Attending NEPA WordPress Meetup for March 2017

Last night was the NEPA WordPress Meetup for March 2017. It was a panel discussion regarding how agencies use WordPress with Jack Reager of Black Out Design (our gracious host, thanks Jack and team), Liam Dempsey and Lauren Pittenger of LBDesign in the Philadelphia-area, and your’s truly of Condron Media.

As these types of events typically do, the discussion meandered through many different topics including the reasons our agencies have decided to use WordPress as our platform for many of our projects, about how someone can get started using WordPress, about JavaScript and how it is the language that is currently eating the web, and even a bit about baking bread somehow.

One question that was posited by Phil Erb, our moderator for the evening, was what do the agencies or individuals get out of the WordPress community. Most of the answers were focused on what each individual gleans from WordPress-related events. If you’ve read my blog at all you know that I’m a strong advocate for attending events and that I think they have immense value. It was good to see all of the panelists agree on this point. I hope it spurs some in the audience to attend even more events and certainly more events out of the area and bring that energy and knowledge back to our nook in the mountains here in Pennsylvania.

It was a great meetup in a great space. Very glad to have been part of it.

Thanks to Phil and Stephanie for organizing the event, to Jack and his team for opening up their new space to us (they should be proud of the space they’ve created there, it is lovely), to Liam and Lauren for driving a few hours through fog and lastly to Liam for sharing his Duke’s pizza with me.

March 29, 2017

Lauren Pittenger’s Bookmarked series

Lauren Pittenger:

Inspired by Colin Devroe’s What I Saw This Week series and Elise Blaha‘s newsletters come my own series of posts of links I find worth sharing.

Excellent. You can follow along via her bookmarked tag.

January 23, 2017

Power-save mode

Lauren Pittenger:

Reminds me of all of the times I’ve been told I’m too quiet, or “you haven’t moved from this spot this entire party.” Or feeling bad about hanging out with (only) my cat all the time or that weird thing where I can write better than I speak. Or sitting as far away from everyone at the cafe to read a book about introverts. Or my favorite, being commanded “talk to me.”

I can’t understand everyone. I can’t completely understand any one person either. I can, however, fully recognize that (and try to remember that each day) and attempt to be empathic.

I know I struggle with this. I’m probably one of the people Lauren is describing above. I’m constantly trying to “make up” for someone else’s silence. Why? I’d likely tell you it is because I’m trying to make the other person comfortable. However, it is more likely that silence makes me uncomfortable. I’m loud. But I dislike noise. I’m (seemingly, but not at all) confident. I love being in front of people. I dislike being around people. I like being alone. I get lonely. I’m motivated and depressed at the same exact time.

I may never even fully understand myself let alone someone else. But maybe, just maybe, I can put their interests in front of my own. And, if I notice they are sitting by themselves being quiet, I can just keep quiet myself.

January 14, 2017