Clarion Folk

Here is what I love about Devcons:

You find awesome people.

The SV sessions have been fantastic. Like previously mentioned, they put a huge amount of diligent work into preparation and then delivery. Fantastic.

However, as good (different) has been the “business practices” focussed talks. We’re a little way into Kim Davies‘ talk, Michael Summons having gone previously.

I tells you, this is amazing stuff. Michael just blew me away. The guy has such a clear grasp on the Full Spectrum of Business. How to get stuff done .. really done. Not hobby-ist, and not Throw-A-Million-Dollars-At-It either.

Michael talked about discipline, putting into place good practices, adjusting those practices when they need it, when they might not work. Being _proactive_ not _reactive_.

It’s stuff you’ve probably heard before. For me, it was an amazing half hour.

And Kim is walking in the same steps .. but honing in on the Marketing. Very cool. I’ll have more later.

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I’m enjoying Devcon. I’ll have a bit to say afterwards, when there’s been time to collate thoughts etc, but let me just say this:

Geoff Spillane deserves HUGE kudos. The amount of work he has done is huge. Getting together the conference, the Training (arm-twisting the SV guys a month out to get everything ready), getting 3 (3!) SV guys here. Just awesome.

We did have a little bit of an issue yesterday though. Bob Foreman had to do the last half of his session in darkness and non-electricity! It’s wierd walking down the main street of a small country town in complete and almost-utter darkness. Course, there was the noise and lights of a pub to guide the way, heh heh.

Here’s a couple of links to Clarion Mag for information. Here for some live news, and here is the category for the Aussie Devcon 2008.

Also, get on Skype and add me (search for “Stu Clarionite Troubadour”)! I’ll add you to the Clarion Talk channel. A great place at all times, and right now we are online.

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Well, almost. In about half an hour, the first Training is scheduled to begin.

Bites the big one that I can’t be there, but I’ll be scavenging around over the weekend, getting people’s opinions and wotnot. Will be doing small video interviews on my phone.

To everyone who is there, have a blast!

To everyone who is not. Stay tuned. Or not.

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For a few weeks now Clarion Folk has been using a new Comment web service, Intense Debate (This review for the Wordpress flavour, as that’s what I use).

It’s good. That’s my kudos meter-reading at the moment.

There is a lot to like. They take care of comments, they give you stats, they’ve got plugins to call on the blog (e.g. Recent Comments), and it’s all bundled into a very easy to use interface.

(Some of the Stats you can get with Intense Debate)

In the above image you’ll see some of the stats available. Clarion Folk doesn’t have a lot of comments, but take a look at a couple of the posts, and you’ll see that what the community lacks in quantity it makes up for in crazy .. ahem. I mean quality.

Although I’m just using Intense Debate for one blog, they are really trying to hit a multiple blog, global-wide audience. Some of the functionality is only really useful if you have more than one blog running Intense Debate, and if you comment on other blogs running Intense Debate.

I really hope they can get some momentum. It’s a good service.

It’s a service, which means Wordpress (or whatever engine you are using to power your blog/site) will make a server call or two. These slow down the site for a little while, but it’s nothing too bad. And really, that’s not a complaint you can lay at the door of Intense Debate. It comes with the territory, at least to some extent.

Anyway, kudos to Intense Debate! I like what they are doing.

One more thing, before I forget. Support is stellar!

They are using a forum service known as Get Satisfaction. It seems fast enough, and has a few nifty response options. Social Network/Media geared.

But above this, I have found the actual level of support (from a particular fellow by the name of Michael, look see) to be fantastic.

So thank you to Intense Debate for you work.

Any readers who blog, take a gander. Actually, comment here! I’d love to hear some feedback as to how you find the commenting.

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