We are happy to welcome and confirm Craig Strachan as a Speaker at WordCamp Cape Town 2011. Craig will be hosting a session on our Blogger Track and sharing his knowledge on syndicating your blog across platform and growing your readership base.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I have been programming for longer than I care to remember, but suffice to say that I remember when Windows 3.0 was a cool product, and since then I have programmed in most languages. I currently work as an IT and web consultant.
I have been running my blog (www.notesfromthecape.com/) since 2005, in which I keep a photographic journal of my life. I like to view the world through a lens, and create a visual diary of my experiences. I am passionate about photography, and am seldom seen without a camera in my hand.
I have been an active member of Toastmasters for over 10 years, and I believe that everybody should have a voice.
Why WordPress?
Simple, it rocks! It is such an amazing product. While it is powerful, and extensible platform with a huge fan-base, it is rock solid, and even end users can maintain their own content. The release cycle and roadmap is amazing, I have seen it grow from a simple blogging platform into a powerful CMS. The number of addons available to extend WordPress is staggering, whatever you want there is a plugin that supports it (and most are free!).
What are your thoughts on the WordPress community as a whole? And the South African WP community?
The community is great, I know WordPress bloggers and hackers from around the world, but I know very few WordPress users in South Africa, I would like to see a strong user-group that meets regularly to network and share ideas.
Why did you decide to speak at WordCamp Cape Town?
To network with other WordPress users, to contribute to the local knowledge, and because I believe that events like this can only strengthen the use of WordPress in South Africa.
What is your talk going to be about?
Syndicating your blog. Using the power of feeds to increase your readership by automating the distribution of your content. Learn how to increase your readership and gain more exposure to your blog. Learn how to use existing (and mostly free) tools to set-up a system to automatically display your blog posts on Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter. Find out how to provide automated email subscription to new blog posts, and monitor which of these channels are most effective in increasing readership.
What are you most looking forward to at WordCamp Cape Town?
Meeting fellow users and making connections.
What is the one thing you want people to walk away with from your talk?
To learn how easy it is to syndicate your blog.
What is your favourite WordPress theme and/or plugin, and why?
Wp-ecommerce. I took a client website from a static website to a fully integrated ecommerce website including products and credit card payments in about ½ hour. An amazing plugin.
Share one WP tip
The first thing you should do when you install WP is to change the permalink structure to be more friendly – /%postname%/
Who in the WordPress community inspires you? Who do you follow?
That is a tough one, but I think all the plugin and core product developers need to be recognized.
What is the most exciting feature/addition/improvement to WordPress that you have noticed in the last year?
The administrator interface gets better and better.
Where do you see WordPress 2 years from now?
A fully-fledged CMS platform. Better multi-user support.
