No, the guys at Automattic haven’t come up with a waterproof notebook — I just put a WP sticker on my Titan diver’s notebook, which I use for documenting stuff underwater. But hey, that would be a nice schwag for diver-bloggers, no?

Speaking of which, I’ve started another WordPress-powered blog, Scuba DAVAO, which is open to contributions from Dabawenyo divers or divers who love the Gulf of Davao.

WordPress notebook

Davao Gulf is home to dozens of dive spots. But more importantly, it is the habitat of thousands and thousands of marine species. The sad fact is, the marine ecosystem beneath the waters of the gulf is steadily being eroded. That’s why I’ve taken up the challenge to help preserve the gulf’s marine life through Scuba DAVAO, and through another movement called Save the Philippine Seas (whose site is also powered by WordPress).

In fact, the response from the Malaysian participants was very encouraging. It was my first time in Kuala Lumpur, and I had no idea what to expect because the event organizers weren’t able to provide me with a profile of the conference participants. However, I did know that the Malaysian WP community had had a WordCamp already (held on 22 May 2010), and that, to date, WordPress.com is one of the top ten most-visited sites in Malaysia.

I was given only an hour to do my WordPress presentation, so I focused on the fundamentals of Web content publishing. Of course, I also touched on the form and function aspects of WordPress site development. Judging by the amount of feedback I got afterwards, I believe I was able to convince the audience of the power of WordPress when it comes to delivering content online. Although, I did hear this one complaint consistently: that the presentation was too short!

That’s why I’m hoping the couple of offers I got to return to KL will materialize. I’d really love to be able to go back and conduct a more in-depth seminar on content deployment & management via WordPress.

Here’s the link to the presentation I did at KL: Web Publishing with WordPress. I designed this presentation to last 3 hours actually — I’m hoping to do that in KL soon! And below are a few of the photos taken during the conference.

I had a very good time in KL, and it was a fulfilling experience because of the enthusiasm and hunger for knowledge among my fellow WordPress lovers out there. Hopefully I’ll be back again and soon! I’d like to thank the people at My Events International (organizers of the 1st Asian Bloggers & Social Media Conference), and my Malaysian friends who made my stay unforgettable.

It was a very fulfilling experience, seeing the unabashed interest and enthusiasm the seminar participants displayed during my entire 3-hour talk. I had feared they would fall asleep due to their lack of foreknowledge in technical stuff, but it wasn’t that way at all. And I’m glad for it, because I’m involved in activism myself, so I’m more than happy to help my brothers in arms get themselves equipped with today’s online tools.

It helped a whole lot that the WiFi access at the venue, Lantaka Hotel by the Sea, was more than adequate. There were more than 20 of us accessing the Internet and yet the bandwidth didn’t seem to suffer much. Thanks also to The Asia Foundation for providing laptops to those who weren’t able to bring their own.

The participants came from Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, Cotabato, and other areas in Mindanao where Internet access isn’t all that reliable (to say the least). And yet, they embraced WordPress and knew instinctively what it could do for them. It was also very inspiring to see them immediately take to the other social media platforms presented to them by the other speakers. Twitter was a major hit!

I hope to continue this kind of WordPress evangelism, and hopefully I’ll be able to provide more hands-on training, especially for individuals and organizations who need to have their voices heard.

Some photos from the 2-day seminar held at Lantaka Hotel by the Sea, Zamboanga City.

I have promised to help the Digital Activism trainees further in their forays into the world WordPress. In particular, I will host any of them who might want to get a WordPress 3.0-powered website under the mindanaw.net domain.

Here’s the presentation I made for the seminar: Crash Course on WordPress.

I’m working on a Web project that’s built on WordPress 3.0 and that will take advantage of its multi-site functionality. It’s already live but not yet completed, and it’s on MINDANAW.net. It’ll be a site that will let dedicated bloggers of Mindanao have their own subdomained blogs. I’m still working on which plugins to deploy, as well as collecting WordPress themes (so far I’ve included free themes from Woothemes.com).

There’s going to be a catch, though: only blogs that commit to helping Mindanao, in one way or another, will be accepted. The service will be offered free of charge — just as long as the bloggers on board join the community in the advocacy of promoting peace & development in the Philippine South. I’ll announce the site’s launch once it’s ready via the Mindanao Bloggers Community site.

Kudos to Matt and his Automattic team for Thelonious (click the link to see a video of WP3.0).

Too bad, though, Matt Mullenweg wasn’t in town when I came calling — he was in Ireland then. But, I was happy to have finally met Maya Desai, who gave me a tour of their space in Pier 38. Here are some photos I took. I know, I know… I should’ve taken more. But I was just so excited to be there I neglected to do so.

The place is huge! And it doesn’t look anything like an office at all. The wide open spaces and the high ceiling gives it a comfortable, homey atmosphere. Maya tells me that it was actually meant to be a restaurant.

While in San Francisco, I was also able to spread the word about WordPress to a high school there. This was part of the IVLP, the San Francisco leg of which was arranged for me by the Institute of International Education, and it was for me the best part of the program.

At the high school, I was able to give a talk about blogging, WordPress, and the various opportunities online publishing presented to virtually anybody. It was a class of seniors, and it was very fulfilling indeed seeing the glimmer in the eyes of those young men and women. I hope that I was able to inspire at least a few of them to take up blogging and succeed in the endeavor.

On 19 October, I was invited to give a talk at e.AXS Communications — Zamboanga City’s very first contact center. e.AXS is a wholly Zamboangueño-owned and -operated enterprise, which is very laudable on the part of its investors. Once this company prospers, they will pave the way for other BPO operators to come in. They are gearing up for SEO projects, and so they invited me to share my experience in SEO work. And since they are already offering website development services, I took the opportunity to introduce to them all about WordPress (and its SEO-readiness).

Ryann, a graphics designer, videographer and WordPress user, presented Hola Zamboanga! and his other blogs to the same group. It is our hope that more Zamboangueños will take up blogging using WordPress.

Some photos of the get-together, courtesy of Ryann:

In Isabela City, I was able to meet high school and college students from different schools, thanks to my host, RJ Ian Sevilla (who has promised to get a WordPress blog as well). My time on the island of Basilan was very limited (only about 5 hours), but I have promised to be back for a WordPress seminar in the foreseeable future. I am looking forward to that because I could see the excitement in their eyes when I told them about blogging and WordPress.