We’ve all had the problem.  Hundreds of feeds and you never get them all read. I go through this ever couple of months or so. I end up with so many feeds in my Google Reader I just don’t get to them all.  I start feeling guilty about it and wonder how others do it all. Some people I’ve talked to suggest cutting the number of feeds you read… and I hear that BUT then I feel like I might miss something important. The challenge is… how to manage your feeds.

I talked to Josh Bancroft a few weeks ago about the very thing.  He’s got a great method he uses. I’ve adopted it and I have to say, it works really well. So what is it?

1) Use Google Reader for those feeds you REALLY will read.

2) Aggregate your other feeds and put them on your Netvibes.

So how do you aggregate your feeds?  Well, you could:

• Use YahooPipes (Thanks Marshall K for teaching that at WordCampdx.)
• Use the following tools to get RSS feeds of keyword searches and then use Netvibes to browse the searches.
  • Twitter search (search.twitter.com)
  • FriendFeed
  • Google Blog Search
  • Ask.com blog search
  • flickr.com/photo/tag
  • Youtube tags

I have been following this process for the last couple weeks and I have to say, it works great!  I read the feeds that I really want to read and need to read. I don’t feel like I’m missing out because I didn’t but my feeds just moved them to an optional location. I don’t have the guilt either because my Google Reader ONLY has those things I really want to read so I don’t see hundreds of feeds staring me in the face.

I can’t recommend this system enough.  That said, do you have a better idea? How do you manage your feeds?

Today I was fortunate to get the opportunity to share my passion for all things “webby” with my team at work.  We always start every Monday with a staff meeting to talk about things and share what we did the week before.  Today I got to share what’s happening with our internal team wiki and also the wiki sandbox for our team and the other teams within our larger group.

I guess I should back up. We are running a bit of a pilot before we run a “formal” pilot with more people from the company I work for. My audience is VERY new to social media and the “Web 2.0″ technologies, so I created Wiki Academy. Wiki Academy consists of informal “brown bag” sessions every other Tuesday to show people in my team here and our team in CA, how to do things in the wiki.   This first week I’m going to show them

Wikis in Plain English

by Common Craft and then go through the steps to logging on, creating a profile and adding a page. We’re going to use GoToMeeting so we can record the audio and the screen action.  By doing this, we’ll be able to post the session on our wiki for those that have missed a session and want the information.

Later in the day we had a couple people from my team talk about the Inverge conference they attended last month.  That got a whole other conversation started about blogs, wikis, and forums, mixing them together. etc.  Somehow in that meeting people were asking about Twitter, RSS feeds, blogging, etc. I couldn’t help but join the conversation and talk to everyone about what I knew.  At the same time, I was giddy with delight that the team I’m on is so interested in social media, web 2.0, or whatever the “hot” word of the day is for it.  I think the best part was after the meeting I showed a colleague how to create a FriendFeed account, add twitter to the account and how to find me.  I also showed him the basics of Google Reader too.  How COOL!  I could talk about this sort of stuff all day.  I’m so excited that I will be on the team working to implement a wiki in our company. Who knows, maybe it will be more, like blogs, wikis, and forums. I’m so excited, I can’t stand it!

Finally I’ve gotten the opportunity to post about WordCampdx that I attended this last Saturday. this was the first event of this kind I have attended, I just have to say, it was AMAZING! I wasn’t sure what to expect but it was better than I had thought it would be.  I started the morning registering and meeting other bloggers.  I’m usually a pretty shy person around people I don’t know, but having blogging in common enabled me to come out of my shell.  I think I started with 18 twitter followers and ended up with something close to 40 after one day of networking.

• I learned so much attending Wordcampdx.  I’m sort of at a loss of where to start.  Let’s see, Lorelle VanFossen shared a great story about how WordPress is changing lives.  I had never thought about how blogging enables some people.  Lorelle shared a great story about Glenda Watson Hyatt of the Do It Myself Blog. Glenda’s story is so powerful it even made me weepy and thankful that we have techonlogy and the it enables people to break barriers and perceptions.  Thanks Lorelle, for the story.
• Betsy Richter shared with us how she got a website up, with authors in something like 10 days.  I appreciated the anlogies she made and all the “lessons learned” she shared with us.  If you haven’t put it in your feeds, add Our PDX Network to your feeds. It’s a great site to keep up with Portland happenings and people.
• I was pretty happy after those presentations but the day only got better.  Chris O’Rourke showed us the top 10 plug-ins to make our blogs pop.  He has some great plugins that I had not heard before.  It was super exciting to here him talk about each plugin and install them on my blog as he talked.
• After lunch, Jane Wells showed us all the exciting things to come with WordPress 2.7.  Man is it going to be awesome!  I can’t believe it’s not going to be out for about another month.  I’m so waiting for that one.
• Next up, Tying you Tubes: Integration with WordPress Josh Bancroft . Josh made some great analogies relating integration of our “web life” with our blog and how we can support such things as twitter, friendfeed,e tc on our home page.
• Marshall Kirkpatrick did  great presentation showing us how to feed our blogs with rss feeds.  I can’t believe all the ways to get feeds and aggregate them to get a feed to post on your blog, use for news, etc.  Let’s just say I was left in awe and super excited about the possibilities.

Needless to say, I had a TOTAL blast at the event, met a TON of people and look forward to the continued connections.  I honestly feel like I’m becoming part of the PDX blogging community.  I’ve been checking out Upcoming and plan to attend several events to keep my involved.

Thanks Wordcampdx for a great day full of information!  I look forward to the next one!

Today I had the opportunity to meet with Josh Bancroft and chat about all things geek. Everyone once in awhile Josh and I get together to talk about “geeky” things.  Every time I walk away from meeting with Josh I’m pumped up about geeky stuff, online communities and usually end up buying the new toy he just showed me. Yup, I’m bad. Last time Josh and I met, I ended up buying a Kindle… this time he showed me a cool, white, EPC.  I’m in trouble with that one. I really REALLY want that. I’m a sucker for new, techy things.

I am just so amazed and how much one can learn about building online communities, social media, web 2.0 and all those other “hot” phrases for connecting on the web. On one hand I feel really strong in my knowledge and on the other, I feel like I have so much to learn.  Josh keeps telling me I know more than I think I do, and maybe that’s so, but I want to really feel comfortable about what I know. I want to be able to speak to anyone, geek and non-geek, about wikis, blogs, podcasting, online communities.

I can’t believe I went with three questions and we only got through the first.  Ok, yeah, I can because Josh and I have a habit of talking about the question and then going off on a tangent and then coming back.  Right in the middle of talking about blogs I should be making sure to read, showing me how to use Netvibes and making feeds of twitter searches we jumped to iPhone apps.  I had to laugh a bit because there we were in Panera sharing apps and “geeking out”. I’m sure people thought it was quite a site. Josh has some wicked cool apps though, like sonic lighter. That is one cool app! I can’t believe that it shows you all the people that are running that app all over the world.  It was amazing to look it.  Imagine the power in that sort of thing, maybe not for a lighter, but it did make me wonder how it could be applied to other things. Koi Pond was super cool too.  I ended up with nine apps on my list to try.

Josh and I also talked about his new project which sounds so cool and right up his alley.  I think he’ll be great at it.  The cool thing is I get to help him a bit.  How cool is that?  Right now I’m going to try and work out a logo for him and then go from there. I am so flattered that he’d want me to help him.  So we’re helping each other. He’s mentoring me and I’m helping him, where needed, on his project.

I learned so much today and got so many great sites to start following.  I’ve also implemented some new changes on my blog too based on today’s meeting.  I even got an early preview of Josh’s presentation for tomorrow at WordCampdx.  That’s the other fun things happening.  I’m really trying to emerse myself in the blogging, wiki community.  I’m pretty excited about tomorrow to learn lots about WordPress and network with other bloggers in the pdx area.

This is the most funny video I’ve seen in a long time…

You’re No One if You’re Not on Twitter

I’ve moved HERE! I have upgraded from a WordPress hosted blog to this one. I love it. I’ve been learning lots more about WordPress and how to utilize it more. I’ve moved my personal blog and my recipe box to WordPress too. I’m also working with a non-profit to help them update their site. They were looking for something they could edits and update easily. They thought it had to be something like Dreamweaver… I thought differently, WordPress. With all the customization and things you can do it’s possible to make a WordPress blog look like a WordPress website. It’s been so fun working on it. In fact, I’m heading to WordCamp PDX the 27th of September. How cool is that? I’ll be able to hook up with fellow WordPressers and learn more. I can’t wait.

In other news, I’ve been working on writing several courses related to Joint Commission training and hospital accredidation. That topic is so huge and so important that it kept me pretty busy. Two weeks ago it was so nuts I think I worked more than I slept because the wave of work all came at once. In addition to my usual instructional design stuff I’ve been working with my boss and a few people in my group to develop a wiki for internal purposes. We’ve been working using MediaWiki…. adding extensions… customizing it a bit so it’s already for my boss to share with his bosses to get buy off so we can pilot and implement the wiki for our use and to add it as a service we can offer to our clients. I’m pretty excited because if all goes well with the project, I’ll be working on the pilot, training, implementation plan and everything to get it ready for go live in 2009. How cool is that!!!

Looking forward to blogging more.