All posts by Ben Pollock

Fulbright Building, 217 E. Dickson St., Fayetteville, Arkansas

Pre- and After-Parties, then Jam at WordCamp

#WCFay tips

This year’s WordCamp Fayetteville lists itself as a three-day event, which might worry newcomers with tight schedules. WordCamp really is just Saturday — Aug. 1 this year — three morning and three afternoon sessions with a long lunch in between.

Friday? It’s a party in the evening. Sunday? That’s the “jam,” a few hours where you bring in questions about your website for one-on-one with Saturday’s instructors. And in-between is our traditional after-party early Saturday evening.

All are included in the $35 registration fee. (That is, outside of ponying up for your own adult beverages Friday and Saturday nights.) Here’s some details.

Friday night

mermaidsFor a couple of hours or so starting at 6 p.m. Friday, July 31, will be a reception at Mermaids restaurant, 2217 N. College Ave. (U.S. 71B) in Fayetteville. WordCampers will enjoy heavy hors d’oeuvres in a private room, with a cash bar. Expect some great seafood offerings, with some greener options for vegetarians, at Mermaids.

Mermaids has lots of free parking.

Saturday night

Hawaiian BriansAfter a full day braiding lanyards and canoeing — oops, novices learn WordPress basics while business managers, communicators and coders and designers learn the latest to optimize their websites — we’ll leave campus for downtown where something of a luau awaits.

Hawaiian Brian’s, a half-block off the Square at 25 E. Center St.,  is offering WordCampers “Hawaiian Style Cooking” plus a few surprises. Besides a genuine Tiki bar, the restaurant’s spacious new location offers “giant Jenga style blocks and other games.” Street parking is free around the Square at this hour. Fun!

Sunday morning

New Design School Fayetteville ArkansasStarting at 11 a.m. Sunday, we WordCampers are invited to grab a local coffee or tea on the drive and join the Jam Session. It will be at the New Design School, 217 E. Dickson St. in the noteworthy Roberta Fulbright Building, renovated by architect Marlon Blackwell. There’s plenty of on-site parking in the rear.

WordCamp 2015 instructors and veterans of previous WordCamps will be on hand to answer questions about website issues one on one.

What’s it like? Clue: Previous names for the gathering include “guru gallery” and “WordPress wizards.” Campers who just want to hang out with their new friends and continue conversations also should feel welcome as well.

What’s a better way of saying this? If you stop over midday Sunday, you just might get the best advice you were needing all weekend and plug it into your site right then and see if it works.

U.S. Highway 101 sign

The One-Oh-One – Your Road to WordPress

Track highlights

The 101 Track is not a highway in California but WordCamp Fayetteville’s version of freshman classes, like Bio 101. For people curious about creating their own website or blog, these sessions are for you. WordPress, an open-source platform*, also has the advantage of being largely free. That, and it’s both stable and innovative.

First, and this is important, you’ll find on checking in Saturday, Aug. 1, (advance registration required) a light continental breakfast in the lobby of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development at the University of Arkansas.

The track begins at 9 a.m. with the 101 of the 101, “Intro to WordPress,” led by Fayetteville-based freelance writer Ben Pollock, who also is the coordinator for the beginner classes. The session will cover the basics of using WordPress to create — for free — both blogs and conventional websites for personal and business projects. WordPress.com will be the basis of demonstrations to create a site then create individual pages and posts. WordPress.org — and there are differences with WordPress-dot-com and -dot-org — details will be integrated into the presentation.

At 10, Neal Colston of Paze Interactive will discuss “Essentials about Themes and Plugins,” the building blocks of your WordPress website. Themes are sets of templates for the overall look and features of your WordPress website. Plug-ins are special apps to customize your site.

People exploring website building often see advice or marketing about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. Angela Belford of The Belford Group gives the primer “SEO for Beginners.” Basic settings in WordPress are a great start in optimizing SEO, and primary strategies that Angela will present are wise to keep in mind as you develop your site.

Noon means lunch, included in your registration. Afterward is the 2015 WordCamp keynote address, by Josepha Haden Chomposy.

U.S. Highway 101 signBeginning the afternoon 101 sessions is Jamie Smith with “Writing in WordPress for Beginners.” Jamie, an independent writer for businesses and organizations, explains, “Writing for online audiences is different than writing for print in several ways including different patterns and SEO considerations. This session will give an overview of how online audiences read content, best practices for working through WordPress to get the best SEO and reader-friendly content, and best practices for writing engaging content.”

The last formal 101 session belongs to Christopher Spencer, a content strategist for the University of Arkansas, with “Beginning Google Analytics.” Christopher explains, “The first step to solid content strategy is looking at the behavior of visitors.” He’ll explain how to install Google Analytics into your site and basics to understanding the data.

The beginners track concludes with “WP101 Q and A.” If you didn’t already have lots of questions about WordPress, you surely will by 4 o’clock. Bring in those curiosities and confusion, and experts will be on hand to answer them. Our panelists will include teachers of the 101 programs.

*Open Source — what’s that? Below is a little video with the basics, “What is Open Source, Explained in Lego.” Open-source code is in wide use — Mozilla’s Firefox browser is an example — and it has historical underpinnings going back to Benjamin Franklin.