SMOjoe.com

WordCamp is an information buffet.

There are times when you can learn as much as you can handle as fast as you can handle it. At WordCamp, everywhere you look there is someone very interesting and very knowledgeable waiting to talk, and their name and business is printed right on their badge. For someone like me, a hermit who stays home and surfs for one gem a week, this is information overload, and that’s probably what this post will look like…
This blog post will celebrate the gems of knowledge that I learned at WordCamp Toronto 2009.

Friday morning I arrived at 8:30am and recruited help getting my laptop setup. When I asked eight strangers which of them was the smartest, one tall man stood up and introduced himself. John Leschinski of Leschinski Design fixed my new PC’s networking issues at WordCamp 2009 in a Toronto second. Now I follow John on Twitter and hope he’ll continue to school me. That’s Lorelle on Wordpress hanging off him.

Twenty minutes later I watched Terry Smith of B5 Media digest Splendicity.com which is unique because it’s built using Wordpress MU (Multi User) with elements from Buddypress and bbpress.

Then I had lunch with Dan Zen who treated the occasion much like a round table discussion and asked everyone to introduce themselves and then explain what they did for a living.

Friday Afternoon at 2pm Smojoe social media anchored a round table discussion in Track3 wherein I outlined some of the basic constructs of my own social media marketing tactics.

Friday at 3pm in Track1, Erin Blaskie

Erin Blaskie and her sister, Trina traveled from Ottawa

At 3pm Erin outlined how she’s using social media tools to make her alter ego Erin Games famous on the internet. I had to smile when I saw that she’s using the Brian Gardiner Lifestyle ‘Revolution’ template (the exact same one that I have asked Darryl at Deezilla to customize for Queen West Girl.)

Erin has mass knowledge about how to make YouTube videos go viral and seems to have her finger on the pulse of the videogame community - she showed off some other powerful media tools that let people watch her gaming. They are hungry for tips and tricks that will give them an edge over their friends. Erin has had a lot of success as a guest blogger on some big video game websites, the names of which didn’t catch…

After her presentation there was some discussion in the audience about the mental shift that’s required to stop being just a documentarian and start becoming the star of your own blog. Its all about finding the confidence to hand your camera to your friend and ask them to photograph you at the event, because you are the focus, and the event is just the backdrop

The next day, Saturday I attempted to learn something about PostRank.com

I’ll admit some of this stuff just goes right over my head

Joey deVilla is a Microsoft evangalist

Joey was one of the superstars at WordCamp. He is very approachable and immensely entertaining. His website Global Nerdy is excellent, and his personal blog, Joey deVilla.com is definitely worth a gander.

Here are some pictures of Joey playing his accordion to much applause at The Drake Hotel. While outside sunning our bodies he related more wisdom from the empire. Joey mentioned a book by Maggie Mason, “Nobody Cares What You Had For Lunch” and he believes every blogger read it… ok well that’s not exactly what he said, but that’s what I took away…

WordCamp Toronto 2009 Opening Night Party at Lou Dawgs

The basement restaurant that hosted the opening night party was fashioned from concrete and decorated with a thin veneer of paint and wood. I thought it was odd that they only served Sleemans brand beer, but that wasn’t the only negative about Lou Dawgs - worst was the acoustics. In this environment there was no place for the sound to go… Any band would have been too loud.  The blues band, Spy vs Spy was over 30 decibels too loud, and consequently most of the attendees left the bar to continue their conversations out on the sidewalk.

Many thanks to David Peralty the writer and thinker and photographer behind Branding David. What a great beer shot! This is Paul Perrier and Andrew Ainsworth and me.