Hello BarCampers, my name is George Huff, but on twitter, my name is georgehuff - nice to meet you.  Over the course of this weekend I attended my first Barcamp.  Well, actually it was my second, but only on the technicality that I caught the tail end party at SXSW in Austin.  This was right before we played Urban Frisbee on the way to another party. Anyhow…

BarCamp is a (geek) conference built like a wiki, we can have a democratic schedule built on the fly.  Want to discuss a topic?  Any topic at all?  Come to BarCamp and paste your topic and name in one of the many timeslots.  At first I decided to be a fly on the wall and sort of take it all in, but then I changed my mind and decided to join up with Bram Piyoto and be an “assistant” presenter where design meets tech.  Hopefully I come across as being less of a jackass than I really am, here’s to hope.

And then came Sunday, while sitting in on a panel discussing hacking existing Wordpress themes I decided to address a need of how to build a theme from scratch. Because I once wrote a post detailing how to simply build a wordpress theme, I decided to build on the basic idea.  But instead of discussing building Eleven3, I discussed my most recent project, HomeSkillet Records.  As I did it last minute, I had a little tiny room with about 8 guests, it may have been light, but it sure was a captive audience! You’re sort of forced to listen with numbers that small - but I hope it was useful for people.

Mmmm Brain Power

Anytime a bunch of geeks get together there is a lot of brain power getting kicked around, so that’s pretty awesome.  What’s great is the general goodwill everyone has.  People are happy to be here and love a chance to have their thoughts and ideas expressed or learn new ones.  Traditionally, other conferences are a little bit idol worshippy feeling, which is fine (cause I am so into Shaun Inman and Jon Hicks), but this one is the opposite.  There are a few “names” here, but generally speaking everyone here is just here to geek out, prettttty awesome.

I had a blast and met many people who I have seen on Twitter - it’s always good to meet people in real life. I am not a stalker.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Something is uniquely jarring about hitting one-thousand twitters. You really want to say something prolific in those 140 characters, but prolific things limited to 140 characters are saved for dead writers or dead politicians. What a dilemma. What a service!

I first signed up for Twitter at SXSWi ‘07, as did many others, and I must say it only holds more promise as more and more people adopt it. Upon coming back from SXSWi ‘07 I did a few things - the first was becoming a bit of a Twitter evangelist, I told everyone about it (hi mom!). I also signed up my good friend Brian - who is soon to be the best man in my wedding.

Poor Brian, you see, I didn’t tell him I signed him up - he just started receiving SMS updates every time I twittered. Brian isn’t a geek either, he appreciates technology when it accentuates other parts of his life - and it doesn’t seem to be an end in itself for him. So instead of embracing Twitter, Brian told me, “What the fuck is Twitter Geo? And how do I unsubscribe?” I never told him - he went and figured it out. I guess the 3am twitters about Internet Explorer 6 became too much.

Once he had unsubscribed he would start texting me random moments like, “just saw a slip and fall in the grocery store,” or, “these white people and their bagels.” But never the, “is feeling…” that my twitters tend to lead off with, Brian doesn’t let his guard down. Anyhow, every time he did this I would just respond, “Twitter.” And eventually I think it set in just what Twitter would bring to accentuate his life - a monologue of his inner “B.”

So if you get the chance follow JustB, or JeongSeouk, or JeffReynolds, or J_P_S, or newtypeofjuice, or ldub, or simulacra09, or just follow my whole list - it’s all entertaining and I feel connected to these people even if I don’t see them every day - or every year.

It has been a year, almost to the day, since I first signed up for Twitter. Here I am posting this blog entry (which auto-twitters every time I write a new entry) as my 1000th twitter. With each new friend that signs on it becomes more interesting and valuable. From the ad-hoc organization to the random ramblings of my good friends abroad - I hope I feel the same at two-thousand twitters.

I didn’t really say anything prolific, but I hopefully amused - so hard to do in these 140 character limitation days.

Twitter is a one-to-many short push messaging service to your most loyal, “followers.”

Popularity: 32% [?]

It’s difficult to tackle any web project and avoid attempting to, “shoot the moon.” Ideas are plentiful and examples even more so. I rep We The Media - that is my sole position. Finding work and finding talent are what I do by day, by night I design, code, and fight crime. I get to wear many hats, which is both burdensome and rewarding. Variety is the spice of life - and a busy life goes speeding by.

Speed is a trait of the entrepreneur, we make things happen quickly, we all think “I can do this or that.” It’s what makes us quit our jobs, it’s what makes us just start things for no reason other than our own thoughts, it’s also, as time goes by, a huge weakness. It’s super tough to rely on anyone else, but it is also absolutely necessary. Often times we think up a strategy and execute without consulting those who have proven valuable. Often times a knee-jerk reaction comes across as a painful execution and an even more painful blunder.

With the WTM website - I could have just designed and built the whole thing. But I know someone who can do it better - and without his help, WTM wouldn’t be where it’s at. It’s been a very slow rewarding process building out wtmworldwide.com piece by piece. We have more that we would like to do - but we are not rushing it. Well, maybe I am pushing it, but have realized a slow marinade is just what the site needs.

Why the entry then? We have carefully launched the We The Blog. WTB, I guess, is an aggregate of all We The Media member blogs. I’m already feeling the pressure because Nick Onken blogs way more than me - I need to keep up! It is just one more channel for us to spread our message of love for the creative souls out there.

Check it out.

Popularity: 34% [?]

As a creative, I once looked wearily upon “networking.” Never because I thought the ideas generated between people or the relationships they had were inherently bad - I was skeptical of networking because it never felt natural to me. A forced relationship at most - brought about by people leveraging each other for personal gain - what good could come of that?

networking gives me tears

Moving from college where one has a pseudo-something to offer to a professional setting where one gains their real value - I have experienced some profound insight. No, nothing new or original - but my tendency to learn by doing and emulating has given me the real reward of what networking truly is - connecting others.

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Popularity: 40% [?]

Yep, that’s a new word, or at least I think I made it up (and if I didn’t, it’s like me to think I made up a word). The bro-conomy, to me, is the economy that exists between “bros.” Or better put, between people that you have, or would like to have, a more than a business/client relationship with - it’s something quite special. So special in fact, that in receiving a $90 dollar sweatshirt for $300+ dollars of work, you are immediately satisfied and feel that you got the good deal.

Think Bro-conomy, Think Big

So how does one crack the bro-conomy nut? When I was at an agency I noticed the guys who were making the deals getting all sorts of cool shit. Occasionally it would trickle down and I would get something like the aforementioned hoody or a circle-hoe. But for the most part it stopped right before the schwag hit the creatives. I think the most important part is exposure to clients. Before the end of this long winded, much adu about nothing post, I’ll talk about web design, a few tips to help one thrive in the bro-conomy, and a few of my own personal bro-conomy stories.

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Popularity: 61% [?]

When I first got into building blogs a few years back, I decided to go with Movable Type. Since then, I have switched to Wordpress and never been happier. Low and behold, Six Apart (the company who owns Movable Type) is coming out with an open source version of Movable Type.

“Because the time was right.”

Uhh, right. Maybe because Wordpress is kicking your ass? At least that’s what I have seen. I’m well versed in both platforms and Wordpress is better at it’s core, and better in its community. The new dashboard for Movable Type 4 looks really nice, and I may install it on this blog (unless I switch to Wordpress sooner, I am itching to redesign). Realistically, unless the open source MT4 is completely BONKERS, it may be too little too late.

Time will tell. Link.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Sometime last night, MySpace decided to shutout certain types of content from Photobucket. With this whole new web thing, we’ll call it web 2, much of it is predicated upon services building onto services. The mashup! One could even think of MySpace pages as a mashup of YouTube Videos, Photobucket slideshows, and whatever else may be. This is a big part of the reason MySpace has been successful. So what did they do? Pulled the plug on Photobucket.

There are many reasons why this is akin to shooting oneself in the foot. First off, if a user has a couple hundred pictures on Photobucket, they’re not going to suddenly upload all of those to MySpace. What they will do is get irritated with MySpace, and remember it.
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Popularity: 13% [?]

So everyone here at SXSW is hot on Twitter. It pricked my curiousity, so I decided to sign up and see what all the fuss is about. OMG! It’s fun! After playing around with it for a bit I have decided there are two sides to Twitter, one of which I didn’t see until I actually started using it, and the other is the obvious side.

The Obvious Side
Texting or Iming “I am eating pringles” is really useless information. People will see it and read over it, it will get no responses. But it was fun for me to know that Twitter-ers will see my words on their screen, whatever. This has no practical purpose except as a visitor to the site, it’s kind of interesting to watch, probably kind of like watching the Search Terms screen at Google Headquarters. From the outside, there is no draw in getting a Twitter account, just watching what other people are doing.
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Popularity: 10% [?]

About five days ago I was given an invite by a co-worker to a new social networking site called Virb. If I had one line to describe Virb to anyone else it would be this: Virb is MySpace’s hot sister who has a ton of experience and a ton of class.

Currently Virb is in beta mode, which means invite only. Which means it’s the “Who ya know” network. I really want Virb to succeed, so after my initial invite frenzy, I have slowed down a bit and will only give invites to those who really will use the service to pass along to others. People should not be on MySpace, they are trying to build a walled-garden and the whole site feels cheap. Virb is the designer’s MySpace.

Having already skinned my profile page, I have a few feelings on Virb, what’s hot and where they can improve. And let me say this, I really truly love it.
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Popularity: 15% [?]

I belong to a few communities and with all of them there seems to be a fine line between a good or bad user experience. To a certain extent, a system in my opinion, can only stay stable for so long, before a variety of factors kick in and a user no longer is enjoying the service they receive.

What makes a good user experience good? What makes a bad user experience bad? Why is it that websites seem to go in and out like trends. Will people soon be too cool for a MySpace page? Or is MySpace here to stay? All of these are questions we can ask, however the answers to all of these questions becomes null if a user is not enjoying their time on a site.
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Popularity: 10% [?]