Be part of the plan with TransLink on June 1st as they coordinate what will be the first of a series of public consultations throughout the month. Monday’s “Greater Vancouver’s Livability Forum” takes place at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel from 8:00am until 3:30pm and you can register online.
Developing a 30-year plan called Transport 2040, they would like to get as much public input and engagement as possible so 9 community consultation workshops will follow to discuss everything from bridges and bikeways to transit. Locations include Vancouver, Walnut Grove, Fleetwood, White Rock, Maple Ridge, North Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam and Richmond. You can register online for the event in your community.
TransLink has also started a website for these discussions over at Be Part of the Plan or you can get updates on Twitter @bepartoftheplan.
Even though I’m down in San Francisco the emails about events around Vancouver have still been pouring in so here’s a quick heads up for a fun activity happening tomorrow.
Bring the family to Jericho Beach on Sunday May 31st for the Great PedalheadsTM Treasure Hunt. It’s a free event that kicks off around 10:00am and will run til about 1:00pm, involving you, your bike, and a scavenger hunt around the park. It’s open to all ages and will take about an hour (to go from station to station) and there will be prizes available for everyone.
This fun-filled afternoon is to celebrate the beginning of June, which is Bike Month. The Pedalheads organization (through Atlantis Programs) helps children get active and lead a healthy lifestyle by providing swimming and cycling camps.
I believe you can still register for tomorrow’s treasure hunt by emailing info [at] atlantisprograms [dot] com or you can call (604) 874-6464 for more information. You should be able to find the group near the duck pond and once you’re done you can enjoy a super sunny afternoon at the beach.
One of the afternoon presenters at WordCamp San Francisco is Scott Porad of Pet Holdings, otherwise known as the LOLcat franchise whose sites get millions of visitors each day.
The focus of his talk is the network of sites that they run which all have the following in common: They’re all humor/entertainment-centric, they’re all hosted on WordPress.com, and they’re all based on user-generated and user-driven content. Continue reading this post ⟩⟩
My first session of the day is with Matt Cutts from Google whose presentation will be “Straight from Google: What You Need to Know”.
Matt says that the number one request he receives or hears is “I want to do better in Google”. He says that WordPress already takes care of 80-90% of your SEO and offers up a few plugins that will help you fight spam and up your SEO. “The beauty of WordPress is that you don’t need to do a lot of stuff.” Continue reading this post ⟩⟩
We’re at the Mission Bay Conference Centre in San Francisco for WordCamp which is a conference and all-out love-fest for WordPress (the platform on which this site runs and on which I’ve based my entire business. I’ve decided I won’t possibly be able to cover everything I’d like to in a timely fashion today so instead of liveblogging sessions I’ll be doing a day blog throughout the day today.
Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com / WordPress) announced that today’s hashtag on Twitter is simply #WordCamp since we’re the only WordCamp happening right now. He began WordPress 6 years ago (when he was 19) and we’ll be having an anniversary party for the platform later tonight.
I’m currently doing a tour at the Genius Bar, which is a help desk for all things WordPress. I’ll be here til 10am with Lloyd Budd (of Automattic) and then Duane, John Biehler, Dale, and John will also have shifts.
Update: I already ran into Mark from Weblog Tools Collection (an amazing WordPress resource online) and look forward to meeting many more cool people.
Update: I’m heading over to live blog Matt Cutts’ talk but will keep this post open to collect all of my thoughts throughout the day.
Update: The BBQ lunch was great and we’re gearing up for Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A session.
Follow my Twitter updates throughout the day:
Update: I sat in on Scott Porad’s talk as well as one from Cali Lewis. I’m shutting down the Twitter feed now for the rest of the day.
Update: We headed out to the WordPress anniversary party at Automattic’s headquarters where I met some great people including Tara “missrogue” Hunt and Cali Lewis.
Automattic were fantastic hosts, providing free beer/wine, crepes made before your eyes, fresh popcorn, and a delectable selection of desserts (including the WordPress cupcakes). Duane wanted the “Canadians” to represent shut things down so it was a late night but very fun-filled.
