebook Developer Garage and we had a decent turnout. We talked about a couple new features of the Facebook API, Mobile capabilities and the new Invitation screen.

I want to thank Tim Stay of Know More Media for letting us use his conference room at the last minute. We had munchies, discussed the viability of Facebook and Social network applications, and future Garage events. I think fun was had by all.

I posted a couple of pics on the Facebook group, but I also posted them here for those not a member of Facebook.

Also, thanks to Jess Stay for making sure this whole thing happened.

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Utah Geek/Blogger Dinner Tonight

Hey everyone, tonight there is a Geek/Blogger dinner in Sandy, Utah. Get all the details here. Have fun without me.

Time and Place
Date: Thursday, October 25, 2007
Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Hometown Buffet
Street: 10390 S State St
City/Town: Sandy City, UT

Gcal link
Facebook link

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Benefit Dinner for Injured Utah Father

Hey all, there is a dinner tonight to benefit a friend of Ash Buckles who was paralyzed from the chest down in an auto accident a few weeks ago. This man is a Father of two and has one due in a few weeks. This is an extreme hardship on the family and his friends are trying to do what ever they can. Visit Ash's blog for more details on the dinner.

To take it one step further, if you can't make the dinner, please consider donating to the Family. There is a PayPal button on Ash's website that will let you donate what ever you feel you can. I've seen this community come together to support those in need. We need to do it now. Thanks for your support.

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Photowalking Salt Lake City v2

Yesterdays Photowalk on the west side of Salt Lake City was exciting and fun. This was my first Photowalk and I wasn't really sure what to expect. I felt a little intimidated with my starter Nikon D40, but after I'd had a chance to meet everyone and we got moving I forgot about the gear and just started taking pictures.

I hadn't been to this area of Salt Lake City in quiet a while. This is an area completely under construction, mixed with transients, a train station, a bus station and of all things Art Galleries. The architecture was great. Ann picked a really good location.

I took a lot of photos, 151 to be exact. Most of them were dupes trying to get better angles or lighting. Some had nothing to do with the theme of the Photowalk. And mostly I was just taking pictures of things that caught my eye. I'm still learning and so its important to try all kinds of things to see how they turn out.

Some of the pictures I took were too dark, or blurry, but some came out much better than I had hoped. You can see all of my photos here and the groups photos here. I can't wait for the next one.

The group photo above was shot by Harley Pebley. He gave me permission to use it. I'm the guy in the red shirt.

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The Writers 10% Rule

A few weeks ago I met a really great Writer named Ken Rand. Ken has been a writer for a very long time. He's written everything from newspaper articles to short stories to novels. One of the really cools things about Ken's writing is he covers a broad range of genres. If you want to learn from a writer who has done it all, Ken is your man.

While I was at Mountain Con III I bought a book from Ken called The 10% Solution. One of the panels Ken was on he talked about how you can self edit your writing using several passes to cut out all the fluff, or as he called it, the 10% reduction. Every time you read through your manuscript find areas that can be compressed using smaller or fewer words or removing entire paragraphs. When you're done you will have a more concise story and something more pleasing for Editors to read.

You can apply this same solution to writing blog posts. I try to reduce what I write by 10%. Some times its just not possible to reduce what you've written but I would at least try.

Side note here. Ken didn't ask me or pay me to say anything about this book. I have truly gotten a lot out of it and just wanted to share it with all of you.

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Utah Facebook Developer Sells Popular LDS Application

Facebook is fast becoming a platform that Micro ISV's can make a serious amount of money writing and selling applications. Facebook has an established developer program and the API is well documented. This openness makes it very easy for developers to write applications and get it into the hands of Facebook users quickly.

The Facebook phenomenon is unique because it has a very tight nit group of users. When one user recommends an application, group or event, its pretty likely anyone connected with that user will follow. That's the power of Social Networks. A budding entrepreneur may find it easy to enter this market and build a brand leading to bigger and better projects.

The rumor mill is spinning this morning surrounding the private sale of a very successful Facebook application called LDS App. Here is what the author, Jesse Stay, says about the application:

Are you a Mormon? Proudly display your beliefs with this Facebook application! The "LDS" application adds a random scripture verse to your profile, selected from the 4 standard works of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. This verse also links back to http://scriptures.lds.org so visitors to your profile can see the context of the scriptures you are sharing.

My sources, who shall remain nameless, but reliable, indicated that More Good Foundation, a Utah Non-Profit whose mission states "The More Good Foundation helps persons of all faiths find accurate information about the Mormon Church on the Internet.", appears to be the purchaser. Of course there's no comment from the organization.

My unnamed sources also speculated the price to be somewhere near $2 a user. Apparently there are around 13,000 users who have the application installed. That's a big audience, and at two dollars a user its a pretty good chunk of change. Again, not verified by the author, but I feel very confident in the rumors I've heard.

Regardless of the terms or the buyer, the point I'm really trying to make here is Facebook does have a strong platform and a consumer base willing to pay for quality applications. I wish Jesse the best of luck in further development of this product and others.

Here is a link to Jesse's original announcement regarding the LDS App.

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Photowalking comes to Utah

I'm really excited I found this post on Photowalking.org. I keep reading about Thomas Hawk and Robert Scoble photo walking and I've wanted to participate in one. I have even thought about organizing one for Salt Lake City. However, Rich Legg has already scheduled one for October 6th, 2007, starting at the Salt Palace. It's a great location. It's also LDS Conference weekend so there will be lots of lights and people. Lots to shoot I'm sure.

Come out and join us, even if all you have is a point and shoot. I want to meet more photographers in Salt Lake City. Thanks.

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Blogging the Utah Blogger Dinner

So it's that time again. Utah Blogger Dinner. We always have a great time at the Blogger Dinner. Several of our regulars couldn't make it. Some are in CA at the Podcast and New Media Expo, and others are busy doing life stuff. That's what's great about this meet-up, come if you can and if not see you at the next one.

Today we had

• Tyler Whitaker
• Matthew Reinbold
• Clint Goudie-Nice
• Jake Spurlock and Wife
• Jesse Stay
• Ash Buckles
• Allen Young and Wife
• Rand Bateman

If you are a Facebook user find some pics here, if not check them on Flickr.

Are you a Utah blogger and in the Salt Lake City area? Come out and meet other bloggers. Subscribe to my blog, I always share when the next meet-up will take place.

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