WordCamp Denver 2009 organizer recap

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The following is a behind-the-scenes look at WordCamp Denver, a local WordPress-oriented conference, that Crowd Favorite (my employer) volunteered to organize for the Denver/Boulder community. From my perspective as the primary organizer (and not necessarily that of Crowd Favorite), a few lessons worth sharing with anyone organizing an event for nerds:

Start early, anticipate bumps: no matter how many times you plan an event (this was not my first) you forget details. Get started early, take lots of notes and outline all the various things that need to happen (including the minutiae that needs to happen the day-of the event). Also, be sure to follow-up with people (speakers, sponsors, venues, printers, etc.). If we hadn’t pro-actively followed-up on some details (and assumed everything was taken care of as promised) we may not have had shirts printed in time nor a venue reserved for the after-party.

Leverage your network: luckily for us, a lot of great friends and contacts in the Denver/Boulder area stepped up to volunteer their time (speakers) and money (sponsors). Because these people made themselves available, we were able to throw a full-day event at an awesome venue (Denver Art Museum), and an after-party for people to mingle and mix (and still keep it accessible for 300+ people to attend).
Tickets will sell themselves: though nerve-wracking and always a concern, conferences and events like WordCamp will sell out. Every event I’ve organized has always had dozens of people clamoring for tickets at the last minute and offering cold hard cash at the door. As a participant, I understand the reasoning: you hear about it late, you realize cool people will be there, your plans were TBD up until a certain point, etc. As an organizer, consider setting aside some ‘reserve’ tickets that you can open up for the people that realize ‘sold out’ means ‘I can’t come’. Frankly, you can charge a premium for these tickets.

Let the people socialize: one criticism, though from a vocal minority, is that there weren’t enough structured breaks. On the contrary, we set aside a full two hours at the Paramount Cafe so that people could mingle and meet each other and the speakers. What you’ll often find at conferences is people will set aside their own time. If they don’t like the panelists, they’ll go into the lobby and strike up conversations. Make sure you have adequate space for people to step out and not disturb sessions in-progress.
You can’t please everyone: it’s a well-known fact that you can do your best and people will still leave your event unhappy. We tried to mitigate some of this risk in a number of ways. You’ll notice a number of conferences split up sessions into multiple tracks so that individuals can attend those that appeal most to them. We also (thanks to sponsorship) were able to keep the ticket prices lower (which means a higher perceived value of the event): if people give you a hard time after organizing an 8-hour conference that only cost $30, well, it’s hard for anyone to argue they didn’t get their money’s worth.

Keeping this all in mind: have fun. As an organizer it’s amazing how many people will go out of their way to find you and say thanks; it’s why we volunteer to put on events like this. Thanks to everyone who attended WordCamp Denver 2009.

PS: nobody has perfected the art of wifi/phone service when massive amounts of people are in the same place at once (look at the inauguration or SXSW 2009). I’m really, truly sorry you had a hard time live-tweeting about how young Dave Moyer was. ;)

Things I learned at SXSWi 2009

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Just a few of the important lessons I’ve learned here in Austin.

Sleep is precious.
Housekeeping doesn’t know that.
~~Dodgeball~~Foursquare is fun to play.
Companies: Twitter is not the secret to success (nor the end-game); you’re not Zappos.
People really like BBQ in Texas.
Gary Vaynerchuk is still a badass.
But, other cyber celebrities like Scoble becomes less respectable (and relevant) each and every day.
John Gruber talks the same way he writes: smartly (and hasn’t had to buy himself a drink in 7 years, his words).
Companies: Despite the “convenience” of the internet, people still love picking up a phone and talking to a smart, capable human.
Nerd conferences are the only place you’ll see lines for the men’s bathroom but not the women’s.

WordCamp Denver 2009

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There will be a few weeks of little things here and there, but, yes, it’s over. The first WordPress conference in Denver has come and gone and I survived. Thanks to Alex and Rachel for their help running the conference and doing the legwork I couldn’t get to. A big thanks to the volunteers who showed up early to help out: Mike, Mike, and Kristal. Finally, a big thanks to the speakers who came to speak.

So far, the feedback coming in is great. As always, you can’t please everybody all the time. Plus, shit happens; it’s to be expected. I don’t think we would’ve done too much differently, though. There are always trade-offs and I think we did the best we could given the circumstances.

Denver has attracted a ton of talent and interesting individuals and I hope WordCamp was a good event for them. I’ll post some thoughts and experiences over at Mind Averse when I get a few minutes.

Taxes filed, beware TurboTax

Back from Africa, I don't have malaria

Save time with TimeSvr virtual assistants

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I’ve always been a big advocate of outsourcing through the use of virtual assistants. In fact, I wrote about personal assistants back in March and had started using a service called GetFriday. I had some mixed experiences (like sending a birthday greeting when it wasn’t someone’s birthday) and decided the cost was no longer justified.

TimeSvr exceeds my expectations

Out of the blue, as I was thinking I needed to drop my assistant, I received an e-mail from the CEO of TimeSvr. He and I exchanged e-mails a bit. Let me pause and note: I was getting e-mail responses from the CEO faster than my assistant at GetFriday. I decided I needed to give TimeSvr a test run and I’m so glad I did.

Now this post isn’t meant to put down any other services (including the one popularized by Tim Ferriss), it’s to demonstrate how my expectations were far exceeded within my first day of use:

Web-based task tracking: with other services, you send an e-mail to your assistant and wait for a confirmation. TimeSvr provides you with a dashboard that shows all your tasks with and responses, updates, etc.
Timeliness of responses: the service has remained small to provide for better quality. Many of the other virtual assistant services have grown far larger than they could handle. I’ve found TimeSvr will get back to me in as little as an hour as opposed to a day.
Excellent English skills: it was very obvious to me that the assistants excel at the language. Some of my more enjoyable e-mails had been from previous assistants in broken English. I can actually talk to my assistant on the phone now, I couldn’t easily do that before.
Effectiveness exceeds expectations: every time I get a response from an assigned task I always think “wow, s/he’s good!”. I had to find a replacement kitchen accessory: my assistant placed calls to numerous retailers to find the part, the manufacturer, provided me with the warranty details, etc. I was floored with the level of detail I was handed.

I love assigning a task and getting a call back in an hour or two with my assistant and a customer service representative on the line. “Hello Devin, this is ______, I have ______ on the line with me and they’d like to confirm _________. Okay, thank you, Devin.” Wow. I didn’t even realize you could get someone on the phone from __________.

The best part of TimeSvr is the fact they probably don’t put themselves in the same category of services that I’ve used in the past (which were touted as the best, at the time):

We really don’t compare ourselves to anyone. We just saw a market underserved and decided to fill the void. -Zaki Mahomed, CEO

TimeSvr features

This is a company that “gets it”. They understand the web worker like myself, especially. You have various mediums to submit a task, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.

E-mail: Sending tasks to the tasks e-mail will automatically get routed and assigned immediately. You can see these tasks appear in your dashboard.
Skype: Chat with the Skype account to submit a task. If you’re on instant messenger all day, why not?
Phone: If you’re on the road and need to cancel an appointment just pick up the phone and let them know.

And here’s one of the best features, if you’re a trusting person: complete your profile. Simply fill out your contact details, calendar credentials, authorized credit card number, shipping address, travel preferences, etc. Once you’ve provided all your details, the possibilities for easily assigning tasks open up.

If you don’t want to provide everything up front, then simply include it in the task. I’ve had insurance payments made, online subscriptions canceled. I even “lost” a gift certificate applied to my Amazon account. Within minutes my assistant found which item the certificate was applied to. I thought it had just expired… oops.

Try it for yourself

TimeSvr is far more affordable than any comparable service I’ve found out there. At $69 per month you receive unlimited basic tasks (book a flight, cancel this appointment) and up to 8 hours of extended (or complex) task time. The team is available 24/7 including holidays which exceeds most other service I’ve looked into.

I can’t recommend these guys enough. Go ahead and sign up today. You can try them out for three days, free.

My assistant wrote this post

Just joking. But I did ask them (in the form of a task) what they thought were the three best things about the service. They were “saving precious time”, “really cost effective solutions”, and “privacy control” (with explanations for each). I was impressed and agree. Sorry to disappoint but I really haven’t found anything negative to say about this group.

The government's role in the economy

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As a follow-up to this week’s previous post about the stock market and automakers, here is Rachel with more on how the economy works.

I think one of the most common misconceptions is that the government is in charge of creating money. Yes, they produce physical cash and they attempt to manage the money supply via interest rates, discount rates, and reserve requirements. But if you look at these ways that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve can manipulate the money supply, it’s largely through controlling the bank’s actions. And while the government usually plays a strong role in determining the amount of money in circulation, lately it’s found that it’s ability to affect change has been limited.

Banks utilize fractional reserve requirements to leverage the amount of money they are able to loan. Essentially a reserve ratio is a limit set by the government that ties the amount of loans made to the amount of deposits held by the bank. Conservatively, banks today have a required reserve ratio of 10% (and in some cases 3% or 0%). This means that for every $100 of legal tender that is deposited with the bank, the bank is allowed to loan out $90. Should this $90 be spent in such a way that it is eventually re-deposited with a bank, that bank is able to issue a new loan of $81 based on their fractional reserve requirements. If this process continues uninterrupted, the bank can issue up to $1,000 in newly created fiat money from that original $100 deposit. Because bank credit has been legally decreed by the government to be a medium of exchange, the banks just created $900.

For a bank to remain operational, reserve requirements must be met every day, meaning that a bank must have the correct ratio of deposits to outstanding loans. Previously, banks could borrow from each other if they had a shortfall of deposits or, for a small interest rate, lend any excess deposits overnight to banks in need. So what does the current landscape look like? As more and more institutions become crippled and sometimes bankrupted by their bad loans and “toxic assets”, the inter-bank lending market has seen increased stagnation. Banks are scared of what yet undisclosed disaster may lie in wait on each others’ balance sheets, and thus are unwilling to lend to any entity that they deem to be a risk in returning their capital. Banks who previously relied on the operational flexibility allowed by the market’s liquidity (read: all of the them) are now severely limiting credit issued to consumers, as the existence of their business depends on them keeping what remains of their balance sheet in check.

What does all that mean? No lending. And what happens when the banks refuse to lend money, not to individuals, not to corporations, not even to each other? The end result is that you have an economy used to the periodic injection of $900 waiting in fear, unable to find financing for basic individual and business needs. As the perception that the money supply has dried up continues, consumers stop spending and businesses are then hit with decreased revenue in addition to loss of credit. This has lead to business cost-cutinng efforts, including work force reduction, which in turn contributes to the growing consumer panic. Growth has slowed to the point of retraction, spending has ground to a halt, and you have a society that is firmly in the midst of both economic and financial crises.

Say what you will about the bailouts, but the government’s interest is intrinsically tied to the bank’s operations. The banking system’s ability and willingness to lend are going to play a large role in the economy because the whole process is a cyclical relationship. So far we have spent $158.6 billion in “recapitalizing the banks.” Though the execution of this plan has been somewhat dubious, the overall goal is to provide the banks with more money in deposits, meaning that they can now lend without fear of violating their reserve requirement. Theoretically, injecting the money into the economy through the banks should bolster their balance sheets, allow lending, increase consumer confidence, help businesses, and slow the downward spiral. Admittedly this theory depends entirely on your economic perspective and has already displayed several significant flaws.

The politics behind the bailouts are sticky and the plan’s effectiveness is questioned by many. However, it is useful to try to try to think through the banking system and the interwoven structure of cause and effect without the cloud of sensational news. I would love to hear your thoughts on the situation.

Also, those who are further interested may want to follow NPR’s Planet Money podcast for a more in-depth look at many of the underlying issues.

Stock market misconceptions

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I’ve been thinking about the economy a lot lately, as I’m sure many of you have. It amazes me how much opinion we’re told (new sources, friends, etc.) but very little fact behind all the arm waving. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive but I want to make a few misconceptions clear:

The company doesn’t see the proceeds from purchases of their stock in the ‘market’: after a company has their initial public offering (IPO) any stock that changes hands is no longer money they see. There is not an infinite number of stocks to be bought floating around out there. Secondary offerings certainly happen but they give up equity (ownership) as opposed to create debt (through loans). There are financial reasons a company would want a particular balance of debt and equity.
Stock price is directly important to the shareholders, indirectly to the company: a company wants to maximize share prices not for their own gain, but for the gain of the shareholders. These are the people who elect the board, make purchase and decisions about what to do with income (shareholder equity). But, in many cases, management holds a huge percentage of their company’s stocks (at a good price through options and other stock benefits). This is incentive for management to build shareholder value (often their own).
The market isn’t dropping because everyone is selling: every sell has a buy. What is dropping is the perceived value of companies. One person is willing to part with their stock for a price and someone is willing to buy it. Thus, it’s impossible for everyone to be ‘pulling out of the market’.

Therefore, Detroit isn’t failing just because their stock is dropping: it’s because they don’t have the cash to keep business running. And since they don’t have the money they would want to go borrow some (debt). But, with their low stock price it’s obvious they are a risk (their ability to raise money is hindered) and they won’t get the money they need from the usual suspects: banks and other financial institutions.

So yes, our government is thinking it’ll be a good idea to go where no other lender will (the same lenders that are failing left and right). Our government thinks that giving them money to become competitive is the best course of action. In case you’ve missed it: the great and wonderful Obama is asking for “change” to come to Detroit… by providing the automakers a handout.

Devin Reams