It’s official.  The first annual WordCamp LA was a success. Ben Huh, founder of FAIL Blog and I Can Has Cheezburger, had a large hand in making that a reality.

I, along with everybody else it seemed, didn’t know what to expect from his lecture.  In all honesty, I was torn:  Do I go “glitz” and attend Ben’s or do I go “uber value” by attending Darren Rush’s session on search and improved performance.

I chose “glitz” and listend to Ben Huh work the crowd like a pro.  I’m so thrilled that I did.

One of the most important elements of his lecture was his insistence that tricks, bells & whistles and sweet plugins aren’t necessarily the key ingredients that comprise the coveted, secret internet guru sauce.  Rather, removing oneself from the bottleneck within one’s brand or blog  combined with keeping things as simple and as free as possible will ramp-up success more quickly and with more desireable results.

Let’s cut the bs.  You ARE the bottleneck.

The overarching message was “you have a major opportunity to run your brand or blog better than you are currently.  Wake up, simplify, be yourself and have fun.”  Sounds like it was puked straight ouf of the mouth of some “dot slob” person that made it big in the late 1990s choking down a Double Gulp of Mountain Dew, right?  Wrong.  By applying Huh’s attitude towards business and growth, one’s ability to be transparent, honest and trustworthy is enhanced 1o-fold.  If  trust can be built, people will be more apt to spend cash on your service or product, surf your blog, retweet your content, etc.

Regardless of what you think about his business philosophy, you can’t deny that all 26 of their websites (including FAIL blog and Icanhascheezburger) account for 12% of all of Wordpress’ traffic, they receive 1 BILLION page views per month and that they pay $Zero for advertising.

Here are the highlights from his session.

• Learn how to cache properly
• Create a brand or blog that is scalable
• You are the bottleneck
• Keep your lazy attitude (I’m doing that right now by simply posting my notes)
• Users care about what THEY want, not what you think
• Who are you trying to impress?!
• Don’t make people register, unless they want to vote
• User generated content is the future
• Before hiring another person, make sure you have a consistent 500,000 page views / month
• When possible, pay your moderators

At the end of the day, knowing and understanding what to do is much different than real world, first-hand application.  Make mistakes.  Screw up.  All of that knowledge will eventually evolve into wisdom that will help guide you to success(s).

What are your thoughts on Ben Huh’s opinions on business?  Have you already applied some of what he’s saying?

#benhuh? #wordcampla

Leaving a trail of energized bloggers and speakers in its wake, the 1st Wordcamp LA, hosted by Wordpress, has come and gone like a toothless, sweaty caravan of carnies.  Austin Passy and the crew at Wordcamp LA couldn’t have selected a better venue for the kickoff to what attendees hope will be an annual event.

It was my first time visiting the LMU campus in Playa (Playa del Rey), though I’ve driven by it no fewer than 500 times since I’ve been living in LA.  Once I arrived it appeared to be a bit of a challenge to locate the registration table, but I quickly saw the Wordpress balloons and coffee table (not like the crappy Ikea table you have in your apartment) and was ready to get into the mix.  For what appeared to be a modest, grassroots event, Worpcamp LA packed a lot of punch.  So high was the caliber of attendees, speakers and organizers that I’d be remiss if I were to try and stuff all of its goodness into a single post.

I’ll follow this post with three successive articles about the sessions I attended (Ben Huh, Co-founder of FAIL blog and Icanhascheezburger.com; Micah Baldwin, of Lijit and Follow Fridays fame; Jim Turner, founder of One By One Media).  Though there were other panels that people raved about, I was only able to squeeze in a whopping three.  In the meantime, I think its worthknowing who was there and about what they spoke.  Check out the list of speakers below:

#wordcampla #benhuh #Genuine #brendon