Branding David

I was a guest on episode 49 of the WordPress Podcast with Charles Stricklin and Jonathan Bailey. It was a lot of fun to be part of the episode, and reminded me how much I miss talking with Charles and WordPress.

Some things that were discussed include:

• WordPress 2.7 was released
• Microsoft enters the Open Source blogware world with Oxite
• New Media Expo merges with Blog World Expo
• WordPress Theme Repository purged of hundreds of themes
• Six Apart shuts down Pownce
• Dates announced for WordCamp San Francisco 2009, WordCamp Chicago 2009, WordCamp Dallas 2009 and WordCamp Columbus 2009
• WordPress.com passes the 5 million blog mark
• Media Uploader Overview
• Learning to love comment moderation
• The Many Ways to Configure Your New Dashboard
• WordPress.com Goes Gravatar Crazy
• 43 Degrees, but it’s snowing

I got to give my opinions, which hopefully people will enjoy and not disagree with too harshly. A huge thanks to Charles and Jonathan for having me on and I hope you’ll all check out the episode.

Deb Ng and I have launched a new blog that will focus in on being a Community Manager, and all that the position entails called Kommein. I was only a Community Manager for a short period of time, but I learned a great deal, and hope to provide extensive insights into ever part of working in the industry.

One of my favourite things to do is teach, and I can’t wait to see the community response over this blog. Deb Ng is currently employed as the Community Manager for Blog Talk Radio, and brings her own thoughts and insights from her active career. Together, we hope to cover ever facet of the job, and help those that are managing their own communities work more effectively.

Community management is a growing area of concern for individuals, brands and companies as they have to contend with the speed that the Internet can disseminate knowledge compared to the less connected society we lived in only one or two decades ago.

Kommein will be a blog filled with passion, advice, and insights, and I hope you’ll all check it out and let me know what you think.

The biggest question people have been asking me, and probably themselves on an increasing basis as the year closes out is “what are my goals?”

It can be really difficult to define them sometimes, but holding your dreams, goals and aspirations close to your chest will allow you to chase after them, and hopefully reach them. I was recently asked what my goals are with regards to my career. People were assuming that I wanted to become a full time consultant like other Internet personalities try to present themselves as.

But for me, I just want to continue to learn, teach others, and give myself a variety of tasks, roles and things to do in my daily rotation, so that I keep happy, all the while keeping my family afloat by bringing in enough money that my wife can continue her University studies.

My goals are fairly simplistic on the surface, but really complex in practice. Trying to find ways to enjoy everything I do, and make enough money to keep my household afloat is difficult to do, especially during these trying times, but that is my goal, and I am going to stick with it.

I hope everyone reading this has been or will take some time to consider their goals, and work towards them. Also, make your goals known, so people don’t make assumptions that may change their perspective of you and your actions.