Enter The Net

I LOVE to speak at workshops and share what I have learned about how the search engines work. Well, the past two weeks provided me with multiple opportunities to do just that, along with the launch of a new course about blogging with Wordpress - our favorite website system (which provides the architecture of this very site!)

My first stop was on Monday, April 28 at COMPASS REALTY in the John’s Landing neighborhood. A handful of realtors learned about the Twelve Things You Can Do To Get Your Website Noticed.

The next day, Tuesday, April 29, I presented a similar talk at THE MEADOWS GROUP on SE Morrison in Portland. Despite some difficulties getting the computer, the projector and the sources of electricity to all meet in the same place at the same time, we had a good time learning about how websites and search engines work. This was the first time I had ever conducted the presentation without a live internet connection, so they had to just “take my word for it” a few times.

On the morning of Thursday, May 1, I headed out to the Beaverton Round, where Stewart Title was holding a presentation for Realtors and Mortgage Brokers all about marketing websites. There were about 50 people there! I was one of two speakers, along with a really nice guy named Mark Brown who has the good fortune to be representing one of the coolest products I have seen in a while: streaming video in emails and on your sites. It is rare to find a product in which the benefits so incredibly outweigh the costs. If you are interested, let me know..and I will get you in touch with Mark.

Thank you, Jeff Reyes of Stewart Title for setting up those three great opportunities!

That night, Aaron (my business partner) and I taught our first Wordpress course for Fenixworkshops. It went really well and, of course, we picked up tons of ideas to make the next course even better. We had five students, which was just the right number for teaching the wonderfully powerful program that is Wordpress.

On the following Wednesday, I joined Ken Elmer of The Brick House Project and Joel Burslem of Inman News in a presentation to about 75 brokers about “Capturing The Internet Audience.” This opportunity fell into my lap due to a mini-presentation I did for the Pearl District Business Association back in February that just happened to be attended by a posse of wonderful folks from Lawyers Title. Despite some wacky light shenanigans, the presentation went well and people learned loads of great stuff about designing sites (Ken,) optimizing sites (me) and how to get yourself immersed in effective social and business online networking (Joel.)

Here is what one of the attendees said about my part of the presentation: “Hit bullseye - I can walk away and implement today! Complete, succinct, depth was great if you know something about this AND if new to someone. A wake up call about the sophistication being used out there.”

Thanks!

Thanks also to Chris Ramos and the Lawyers Title team for organizing a great event!

Of course, the next day, Thursday, was the second session of our inaugural Wordpress course. Loads of fun helping people get their own blogs up and running.

It was a busy two weeks - a total of eight hours spent teaching. It’s always fun when you get to spend large amounts of time doing what you love.

If you attended any of these courses, please leave your comments below. Thanks!

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 10th, 2008 at 8:57 am and is filed under Courses. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.