Nur Ahmad Furlong

Category: Online Social Networking

  • What I learnt about networking from Shane Dryden

    Shane the “Maven” of Ideate tipped us off on this excellent list of tips for surviving networking events. In fact I have first hand experience connected with Shane who recently rescued from feeling like the odd one out at a recent SA Bog Awards ceremony. Shane quickly introduced himself and started a conversation which sparked some interesting thought and lead to the 2 of us having coffee recently.

    Saying Hi makes all the difference

    One of the lessons I learnt from Shane is that adding some meaningful value by being genuinely involved leads to meaningful developments, while being superficial and just chatting to be cool really gets you nowhere. Bloggers who should really be great at genuine dialogue, are guilty quite often of just being chatty for the cameras.

    Add value and become a star

    Due to that little step of Shane saying Hi and sharing some thoughts, led to us meeting and chatting about a business idea I have been working on and getting some great advice from him. It also lead to me finding out about the Heavy Chef Session run by World Wide Creative and attending their User Experience Design presentation. A whole series of events which I have benefited from. Shane probably has no idea how saying hi has affected me and place him in my list of respected individuals. He’s someone who walks his talk.

    Here’s his post on Ten Excellent Networking Tips, which was inspired by the original post Ten Excellent Networking Tips.

  • WordPress Meetup Cape Town #2 takes wpcpt meets a step up

    Yesterday’s wordpress meetup at the Bandwidth Barn was a step up from the first one held in Feb. Because of my huge workload right now this post will be written one sentence at a time. For now if you don’t yet know about the wordpress meetups check it out at http://wpcapetown.wordpress.com or just google “wordpress cape town meetup” or something of the sort. Callum’s suggestion of using “wpcpt” as our master tag when refering to the local meetup is one I think we should go with.

    For starters the turnout and involvement was much better than meetup#1, though there are a few critical aspects of the meetup we now need to discuss going forward to make it something of real substance. Anyone interested in the attending the next one give me a shout. We’ll be putting together a planning team soon.

    Those who made it this time around were in no order of priority: ChrisM, Callum Macdonald, Henk Kleynhans, Adii, Foxini, Sarah, Selim Kagee, Nadah, Jamaal, Francois Raubenheimer, rafiq, Foxinni, Stelio, Johann Botha, Kilian Hagemann, Miguel, Frans Kuipers, Joe(amobia),

    At the meet Callum did a sterling job of drumming up excitement and getting people interacting. Well, errr, he tried his best and though there was a slow start we got a few sessions onto the white board for people to vote on. People were interested in chatting about WordPress MU, Using wordpress for social networks, Drupal comparison, Why wordpress, WordPress security, Plugins, WordPress 2.5

    There was a range of people at different levels of wordpress knowledge and experience so it was a bit tricky, I’d pitch myself in the middle somewhere between the complete newbies and the ultra wordpress geeks like Callum.

    I was particularly impressed by the way Nadah of work online, a complete wordpress newbie and sceptic from the first meetup, has quickly become a total enthusiast. She admits becoming somewhat of a blog junkie of late.

    Comparing Blogger, Moveable Type & WordPress, by Henk

    Henk hit us with an awesome session taking a critical look at 3 different blogging platforms and questioning the pros and cons of each. From where I’m standing wordpress comes out tops, though the others may have a point or 2 over wordpress on different levels. Henk currently runs at least 1 blog on wordpress, blogger and moveable type.

    I personally get a yucky feeling whenever I am faced with a blogger based blog and tend to stay away from them as much as possible. It has to have something to do with the fact that I’m a designer and a sucker for pretty looking things which blogger does not facilittate very well.

    I’m hoping we can get the PPT Henk put together to show you all, will have to ask him nicely.

    What’s your fav plugin

    The session broke out into a plugin show & tell with a few of us sharing plugin ideas and asking about plugins we’ve been wanting to get out hands on. I was off on a tangent about a plugin which allows you to manage sidebar content out of a specific post category or page though I don’t think I got my point across very well. We discussed some issues surrounding cache plugins including my recent disaster with WP Super cache and hope to get a recommended plugins list going. Chris recommended php speedy to help imrpove performance for high traffic sites.

    WordPress Security Issues

    One of the more technically focussed topics which were discussed was security. The concerns were voiced by those who are managing and hosting multiple installations of wordpress for clients or organisations. WordPress is known to be exploitable and there have been cases wherewell known sites have been hacked into and even hijacked completely. The discussion centred around updatability of multiple installs as well and the guys through a few suggestions around including working off the SVN codebase.

    The guys lost a few of of us along the way when they veered into ultra-geek mode.

  • What’s the whole buzz about WordPress 2.5?

    As you may have heard WordPress 2.5, the much hyped upgrade from 2.3 skipping 2.4 has been delayed for more than the promised week. I don’t know much about what they’ll be doing with the new release and took a little peak at the demo site.

    So what is really different about WordPress 2.5

    Admin Interface Re-design

    The admin area of wordpress has seen a significant overhaul, not so much in functionality as far as I can tell, but in terms of the user-interface and design with a few added extras. Here’s hoping it works faster than the existing one as I find one of the issues is the loading time with my limited bandwidth. I logged into the 2.5 demo site and poked around a little taking a few pics.

    Here’s a few screens of the admin interface

    Wordpress 2.5 Dashboard re-designed

    (more…)

  • Yesterday was one Great day to remember- Open Coffee and all

    Whfew! What a day, been getting birthday wishes(I’ve just turned 30) from all sides, messages of congratulations related to so many great things that have been happening lately and business looks set to boom in the coming months.

    I have to say thanks to all of you out there who have been keeping in touch and being great support. This buzzy period comes after month of struggle and difficulty and I’ve seen times of major doubt and disillusionment. My sites traffic has seen a huge spike, some nominations for a few awards and some prizes coming my way from others.

    It makes me think of a verse from the Quran which goes something like: “Truely, After Difficulty comes ease, After difficulty comes ease.”

    The thing is, this is only just the beginning for me. I look forward to building a great network, upping my game in the blogosphere, building a great business and solving some key problems for business and society along the way.

    Open Coffee was a huge success today with a great turnout. As usual Henk Kleynhans of Skyrove was there topping us up with free skyrove credits which we are all grateful for. Thanks a ton Henk! I finally chatted with Eric Edelstein briefly. Eric is the original organiser of the Open Coffee Cape Town Meet up.

    I also met up with the guys(Kilian & Nico) from Red Button and chatted briefly about their businesses development, cool things coming from their side regarding wireless hotspots. You can become a Red Button affiliate and earn some cash by recommending a venue which needs a hotspot. I think Red button could learn a thing or 2 from Skyrove’s event sponsorship approach.
    Callum Macdonald was around doing his regular Scottishly nomadic thing and promoting the wordpress meetup which has shifted to Wednesday 26 March due to the easter weekend.

    I had a very interesting Interaction with Frans Kuipers who I met at the first Open Coffee I attended last month. Frans is an open source enthusiast and a Drupal developer. We spoke about the problem Open Source seems to have with getting rapid uptake of it’s programmes and platforms in the general public. From my perspective it has to do with 1. Usability and 2. Communication and Marketing. Some areas programmers & developers don’t always have a tight handle on

    I also met Andre from Biz-community and a guy from Joyent who’s name I forget because his business card was a Joyent Logo on a sticker. A few others who I chatted with briefly were Scott Hayes(Encyclomedia), Michelle Matthews(Writer & Publishing Consultant) and Will Gubb(Wired Communications).

    Myself & Callum spent a bit of time trying to convince one of the above that wordpress is better for blogging than Joomla, I won’t mention who.

    I had to rush off after receiving a call for an urgent proposal, hold thumbs for me, it’s a nice big one. I spent the following few hours in Kauai recovering from the coffee scrabbling down a proposal just before the sun went down.

    All in all, another productive day of networking, doing business and sharing of ideas.

  • Care to join me on a Journey of Self Discovery and Creative Development

    Like most professionals who also blog, I’ve wondered what steps to take to make what I do really rock so to speak; take it to the next level if you know what I mean. This post kicks off my nomadic blogumentary, a journey through the world of the web, creative thinking, social networking, business strategy, personal brand building and self discovery.

    This is the start of my nomadic BLOGUMENTARY, a journey through the world of the web, creative thinking, social networking, business strategy and personal self discovery.

    On this digital journey I aim to take myself from amateur blogger / professional web designer with little direction, to what I always envisioned myself to be. I aim to become an agent of positive change and innovation, and to find true meaning and purpose to what I do.

    a-nomads-journey

    How do I plan to do this you may be asking yourself?

    I’m still in the process of figuring all the steps out and plotting my course ahead. I know coming out with this self challenge is a brave move, one I could very possibly be very sorry for if I don’t keep up with the challenge, or fail to achieve the goals I set.

    Therein lies the secret. I plan to drag you all along on this journey, get your feedback, give you advice and ask for some as well. I might even involve a few of the Guru’s out there to help make this journey an action packed adventure, which we can all benefit from.

    I hope to cover everything from the initial idea / vision phase, on to a little bit of a business plan with clear goals. I will be developing a strategy including the steps which I will need to take to achieve certain goals.

    What will I be sharing with You

    • my Brand building endeavours and the lessons I learn
    • selecting & shaping my niche
    • the technologies & methodologies I will be using
    • the tutorials, tips & advice which shape my decisions
    • my favourite resources & influences
    • The tools I use to make my tasks easier

    Sharing the Experience

    I’ll be sharing the troubles I encounter along the way, the feelings of failure if any(I’m sure there will be), the stumbling blocks & challenges faced and the stresses I experience.

    Sharing the successes, stats, milestones & profits

    Any success achieved along this perilous journey will be shared with all of you. I’ll let you now when I earn my first paycheck, which I hope will be soon, in fact I desperately need it to be soon. I’ll tell you about what this project does to my web stats and when I’ve made a major breakthrough in learning or self development.

    What do I want from YOU

    the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change.

    Involvement. I hope you will share this journey with me. To this point the visitors to this site have pretty much kept their identities to themselves for their own specific reasons. I hope this will change and that you will start to engage with me and get to know me as well as help me to get to know you better.

    Feedback. I’d like to know what you think about what I have to say, about the decisions I’ll make and the advice I’ll be giving. I plan to put in place a few incentives if and when I am able to make it worth your while to get involved. I started with a little experiment in the form of the Logo Design Q & A competition which I ran recently.

    Inspiration & Advice. We can never achieve much on our own. We achieve things by learning from others and benefiting from others, and then by sharing this with others. I hope we can develop a mutually beneficial relationship where we influence each other and inspire each other to achieve great things. Where there are areas which you could help me I’ll appreciate it and if there’s anything I could do for you I hope to be able to help as well.

    So where do we Start?

    Well we kind of have started already. I’ve met some great people already and have a few of you subscribe to my RSS feed. I’ve just crossed the 4000 hits mark since starting out blogging more seriously a few short months ago and have a few more RSS subscribers but have no idea who they are.

    I’ve just completed negotiations with a few parties to get into my own office space and have just moved in. I’m also in the process of re-designing my website to empower me on this journey.

    I’ve gotten started on a few post series and have some great ideas for interesting and value adding content to help you guys out there with your journeys.

    What I’d like to know from you guys is this:

    Who are you all out there?

    What Can I do for you?

    Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

    • Who are you out there?
    • What do you guys do for a living?
    • What can I do for you out there?
    • What would you like to see on this site?
    • What would you like to hear about?
    • How can I empower you all to excel in what you do?
    • How do we develop a platform or community which can be a springboard for us all to achieve something good?
    • Do you have any advice for me in getting started?

    Lets start talking and start something meaningful!