It’s a busy time in the world of WordPress. The Lively Labs crew will be out and about for various WordCamps over the next couple months. We use WordPress heavily as our content management system of choice for most projects and are always glad to be involved and contribute to the community.

April 24th: Orange County WordCamp

I’ll be presenting on “Using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS)”  at the OC WordCamp down at UC Irvine. Come check it out!

May 1st: San Francisco WordCamp

Ed, Chelsea and I attended SF WordCamp last year and it was great to meet a lot of new people in the WordPress community such as our friends over at Shane & Peter and NextSpace. We are definitely looking forward to it again this year.

June 12: Reno-Tahoe WordCamp

The 2nd annual Reno-Tahoe WordCamp is going to much larger than the first. We have already confirmed it will be held in the ballrooms of the university thanks to sponsorship by the UNR Business Student Council. This event is key to the development of Reno’s tech culture. We have a lot of great developers, bloggers and more in this town and we want to continue to help them in any way possible. The call for proposals is now open so if you’d like to speak, make sure you get your presentation submitted! A new website is going up soon but for now, you can find details at www.renotahoewordcamp.com.

2009 is wrapping up but it comes with some very exciting news. I’m very pleased to announce that Lively Labs is now open for business.

The core team consists of myself, Ed Adkins, and Chelsea Otakan and we will be providing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) development and consulting using Salesforce.com, the Force.com platform, WordPress and the iPhone.

You can read more at Lively Labs: The Adventure Begins.

Our first product, Basejump, which I’ve talked a little bit about here will be available this month on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange and the Basecamp+Salesforce developer toolkit will be released to the developer community to allow for others to create their own integrations between the two applications.

For the Force.com developer hackathon, I developed an integration toolkit between 37Signals‘ Basecamp application for project management and Salesforce.com. This little bit of work earned me the top prize in the Dreamforce 2009 Hackathon so a big thanks to Salesforce.com for putting on the event. It has easily become my favorite part of the Dreamforce conference.

Salesforce.com, in its simplest form, allows for the tracking of business leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities and its development platform extends its functionality to include pretty much whatever a developer can come up with. For many organizations, these salesforce opportunities represent products that are being purchased by another company. What if, however, you are a professional services group? Your services are products in a sense, however the native salesforce.com functionality of products is fairly limited for use for professional services.

Enter Basecamp
Basecamp allows you to manage companies, projects and the various messages, to-do lists, milestones, files and time tracking for each project.

Your Basecamp is in my Salesforce
This Basecamp+Salesforce.com toolkit allows you to tie Salesforce opportunities to Basecamp projects right out of the box. The toolkit includes methods for all of the Basecamp API methods so developers can build their own applications using whichever Salesforce.com objects and business logic they desire using visualforce and apex code.

Due to the time constraints on the Hackathon competition, the toolkit requires a little bit of work on my part before I deem it ready for releasing to the Force.com Code Share.

Features

• Tie your Salesforce user account to your Basecamp user account
• Associate opportunities to existing Basecamp projects
• Create new Basecamp projects from within Salesforce
• Create, read, edit and delete project messages, to-do lists and milestones
• Manage completion of to-do lists

Considerations
Both Basecamp and Salesforce have methods for alerting users regarding upcoming tasks. The initial version of this integration relies on Basecamp’s notifications, which can be selected from within Salesforce.

Roadmap
Due to the short timeframe provided during the Dreamforce Hackathon there are a few Basecamp functional areas that were not written into the toolkit. I plan to add these items soon but they may not be in the first version released to the code share.

• Time tracking
• Writeboards
• Files

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with either Salesforce.com, Dreamforce, 37Signals or Basecamp.

I’m heading out to San Francisco this week for Dreamforce 2009, this year’s Salesforce.com User & Developer conference.

Some of the things I’m particularly looking forward to:

• Dreamforce Tweetup
• Developer certification exams to become a certified Force.com Developer
• Force.com Hackathon: David Schach and I are teaming up on Wednesday night to develop a “killer Force.com integration” with <insert web app name here>.
• Meeting up with many of the folks I met last year at the non-profit dinner event
• Meeting new developers and users
• Finding new projects and ideas to work on when I return to Reno.

I’ll be posting some content later this week, especially with a cool app integration to show off from the Hackathon.

ColinLoretz.com is finally being redesigned. (Insert parable about a shoemaker’s children being shoeless or something here). I have a new website in the works that I plan to publish next week to showcase all of the many things I do in both work and personal life.

Many of you are probably reading this through an RSS reader and probably have no clue what the actual design currently looks like (it’s a theme I call ‘Naked Theme’) but for those of you that can see it, hopefully you will enjoy it.

This won’t just be a UI change though, I will be working the use of categories and tags to fit my life and all of the things I have going on. Until then, come find me on Twitter.

I have a lot of things going on right now so I thought it might be a good time to get it all out in writing, for my own sake as well as to share it with all of you.

Now that I’ve graduated, here are the different areas of my world:

Twelve Horses

I’m still working on Salesforce.com projects at Twelve Horses and taking on a few projects with a project management role.

Social Network Project

I can’t name names right now but I have been hired by a social network startup in San Francisco as a contractor to do two things. The first is to take their existing website and social network framework, originally built on Ruby on Rails, and move it to WordPress MU with BuddyPress. The second is to implement a full redesign that they have already had commissioned by another designer.

Their current site is far from being user friendly so I’m excited to be working on the project as it mixes information architecture, interaction design, and my platform of choice, WordPress. Their goal is to be a content provider with many of the elements you would find on a social network. In fact, because of this, instead of competing with other social networks like Facebook, users will actually be able to sign up for a profile using their existing Facebook profile using the Facebook Connect technology.

Random Projects

I just got done acting as a technical editor for a book on developing with the Force.com platform. It was pretty cool to offer insights and feedback on the author’s manuscript as well as providing validation on the concepts and code examples that were covered.

Reno Collective

My biggest endeavor for the last year has been Reno Collective. If you don’t already know what it is, check the website. There have been a few ups and downs and we have certainly learned alot. Ed and I went and visited quite a few coworking spaces when were were in California during the San Francisco WordCamp. Jeremy over at NextSpace in Santa Cruz hooked us up with the inside perspective.

The LLC is in place and everything is on track to open. Our efforts are now being poured into finding a building that fits all of our magic numbers to make the space work and thrive as the community grows. We have a benefit show down at The Amendment 21, featuring a hip-hop and burlesque show that we’ve called Beauties & Beats.

Events to bring people together

In the process of promoting Reno Collective, we started to see a need for social (and yes, often geeky) events in Reno. From this need spawned Ignite Reno, Reno-Tahoe WordCamp and what will soon be a Reno WordPress User Group. WordCamp turned out great and we will definitely be putting on another one next year. The first Ignite Reno was also great success and the second Ignite Reno is quickly approaching this month on July 16th.

Future events that we have in the works are FreelanceCamp Reno and LaidOff Camp Reno. Dates, locations and more details are still being worked out but these events will focus on bringing freelancers together to learn from one another and helping locals who have been laid off from their jobs to get back into the job market by working smarter instead of harder, essentially hacking the job process.

My ‘Infinite’ Amount of Spare Time

Yes, there is and will always be, spare time. I like to work hard and play hard. I just completed the Tour De Nez as my first century bike ride. I’m prepping for Burning Man at the end of the summer with the camp that Ed is putting together, The Black Rock Center for Unlearning. I am still not 100% sure I will be going out to the playa this year as I also have my eye on heading over the England and Switzerland for the first time but I am pitching in where I can to help prepare. Now that it is summer time, I also look forward to many visits up to Lake Tahoe (geocaching, perhaps?), rafting down the Truckee River and getting in hundreds (thousands?) of miles on the road bike.

LOCAL COMMUNITY LEADERS AND CITIZENS WALK WITHOUT SHOES TO RAISE FUNDS NEEDED TO PLACE SHOES ON ORPHANS IN KENYA

Hundreds of individuals and community leaders are gathering to support the Think Kindness organization in sending over 7,770 gently used shoes to AIDS orphans and refugees in Nyeri, Kenya. Brian Williams, youth motivational speaker and president of the Think Kindness organization, has identified an orphanage that has over 160 children, half of which have never owned a single pair of shoes in their life. “I have challenged over 25,000 students within our local school district to make a massive difference in our community. Now, the challenge has grown to the entire city. The original goal was 5,000 shoes, we exceeded that by over 2,700 in less than 90 days!”

The Think Kindness organization has compiled a team of teachers, high school students, and martial artists that will be personally flying to Kenya and placing the shoes on the feet of children in need. While there, they will be filming a documentary film that will be screened at dozens of schools and community centers to show everyone what the impact their simple act of kindness had on a child in need. “Children in Kenya or going to be thrilled to walk in the shoes of Americans! Yet, what will be just as amazing is that we will be bringing these stories and reactions home on film. Hopefully this will spark and inspire even more kindness within our local community, even something as simple as donating a used pair of shoes.” Says Williams.

To raise the funds needed to ship the shoes, Think Kindness organization, alongside UNR’s American Marketing Association, is hosting Take The Walk, a shoeless walk-a-thon. “The goal is to gather over 1,000 people to walk one mile without shoes in solidarity to help raise the $10,000 needed to ship the shoes.” Said Rori Goetze – Director of Think Kindness.

The event has captured attention of thousands across the social media networks, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Youtube. “Everyone is connected, one email or wall post can reach thousands. And its working! Everyone is blogging, wall posting, twittering, and talking about the event and how they want to “Take The Walk.” Says Williams.

“Take The Walk is more than a walk-a-thon. It is movement towards asking people to “take the walk” every day in their own lives to make our community and world a better place. It is not just a mile stroll, it is a way of life.” Says Pat Conners, owner of Tetrus Building Materials.

For more information about the Kenya Shoe Drop, please visit www.ThinkKindness.org

A little bit about my followers on Twitter, they are:

I started promoting Reno Ignite about a month ago and even with all the details I provided, the number one question I have been getting is “What is Reno Ignite?”

An Ignite event has two parts (three, when you count the beers):

Ignite Contest – Team-based contests in making things such as human-supporting popsicle stick bridges, far-flying paper airplanes, and life-preserving egg drop capsules. Here is a chance for everyone to flex their creative muscles.

Ignite Presentations – 20 slides, 15 seconds each, what will you say?

An Ignite event has two kinds of participants:

Speaker - Each speaker is given 20 slides and each one changes automatically after 15 seconds, giving them a total of 5 minutes on stage. These presentations can be educational, inspirational, or even comical. The speaker’s job is to teach, entertain, or inspire. This might seem like a daunting task but it’s not. If you have an interest in something and can give a presentation on it, odds are good that other people will also be interested. for speakers is now open.

Audience - While the opportunity to speak is available to everyone, you do not have to give a presentation to enjoy Ignite! Come join us for a few drinks and some great speakers. You can RSVP on our Facebook event or drop us a line on Twitter (@igniteReno).

While you may be a spectator, we encourage you to participate in the Ignite Contest that takes place before the presentations.

O’Reilly’s website also has a “What is Ignite” section, here is how they describe it:

Started by Brady Forrest, Technology Evangelist for O’Reilly Media, and Bre Pettis of Etsy.com, formerly of MAKE Magazine, Ignite was inspired by Pecha Kucha Nights, where speakers are given 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds, giving each speaker 6 minutes and 40 seconds of fame. The first Ignite took place in Seattle in 2006, and since then the event has become an international phenomenon, with gatherings in Helsinki, Finland; Paris, France; New York, New York; and many other locations.

Ignite has two parts: the Ignite contest, where people make things, and Ignite talks, where presenters get 20 slides and five minutes to make their point. You can opt to only have talks, but the contest is fun and can serve as a great warm-up for the talks.

We hope to see you at our first event on February 7th March 7th, 2009 at Se7en on West.

As always you can stay in the loop by visiting IgniteReno.com or following us on Twitter: @ignitereno

A Helvetica-themed version of Monopoly. (via Daring Fireball and Kottke)

Created by Floretz Guerlain.