The presentation “Tools for Entrepreneurs: Create. Collaborate. Communicate.“ started out as a way to explain very technical things to non-technical people, but I quickly realized that most people when approaching technology get intimidated by the “What’s DNS? Do I need a dedicated server?” kind of questions and therefore feel they can’t understand technology.

I feel that this technology intimidation is really due to the fact that they don’t really own their idea, and better understanding it will guide any decisions they have to make with their idea moving forward.

For me, the biggest online tool for most entrepreneurs is definitely their website. Having a website is like putting your shingle out declaring you’re in business.

In this presentation, the first section focuses on further defining your idea so you can create the site, offline, before engaging someone to build it for you (or building it yourself). From who the users / customers will be and what kind of information they want, to what the actual purpose of the site will be (conversion), to defining a list of must-have and nice-to-have features for the site.

The second section focuses on how to collaborate with those who will help your idea become a reality, from working with collaborators remotely, to the kinds of tools and software you’ll need to collaborate, and setting some guidelines for those tools to be effective.

The third section focuses on methods and approaches for communicating your idea, whether through the use of social media or just being consistent in your entire presence online.

Be sure and page through the entire slideshow to see the resources I included at the end for those looking for open source software alternatives to proprietary software, and links for getting started with ebooks and Creative Commons.

Below is the slideshow, click through to see the slideshow in your browser:

If you’re not familiar with the Ignite format, it’s very exciting for both speakers and spectators. 5 minutes, 20 slides, 15 seconds each slide. It’s a timing nightmare and you’re always racing against the clock, but it’s a great exercise to really concentrate on the meat of your presentation and remove the extras. (I gave another Ignite earlier this year on the New Digital Company: Distributed, Online, Transparent)

In any case, the Ignite I gave has enough material and research behind it for a 1 hour talk, and it was hard to stop at 5. But since this topic is relatively new, I wanted to whet people’s appetites with a broad overview of digital curation: what, why, how, and a brief look at curation and protecting our data across all of these different social networks and sites we sign up to and subsequently fill up with our data. We often can’t get that data back.

I propose WordPress as a digital hub – a place where our original and curated content is created, published, and archived, and integrates with everything else. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is one you can own and it continues to evolve as new plugins are coming out every day (just today a plugin was released to sync WordPress with Google+ – it’s a great time to get started!)

Here are the slides (in English) from “Digital Curation: The New Frontier of Knowledge“. Video of my presentation is online at KnowCamp.it, but it’s in Italian. If you have any questions, let me know!

The liveblog is about 90% accurate, which is amazing since we were talking so fast, so if you see particular sentences with a few words missing you should know that the point being made was brilliant and we were coherent the entire time.

Podcast (audio recordings) of all sessions will become available soon, as well as videos of select sessions (it’s not clear if my session will be included or not) and will be available at BlogHer ’11 VirtualCon. And all of those materials are free!

Here are the video and slides from my presentation which was a brief introduction to WordPress for non-tech decision makers and lots of case studies and examples of large-scale and enterprise installs using WordPress. I also highlighted related presentations from the WordCamp weekend – be sure and look for those individual presentations on WordPress.tv and on their sites when they become available.

(If you can’t see the slides below, click through to view WordPress for Large-Scale Installs on Slideshare)

My answer is always the same: it depends.

Sophia at Fiction Vixen put it more eloquently than I could and listed a bunch of considerations that I suggest anyone read when deciding if they should add plugins to their self-hosted WordPress site (spoiler: you might not need every plugin under the sun).

One of my favorite points from her post which I totally agree with:

When searching out plugins there are a few things to consider before downloading and installing them on your blog. Plugins are fun and can really enhance your blog…or occasionally create some huge headaches…Before you go plugin crazy, stop and think about whether or not that plugin will really enhance your blog and/or your blogging experience.

In many cases you won’t need any or many plugins for your WP site, since it can do a lot of what you need out of the box. Taking some time to really evaluate what features you need on your site will save you some trouble in experimenting with plugins just for the glitter-factor (and probably keep the site loading faster, too).

Check out the full post at Fiction Vixen about WordPress plugins for noobs.

Also, be sure you check out Automattic’s Jetpack plugin which brings WordPress.com features and a few other plugins to all self-hosted WordPress sites, for free!

They specifically asked me to speak about using WordPress as a website, instead of a blog, as many journalists are now interested in maintaining personal websites as well as continuing to create all the content they do for external publications.

I really only needed one slide to explain how to do that – it’s very easy! I’ll let you discover how via the slides.

The presentation is geared at those very new to WordPress – so new, in fact, that I included a little bit about WordPress’ history and its community which I think are strong points in choosing to use it (awesome people are making an awesome product).

We spent a lot of time in questions after the presentation, many of which would have been answered by articles I’ve already written on this site, like:

• What is DNS? DNS in Plain English
• How to Choose Web Hosting for your Website or Blog
• Ask the Geek: How Do I Find and Install a WordPress theme?
• The Quick and Dirty Guide to Getting Started with WordPress

The slides aren’t actually meant to be self-explanatory – I went in-depth into most of the concepts and screenshots in person, and don’t like to put much content in my slides, so if you have questions, be sure to let me know!

In English:

In Italian:

Besides appearing to be one of the only people at the event who read the book blurb and a little background on Jay (and knew he hasn’t worked at Apple or with Steve Jobs in 25 years), I was keenly interested in his insights about Steve Jobs’ leadership methods back in the 1980s, when Apple was just getting started. This is the meat of his book and something I looked forward to speaking about him with, rather than asking his opinion about the iPad 2 and products he had very little influence or insight on.

I asked three questions during the event, and I’ll share the answers to two of them below:

1. Given that you believe much of Apple’s success is because Steve Jobs acted as the “Product Czar,” meaning he had complete control and influence on the product from all levels and to the finest details, do you think a similar level of excellence could be achieved in open source? (I had introduced myself as working at WordPress.com)

Obviously, I knew the answer was no, but I guess I had to hear it from his lips. We’ll prove you wrong

2. The second question I asked was about finding and recognizing talent – Jay was offered a job by Steve Jobs after a chance meeting in a coffee shop. A short conversation ensued, and a few weeks later he was offered a job. How do you recognize talent when you see it? What are you looking for, in just a short conversation?

He mentioned that the most important thing is how the person talks about the future of your product / company – is there a future? Do they have ideas? Are they thinking into the future or can they only speak about what’s happened already?

I think Jay has a lot of insights to share, and I look forward to reading more of the book (I read a few chapters already, and had watched a talk he gave earlier this week so I knew a little more about him), but one of his comments really floored me that I feel it has to be addressed.

At a certain point, he asked, so you’re bloggers? What does that mean to be a blogger? (The event was a meeting with journalists & bloggers) He then shared a story with us about a blogger who had written a review of his book (critically, I can only assume) and Jay was surprised by the fact that the post was published at 3:30am. He ended the story with, “Wow, get a life” (to the blogger).

Whoa.

This really shocked me, especially coming from someone who works in Silicon Valley and in technology (and who should know better by now). Of course as the spontaneous spokesperson for an entire 18 million bloggers on WordPress, I felt I had to speak up.

Blogging, I said, is a freedom of expression, and can be very professional (& many journalists blog, too), and I wanted to add: there’s nothing to be afraid of, really.

But what I should have done was framed bloggers in the context of something he’d understand since he’s a serial entrepreneur who’s worked in Silicon Valley his whole life.

Bloggers are communication start-ups.

The “product” that these start-ups sell is content – ideas, thoughts, opinions, and yes, journalistic or investigative reporting at times.  The product is fragile at the beginning, and probably only as strong as their already-known reputation, but the more they write, bounce their ideas off others in a sort of “elevator pitch”, the more solid their blog’s voice and product becomes. They gain readers “consumers”, who believe in their words & content, and these consumers provide feedback about the product, or better yet they vote with their feet and never come back.

Some blogs serve a niche market, some are more widespread. They often will not reach the “IPO” state of success and sell to the AOLs of the world like The Huffington Post & TechCrunch (yep, both blogs!), but can remain content with their small, rather captivated market. Their most valuable raw material is time, rather than money. Intellectual property is the most important asset of these start-ups.

Can there be misreporting, lack of professionalism, and incorrect, biased or ignorant content on a blog? Sure. The power and beauty of the Internet is you can also decide where to direct your attention and how you will or won’t engage with these sources. You can dislike, disagree or discredit a blogger just like you can any other news source. Of course, some others may also agree with them.

In the same conversation, Jay also expressed some concern about his young children being on the Internet and exposed to all kinds of information online and how trustworthy they could be.

And to that I say, teach them the meaning of critical thinking, evaluating what they read, weighing facts, and comparing and forming their own opinions just like in anything else, and you’ll see that they’ll be discerning individuals no matter the news source, and maybe one day, they too will come out…as bloggers.

Check out Beast of Traal.com’s opinion on what the difference between journalists and bloggers are.

PS: It’s interesting to note that Jay’s site runs on WordPress. Welcome to the family!

Often when I recommend to friends that they get started on WordPress, I suggest they sign up for a site at WordPress.com so they can see how they like the interface and the features of the WordPress software.

One of the first things I hear is this myth: on WordPress.com, I can’t have a custom theme, so I can’t have a beautiful website.

Besides the fact that there are 100+ themes to choose from (and I’ll do a post on my favorite themes in the future), many with customizable backgrounds and headers, you can have a beautiful website on WordPress.com. I wanted to showcase some of the websites I’ve seen on WordPress.com that have made their sites beautiful using one of the default themes as a base and customizing the site with just the Custom CSS upgrade (currently $15/year) – so that’s free, unlimited hosting (!) plus a beautiful site for $15/year. Pretty cool.

I don’t want to convince you that WordPress.com is the best home for your new site (I have several .org sites that I love) but I definitely want to disspell the rumor that you can’t have a beautiful site on WordPress.com.

Read my article on Infinite Styles with Custom CSS on the WordPress.com News blog.

I cover WordPress featured images in the presentation mainly from a user standpoint and not from a developer’s standpoint, though I include some tips and suggestions for users curious about experimenting with code at the end.

Covered in the presentation are:

• what are featured images
• the evolution of featured images in WordPress Codex
• some popular & free magazine themes for WordPress
• how to use featured images in WordPress without changing your base theme via plugins (sidebars, archives, related/random/recent posts)
• how to start experimenting with the Featured Images code, online and through a local installation of WordPress.

I’d love to hear your feedback! The video of the presentation will be made available online at a later date, and I’ll link to that when it is available.

Note: This presentation is being released with a Creative Commons license – Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic.

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=featuredimages-101016153152-phpapp01&stripped_title=using-featured-images-with-wordpress&userName=sara.rosso

Now that you’re ready to start creating that website you’ve been dreaming about, you’ll need to get web hosting: a place where you can store and modify your website’s content and make it accessible online.

The choice of a web hosting provider is a very personal one. I say this because, for every person who has had a good experience with a provider, you will find one or five or ten who have utter loathing for that exact provider.

I would evaluate a potential web hosting provider based on the following considerations:

• Installing or Utilizing Blog or CMS (Content Management System) Software
  
• 3rd-party Software Installation
  
• Technical Support
  
• Disk Space and Data Transfer
• Video Streaming
• Backup and Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Server
• Transferring Away & Refunds
  

Here’s some more detail about what to consider for each one:

• Installing or Utilizing Blog or CMS (Content Management System) Software

The ease-of-use of incorporating the blogging platform with your provider is what makes the difference when going to purchase web hosting. Even if you don’t intend to open a blog, many blog/CMS software can be used for static websites as well (like WordPress, which I love). Each blog or CMS software has operating system and/or software components required to run, so check with your intended provider before buying hosting and/or the software.

Some providers will give you a “push-button” or “1-click” installation which will automate the installation of blogging platforms. Other providers will provide a hosting solution that gives you access to the more technical side of your hosting environment like executing scripts, setting up databases and modifying your file system permissions. Check to see if the hosting provider lists which blogging software can run on their servers. If you cannot find this information, I strongly suggest writing an email to their tech support with a list of your blog software’s technical requirements to get confirmation before purchasing a hosting agreement (or blogging software). Here’s WordPress’ list of requirements.

• Ease-of-installation of 3rd party software

As mentioned above, if you are not particularly tech-savvy, it’s important that you understand how much the provider can integrate blog or other 3rd-party software into your web hosting. Even if you’re not interested in hosting a blog, you may need a forum, a photo gallery, a wiki or e-commerce software for your site, and many hosting providers can offer these software integrations or at least support their installation.

Many providers will specify how much control you have over your hosting environment and how much you can put your hands on it (if you can run PHP scripts, install a database, modify the .htaccess file, etc.) but the final compatibility, installation and upkeep of the 3rd-party software will be your responsibility. Some providers will even provide a list of which popular 3rd party software is compatible or is available for push-button installation.

• Technical support: Direct Contact available? Guaranteed Response Times?
  

When I first started hosting with a certain hosting provider, they made it very difficult to contact them directly with problems, and I often had to do a down-the-rabbit-hole chase to find the support email address on their web site. Now, they provide an 800 number to talk with a real person.

Other hosting providers will not give you a direct contact, but they may give you a guaranteed response time or an option to escalate and therefore you know how long it might take to get resolution to your problem.

Before it’s really a necessity, you should identify the support methods in case of an emergency: contact email address / website / telephone, and other information needed to contact them like your username or account information. Other important limits to keep in mind are if the provider limits your technical support to a certain number of questions or if they provide a guaranteed response time or service level agreement on resolution of problems.

If you require a certain level of support, investigate first, and also be prepared to pay extra to ensure you can get it.

• Disk Space and Data Transfer

If you’ve read the Long Tail by Chris Anderson (great book!) you know that disk space is quickly becoming a commodity and most providers will now offer huge amounts of disk space for a low cost. You probably won’t come near to using all of it.

Data transfer is related to the transfer and viewing of the information on your website. When a visitor opens a page on your website, your hosting provider must deliver the text and images on that page to their computer. Multiply that for each visitor, and data transfer may become important to your site if you’re having people download a lot of content (like high resolution images, music files or large PDFs) or if you have enormous amounts of traffic.

Most providers will provide you with such a large amount of data transfer that you can monitor in case you experience a jump in traffic, or upgrade if necessary. Investigate how much is provided with each plan, and in case your website gets linked from Digg or CNN, how you can temporarily meet that demand or upgrade

• Video Streaming

Most videos embedded in blogs can be hosted externally to the blog (on YouTube or Vimeo, for example), but if you are planning on having a lot of video content and would like complete control over the delivery and look & feel of that content, check with your hosting provider if video streaming from their servers is included in the hosting plan you’re considering. This may also figure into calculating the data transfer they provide – the more videos you are streaming, the more data transfer you’ll need.

• Backup

Backup is one of the most important things to your online presence. How often does your host back up your data? Daily, hourly? How far back can you get get copies of your data and files, and with which methods can you access your files? Do you need to submit a request to the provider’s Support, or can you be autonomous and access it directly from your administration panel?

If you’re generating a lot of content and/or you have a very active community generating content and comments, you will need to be more sensitive about how often that content is backed up.

Note that with many blog/CMS software, the backup of the database may not be done by the hosting provider but must be done directly by the user and the hosting provider may provide backups of the content that is not in the database (i.e., image and downloadable files).

• Shared Hosting vs. Dedicated Server

By default, most basic web hosting plans will be considered shared hosting, which means that other websites and domains will be hosted on the same server as your site. You’ll be sharing resources like the server’s disk space, processor, and RAM. For most site or blog needs, shared hosting will be sufficient, but if your site is very popular, you may need a step up from shared hosting like a virtual server or a dedicated server.

Of course, you probably won’t know you need a more robust solution when you first start your website, but it’s a good idea to see if the host has other options available and what you’d need to do to upgrade when the time comes.

• Transferring Away & Refunds

Pay close attention to the refund policy of the providers. Some offer money-back guarantees if you are interested in doing a trial of their services for a few days or weeks so you can get a feel for the service and the administration panel.

Choosing Web Hosting Providers

I don’t want to make this article about endorsement, though I use both Dreamhost and Yahoo for my hosting needs, as I mentioned above – for every person who has a good experience, there will be 10 more with a negative one. I suggest you Google “web hosting providers,”, read some ratings’ sites, ask your friends with successful sites who they use, and evaluate your own site’s needs before buying hosting.

From Lifehacker’s readers: Most Popular Reliable and Affordable Web Hosts

• DreamHost
• Blue Host
• NearlyFreeSpeech.NET
• 1&1
• GoDaddy
• HostGator
• A Small Orange

Image by Donovan Henneberg-Verity