If you work on WordPress projects, especially in teams, read on for some tips on setting up your projects in a Subversion repository to make version management, installation configuration, and WordPress upgrades smooth and painless.

On January 3, 2011 David Friedman posted a pretty grand idea. Crowdfund a mission to put a monolith on the Moon. This would be an ultimate scale nerdy prank. But it set bells off in my head. Why not create fine art in space? And what form would it take?

The initial process of getting Capistrano running was unclear when using WordPress, so I figured I should share what I learned. After playing with it for a while I found it very easy to work with and quite clearly documented behind the scenes. What follows are a few things I’ve learned along the way.

This Sunday, I'll be moderating a "core conversation" at the SXSW Conference in Austin, TX. The idea behind these sessions is to add order to the chaos of all the fantastic conversations going on in the halls and corridors of SXSW by scheduling moderated sessions around specific topics of interest.

Mine will be on company culture and management. More specifically, "7 reasons your employees hate you."

Below, I've reposted the article I wrote for iMediaConnection last year that inspired my speaker submission. I hope you find it insightful and would love your feedback in comments.

Finally...someone cuts through the social media buzz and reveals our deeper motivations.

(Courtesy of Despair, Inc.)

At Traction we believe that "everything is interactive." Taking that to heart, the creative team had some old-school interactive fun, inspired by Adam Kleinberg's SXSW presentation: "7 reasons why your employees hate you." Pretending that our boss was an evil tyrant, we xeroxed photos of Adam and took turns defacing enhancing them with a variety of mediums such as ink, pencil, and collage. Imaginary retribution never felt this good.

After one night in Austin for my first, SXSW conference, I have yet to develop any articulate (or coherent for that matter) thoughts about the state of the industry. I do have a few random motley observations, however. 

Here they are.

Yesterday was my second day at SXSW Interactive and while I have yet to come up with an epiphany about the Future of Digital, I have been exposed to enough great ideas and people to graduate my motley observations to motley thoughts.

If you're at SXSW (or watching it online at home), please add your motley thoughts in comments. Here are mine.

I'm going with motley tweets for Day 3 at SXSW because yesterday I moderated a Core Conversation on "7 reasons your employees hate you." These sessions are very popular at SouthX, because they stress audience participation and makes room for so many of the brilliant voices here in attendance become part of the event. 

SXSW had me pick a hashtag for the session and I went with #hateyou. Unbeknownst to me, #hateyou is already pretty popular amongst the frustrated insomniacs, disgruntled girlfriends and thwarted public transportation users of the world, so I've pasted some of the tweets here.

It's almost being there.

I'm on I'm on a plane full of booze-soaked, raccoon-eyed, exhausted and bedraggled nerds. On our way back to Oakland, the word motley has aptly come to describe the crowd. 

I had an amazing experience. The friendships and connections I made will be priceless. The opportunity to be a speaker was an honor. The parties I attended were super-fun.

Yet, I have to admit, I leave feeling uninspired.

Read why....