How do we restore trust in not only the media, but in the process of exchanging reliable information on a mass scale without perverting the message or quality of content along the way?
Explore a video overview of WordCamp Miami 2018 and get insights about the future of WordPress from founder Matt Mullenweg as well as industry experts Syed Balkhi and Chris Lema
We survived Irma. And by that I mean Mother Nature took it easy on us. Here is a short video we made to remember the experience.
Shoutout to Chris Brown for letting me crash his bunker.
- Video excerpt from the Hobbit
- Video excerpt from Evan Almighty
- Song is the instrumental version of G-eazy Some Kind of Drug.
This video is dedicated to the victims of last night’s shooting in Orlando Florida.
While the shooter was reported to be Muslim and affiliated with ISIS, it would be naive of us to think that the same thing cannot happen inside of Christianity or any other religion for that matter.
The Slippery Slope of #Sexuality and #Religious #Hypocrisy – https://t.co/eXhOCMdOpM – #PulseNighClubShooting #pulsevictims
— Raymmar Tirado (@RayTirado) June 12, 2016
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.”
Adolf Hitler
When we allow ideology to blind us from our humanity we find ourselves capable of justifying many behaviors, even murder. It’s happened before and we would be fooling ourselves to think it cannot happen again.
While the people in this video are not directly calling for the death of homosexuals, this type of rhetoric is what leads people to feel justified in their behaviors. Even as far as taking the lives of those whose lifestyles they disagree with.
It’s senseless, and none of us should stand for it.
The timing of this video is almost eery. I was working on it to publish this week as part of a post about the evolution of my ideology, and I decided to modify the video based on recent events.
I see all these posts from so called “Christians” condemning the Orlando Nightclub shooter as a Muslim. But hate speech is hate speech, and it’s naive to think that this type of behavior is limited to any specific religion.
As you will see in this video, there are no geographic or religious border on ignorance.
Share this with your friends to help increase awareness of these ignorant ideologies. Then share your thoughts on Medium, Facebook or Twitter.
What do you think? Is this the true word of God? Or are we ramping up for a larger religious conflict? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
This month we sit down with Alison Foxall of Gobble Logic to talk about the importance of the WordPress community.
In this months episode of WordPress Wednesday we discuss the main differences between two of the most popular content management systems.
Learn everything you need to know about where we have been and where we are headed here at Raymmar.com.
In this episode we interview Pete Petersen, the CEO of Dealers United, and dive deep into the details of how they use WordPress to manage their multi-million dollar web based business.
A short video that explores the idea that in the near future, we may no longer have to teach our children how to drive.
Meet Steve. He’s homeless, but instead of panhandling for money, he works when he can, and practices piano in his spare time.
Explore my videos and get an inside look at our software startups, advice for how to build your own digital business, and random rants about life.
Learn more about the Sarasota Underground and how we are empowering local creative entrepreneurs.
WordPress Wednesday is sponsored by zoing.ly
Last week I interviewed Mason James, the founder of Valet.io (formerly WordPress Valet) as part of our WordPress Wednesday Interview Series.
The interview explores his personal WordPress journey, and is filled with insights on how to run a successful WordPress based business.
Valet.io works with brands like Etsy, TimeInc, Nvidia, Harvard University, Mixergy, and more, and is well respected in the WordPress community for top tier development and support services.
If you are looking to start a WordPress business, or want to learn more about how to grow and scale your WordPress business then this might be a good place to start.
If you are in Sarasota, you can attend these MeetUps in person. Learn more on our MeetUp page.
Show Notes
1:45 – Starting out as a freelancer
We start out by talking about the path from freelancer to entrepreneur.
4:15 – Picking WordPress as a platform
I asked Mason how he decided to pick WordPress as the platform for him to build his online business.
6:10 – Getting involved in the WordPress community
Mason and I dive into the importance of the WordPress community, and talk about how people can get involved in the WordPress community, and why it is such a large part of WordPress success.
13:30 – Breaking the freelancer gap
I asked Mason how he made the jump from freelancer to full fledge business owner. We dive into how he landed his first clients, how he hired his first employees and more.
15:30 – Getting your first customer
We dive deeper into prospecting, networking and getting started as a small business owner.
17:25 – Biting off more than you can chew
Sometimes you have to get a little ambitious when you are trying to build your own business, but that can definitely backfire on you in the online world. Get advice on staying within your core competencies, and how to learn as you grow.
20:18 – To pick a niche or not
Some people swear by the idea that you have to specialize in order to be successful, so I wanted to know what Mason thought about being a generalist, or picking a specific niche.
20:54 – The main goal of any website
If there is one part of this interview which you should listen to, it is this section. In it Mason goes over his process for assessing websites, and outlines the order in which they approach website optimization.
24:29 – I hire people to do the things I suck at
Mason explains how he hires employees, and more specifically, how he hired his first employee. He also dives into his philosophy on how he hires people, and how he vets candidates.
28:48 – Internet freeing people to become their own boss
Mason and I discuss the power of the internet, and how it is empowering more people than ever to go out and become their own boss.
30:07 – You have to fail a lot
It wouldn’t be a proper interview if we didn’t spend some time talking about failure. Listen as Mason explains why failure is such an important part of starting and running a successful business.
34:49 – Creative processes deserve their own brain cycles
Towards the end of the interview, we dive into the creative side of running the business, and talk about the importance of spending time creating quality content, and connecting with a social audience in order to grow your online business.
44:55 – Quantifying the value and getting the money
We end the show by talking about how to stand up for what you are worth, how to set your rates, and discuss how to make sure people understand the value you are providing.
Is America about to get the president it deserves?
After blowing the first Unhireable Podcast, I’ve decided to release the individual segments as separate videos.
This first one is a deep dive into what people think it means to be Unhireable.
To get a diverse range of opinions, we went out to the Mall at UTC (and promptly got kicked out), stopped by the HuB to ask some entrepreneurs, sat down with the founder of Sarasota Day, and even interviewed a few randoms out on the street. All with the specific intent of finding out what people think it meant to be unhireable.
It’s part of a long term project we are working on here at Raymmar.com, and is an idea we will be exploring further in our future videos.
Were you surprised by any of the answers?
What do you think it means to be Unhireable?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
- NSFW – Language & other things your boss won’t want you to see while you’re at work.
- Skip to 1:16 to get past the blue disclaimer screen of death.
- Skip to 4:23 to get into the meat of the opening. (It’s actually a pretty good podcast once you get past the technical miscues.)
Tonight we tried to run our first live podcast. It didn’t go so well.
It’s kind of ironic actually. We pre-produced a funny intro video that showed us screwing up the live stream, and then actually screwed up the live stream. We thought it would be a funny way to open up our new live segment, but it turns out the joke was on us.
At the end of the day, we did run into some technical difficulties, but the truth is that we should have been more prepared.
In typical Raymmar fashion, I wanted to go all in, without really knowing the depth of the water I was jumping into. But don’t worry, I’m a good swimmer. Over time, I know this will all get better, and even though we screwed up, we did a lot of things right.
To be completely honest, my biggest concern was letting all of you down. Those of you who wanted to watch, but couldn’t. Those who set aside time to be there and then found a blank screen when you showed up. I want to personally apologize for that. This is all part of a learning process, and I appreciate your patience as we figure it all out.
And even though we did not “succeed,” we did learn a few lessons from fucking up our first live stream.
1: Test Everything… Twice
We thought we double checked everything, but in the end, it was something simple that did us in.
We tested the ability to broadcast live before the show and it worked perfectly. Then, in an effort to optimize the production process, I decided to use the auto broadcast feature on the encoding software we are using. Whoops.
After realizing that the broadcast had not begun on time, we tried again a few times manually, finally getting it to start streaming, but inadvertently starting the stream in a new feed instead of sending it to the previously scheduled event on YouTube. This created a new URL for our broadcast, which meant we actually did broadcast live last night, but unfortunately not many people saw it.
2: Give Yourself Twice the Time
If this is your first time trying to produce a show live, you should plan on spending twice the amount of time you think it is going to take you, if not more. There are all sorts of hidden hurdles that will jump out to derail you so make sure you give yourself enough time to navigate all of the obstacles that are bound to pop up.
Tyler and I worked our assess off in the weeks leading up to this live stream, trying to produce a few of the segments ahead of the show, but timing them up, cutting them just right, and packaging everything up for the live broadcast was more time consuming that we initially expected. And although we messed up big time, we did get a few things right, and I look forward to learning more on the way towards the bigger vision.
3: Keep It Simple Stupid!
We tried to complicate the show in an attempt to tell a better story. But at the end of the day, those complications cost us the quality we were looking for. Moving forward we will simplify the entire process to eliminate some of the moving parts.
Additionally, I feel like as I am typing these “lessons,” I am just repeating things to myself that I knew before we started. I guess I just thought we could pull it off, and to be honest, we almost did. Unfortunately, in the world of live broadcasts, “almost” is about as good as not-at-all.
4: Keep it Short
In retrospect, trying to do a full hour for our first live stream might have been a little too ambitious. We may need to take some time to build our audience before too many people devote an hour of their day to tune in live.
We definitely should have spent more time working on shorter segments, producing them ahead of time, and then getting a feel for how to string them all together over time. Instead we tried to cram a months worth of work into a week and a half. This leaves the podcast feeling a little scatter brained. Not to mention, the fact that I am the talent and the producer, which made it hard for me to direct my focus completely in one place.
Moving forward, we will stick to telling short stories, and then we will start a recap show where we talk about all of the content we have created since our last recap. Maybe we start this once a month, and slowly move towards a more regular show schedule.
5: Practice Practice Practice
We were under the gun to get all of the content produced ahead of time, and at the cost of doing one thing right, we did it all wrong. We left ourselves no time for a dry run, or dress rehearsal. We should have failed inside of test run, not on live airtime.
At the end of the day, I think we were just a little too ambitious here, and I think we learned some valuable lessons, even if we did screw some things up.
And if I am being completely honest, I think this makes for a way more interesting start up story.
For those who made it all the way down to this part of the article, then you might want to bounce around the first show below. We’re not going to make a big stink about it, but I am going to leave it up as a reminder of where we started.
We also think it might be a good faith gesture to our audience, to show that this is all part of a learning curve, and that we are planning on sharing everything on this journey with you. Even the shitty parts.
So stay tuned, I promise this will all get better as we go.
Until then, thanks for your patience.
Regards,
Reactions from Sarasota Young Professionals about a recent survey where 46% of local YP’s were thinking about leaving town due to the lack of affordable housing.
The next species of human – A Ted talk by Juan Enriquez
I like to talk about a lot of different things here on Raymmar.com and everyone loves a good Ted Talk. Juan Enriquez opens briefly with some of the monetary perils we face and then dives into some really interesting new sciences about the human body, evolution and the progression of our species.
He talks about engineering bacteria to act as a kidney, taking the part of wine (resveratrol) that is good for you, and mixing it into beer and adding an extra wing to a chicken. Grow extra teeth, Learn more about regenerative cells that can rebuild ears and bladders for themselves, and learn about cells that can create things from nothing and build other human parts.
Pretty wild ride and some great food for thought.
Some more crazy ideas you can find in this video:
- Mechanical ears
- Mechanical eyes
- Seeing in infrared
- Robotic advancement
- Overlapping human species
- Insert DNA and have it boot up as a different species
- Radio Shack of DNA and other molecular structures
