WordCamp

My Top 10 Takeaways from WordCamp Birmingham 2019

An African-American woman (me!) dressed in a blue t-shirt and floral skirt poses in front of a building standing next to a sign that reads "YP Y'all"
Another WordCamp Birmingham is in the books!

August 10-11, 2019 I attended WordCamp Birmingham 2019, which was held at Rosewood Hall in Homewood. The event featured several different tracks of workshops including sessions on content and business. I had the opportunity to speak, as well, and gave a presentation on using group writing challenges to boost your blog.

I’ve been attending WordCamp Birmingham conferences for years and I always leave with a notebook full of tips and tricks on how to improve my blog and overall content creation process. Honestly, I leave with too much information. I leave with so much information that I usually get too overwhelmed to put any of it into practice.

But this year I’m going to rewrite my story! This year reviewed my notes and made a list of 10 things I will do to put the information into action.

Here are my top 10 takeaways from WordCamp Birmingham 2019…

(more…)

The #1 Thing I Learned at WordCamp Birmingham 2018

Sometimes I feel out of touch.

I’m constantly hearing people say that blogging is dead, that nobody reads anymore. And I get it. I know that video is hot. I know that according to research by Hubspot 45% of people watch an hour or more of video per day and Google has found that half of 18-34s would stop what they’re doing to watch a new video by their favorite YouTube creator. And let’s not forget about the rise of podcasting. But my weekend at WordCamp Birmingham 2018 showed me that I’m not out of touch at all. The fundamentals of blogging that I’ve been learning, implementing, and sharing over the past decade are the same principles that would help me or any other content creator be successful at video and podcasting.

The #1 lesson I learned at WordCamp Birmingham 2018 is that no matter the medium consistency is key.

(more…)

5 Reasons Bloggers Should NOT Attend WordCamp Birmingham 2018

Throwback to the first WordCamp I attended and the t-shirt I got at the conference!

People often ask me why I still bother attending blogging conferences. “You’ve been blogging for a decade,” they say. “Don’t you know what the speakers are going to say before they say it?”

Oftentimes, yes. But not always.

The thing about blogging is it’s always changing. So as a blogger, if you want to keep growing you have to keep learning. And I always learn something new at WordCamp Birmingham.

I was a speaker at last year’s conference but I still attended several sessions, notebook in hand, and I filled the pages of that notebook with blogging strategies for the upcoming year.

This year I’ll be attending WordCamp Birmingham again. WordCamp Birmingham 2018 is set for August 4-5 and will be held at the Pelham Civic Complex. You can learn more and get your tickets at 2018.birmingham.wordcamp.org.

BUY MY TICKET NOW

If you’re eager to learn more about blogging in 2018 and beyond you should be there. But if you think you already know it all, you shouldn’t bother and here are five other reasons you should NOT attend…

Continue reading 5 Reasons Bloggers Should NOT Attend WordCamp Birmingham 2018

5 Reasons You Should Attend WordCamp Birmingham

wplogoblue

Jane needs a makeover.

In the next month or so SeeJaneWriteBham.com is getting a major redesign. Part of this website overhaul will include changing platforms: I’ll be moving See Jane Write from Blogger to WordPress.

For years I was fiercely loyal to Blogger. And even though last year I launched See Jane Write Magazine using WordPress.org and my portfolio website, Javacia.com, using WordPress.com, I still had a soft spot for Blogger. I couldn’t help it. It’s so easy to use and it’s the platform with which I started my very first blog.

Then I attended WordCamp.

WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences that cover various topics related to WordPress, the free and open source publishing software that powers over 75 million websites.

At last year’s WordCamp Birmingham, Sara Cannon — one of the event’s organizers and speakers — said something that was music to my ears: “You can do anything with WordPress.”

I was sold.

I have big plans for See Jane Write and most of those plans will rely on having an amazing website. And so I’m making the move.

This year’s WordCamp Birmingham is set for Saturday, August 16. I’ll be there, of course, and I would love to see some See Jane Write readers there too.

So I’m here to convince you to join me. This isn’t a sponsored post — WordCamp is paying me to sway you. I just really believe that whether you run your blog on WordPress or not, you could learn a lot from this event. (And you’ll get a cool t-shirt.)

(more…)