It is with great pride that I present TASSONI BRASIL, a Canadian owned company that designs jewelery handcrafted in Brasil. The designers are based in Montreal, quite young and quite handsome. To date they have been marketing themselves “gorilla style” hosting private showings for VIPs only.

Today marks the start of their online business with a fully loaded wordpress e-commerce website. This site’s design is the definition of simple and sexy. From their home page to their check out page the visitor is presented with slick slideshows and eye popping products.

Payments are processed with PayPal standard and shipping is quoted on the fly using FedEx based on product weight and dimensions. If there was any site of mine that could win an award this would be it. Check out their website and let me know what you think by posting your comments on the official blog post.

I am now beginning to see myself as a “general contractor” for web development much like the construction business for property developments.

You have a foundation or framework and then you build in the layout such as all the pages/rooms functions/utilities. Beyond that you have to design the front-end/front-yard. After all, your website is also known as your home page

So without further adieu I would like to present The Hilton Group: General Contractors Toronto specialized in building custom homes. With the launch of their new WordPress website, we have conducted an online marketing campaign focusing on landscaping services such as outdoor lighting, sprinkler systems, sodding, grading, etc.

The home page is split into 6 funnels covering an array of sub-services; waterproofing, snow removal, custom homes, landscaping, concrete, and paving. This site is one of the largest sites I have built to date and still one of the easiest to navigate.

WordPress is an open-source platform and my weapon of choice for building a website. Open-source essentially means that there is no licensing involved… it’s free to the general public. What may shock you more is the list of people that are using it such as NASA, CNN, Perez Hilton and many others.

My philosophy of work is to empower my client with the ability to produce for themselves. Much like the old saying goes “you can feed a man for a day with 1 fish but you can feed a man for life if you teach him to fish”.

Email Support
Take advantage of a monthly support retainer with a 24 hour response time and know that a wordpress ninja is in your corner. Last but not least, this service comes with optimized web hosting for your wordpress website. Starting at only $20/month

Live Training
If you prefer there is a live consulting service provided via skype. This allows us to share screens and share links easily. This service needs to be scheduled with an appointment and is available at a rate of $60/hour

Design & Development
Some projects require extra tweaking which must be done with code such as php, css or html. Themes and plugins are often tagged by their authors and may or may not fit your company brand. This service is available as a flat rate but must be quoted for each project. Please contact me for a free estimate.

I’ve started listening to another audio book, it’s a hobby of mine while working away in the office. It’s called “The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing – How to Trigger Exponential Sales Through Runaway Word of Mouth” by George Silverman. It came highly recommended by another author I really respect named Seth Godin who wrote “The Dip”… a small little hardcover book that lays out all decisions as one of three things.

At any rate, I wanted to express how excited I am about this new audiobook because the first thing it opens with are the 5 Characteristics of Great Products and Services which I could really have used in my arsenal today when handling a client. As a web developer specialized in WordPress, I’m often faced with legacy projects that I need to obliterate to the client’s demise but for the greater good.

You see a legacy project is one where the last developer has written his own “legacy”. It’s a product built by an individual rather than a community. The individual works alone to have full control and focus on the priorities of their own values than that of the community. This is the hurdle I have on a day to day basis. Open-source technologies like WordPress are open-source not because they make use of php and mysql or other “open-source” programming languages but because all programming is collaborative and there is a master framework that everyone works from.

Once a developer customizes the framework with their own “legacy” (their own code) they are no longer working from the same frame of reference that the community developers are using. This now puts them into their own little black hole with no one to help them because no one has a copy of their framework… they may be using open-source languages, but they are not practicing open-source philosophies. This brings me to why I am excited for this audiobook.

Here are the 5 Characteristics of Great Products & Services;

1. Relative Advantage: this refers to the perceptions of the benefits in the product or service you are offering. In the context of a web programmer, the advantage is not having to learn how to become a programmer.
2. Compatibility: this is what i feel to be the most important because clients will always have pre-existing beliefs, experiences and expectations. In order to keep clients happy they must still feel connected to those existing values.
3. Simplicity: if any other point is most important it would have to be simplicity. The masses of the internet are not advanced users. The more complex a product becomes the more difficult it is to learn how to use, customize and expand. Some developers have great vision and seek to be ahead of the curve but the truth is that’s not where you want to be. George Silverman had a great metaphor for this… think of it like surfing the waves; if you’re ahead of the “curve of the wave” you’re going to bail. If you fall behind the curve nothing will happen. If however you are right on the cusp of the curve/wave… you’re in for the ride of your life!
4. Triability: from my understanding this means limited liability. In my case, I give clients peace of mind with WordPress because it is not my product. They know that it will still exist and be improved should anything happen to me. They know that they can continue to work with wordpress using another developer easily. If they don’t like WordPress there are ways of converting it to another platform quite readily. However, this is only if I do not modify the core files of WordPress.
5. Observability: this is often the icebreaker. There have been a few meetings where I have been belittled for suggesting such a conservative platform as WordPress for corporations that need more than a blog. Alas, here comes the WordPress Showcase page with a list of Fortune 500 companies and Celebrities to boot who have made WordPress their official website. Nothing says trust-worthy more than a celebrity endorsement right :p

So there you have it. If you’re an entrepreneur trying to carve your own place in a world of “know it alls” just remember the 5 Characteristics of a Great Product or Service… it doesn’t mean being ahead of the curve, it doesn’t mean being exclusive and it doesn’t mean getting married to your developer.

Canadian Music Fest (CMF) is the largest music festival in Canada as part of Canadian Music Week (CMW), i.e. the largest music conference in the country and 9th in the world. It takes place in Toronto once per year in March. There are more than 800 bands playing, across 55 venues in 5 nights. One wristband gets you access to all of the concerts. I signed on with them last year as the webmaster for the festival and have been back at it this summer refacing their social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter & MySpace). Most recently I have re-skinned WordPress theme with GraphPaperPress. It is the same theme framework I use for EPKhosting.com. Here’s the sweetest part of the deal… I get to perform at the festival with some of the greatest talents Canada has to offer and setup my own booth at the conference! Come say hello, it all goes down March 9 – 13, 2011.

The IRIE Music Festival is just around the corner and has signed up for EPKhosting.com’s WordPress web hosting package to power their new website. They used the On-Assignment template as the framework for their theme and are using GigPress to generate their event schedule. They are also using the store locator which plots all 3 venues on Google Maps.

The 9th annual TD IRIE Music Festival is a four-day cultural extravaganza taking place from Friday, July 30 to Monday, August 2nd and it is absolutely FREE. TD IRIE Music Festival features a variety of music, food, arts and ideas at three main stages: Nathan Phillips Square, Queen’s Park and Yonge-Dundas Square. If you’ve ever been to Caribana, you may have already been to the IRIE Music Festival… they are divisions of the same festival.

I am pleased to introduce Grace Corps Studio founded by Nikki Bergen in Toronto, Ontario. Nikki is a business graduate from McGil University who took-off to Mexico where she taught Salsa Dance and choreographed the shows presented by the local resorts as evening entertainment for tourists. Her true passion however is Ballroom Dancing, where she connects with lovebirds to make those first few steps into their new life at their first wedding dance.

But that isn’t all this entrepreneur has done with her young life, nope this lady surely has a heart of gold for the work she does in the capacity of medical rehabilitation. It was while working with a ballroom dance student coping with Multiple Sclerosis that Nikki decided to pursue her Stott Pilates Mat and Reformer certification. Her vision is to make body movement accessible to all people. Nikki now works with the non-profit “Dancing With Parkinsons Inc” and teaches weekly group classes for students coping with the disease.

Last but not least, Nikki is a member of Mambo Dream Team, an internationally renowned performance group that combines Latin dance with acrobatics and aerial work. The Mambo Dream Team also offers entertainment for private parties and has performed in some of the country’s largest dance competitions.

Grace Corps Studio has a new website coming this summer and I suspect there will be much more photography available when we launch using the NextGen Gallery as seen in her current WordPress website’s banner; http://www.gracecorpsstudio.com/

There is an annual WordPress conference called WordCamp that tours North America. On Saturday March 27th an Sunday March 28th 2010, WordCamp will be in Toronto at Centennial College. You can buy a ticket for $35 and that even includes transportation by bus from Union Station, Yonge and Bloor, Yonge and Eglinton and at the Scarborough Town Centre on both Saturday and Sunday to Centennial College. They’ll even drop you off afterwards too.

I’ve already bought my ticket and hope to be one of their speakers next year. I’m looking forward to learning more about WordPress MU, e-Commerce integration and branding. There will be some terrific keynote speakers, networking opportunities and q & a sessions. Take a look at their schedule for more details.

Hope to see you there!

To date, I have found that artists are the most inspirational people, however, I have just realized that fighters too are artists in some way shape or form. Recently, I have had the honor of meeting George Chevalo, the former heavy-weight champion of boxing in Canada and the only fighter that ever put Muhamad Ali in the hospital.

Now they say that what makes an artist is not his talent, skill, looks or personality, but his/her story. I think it essentially comes down to how they will remember you. For example, let’s take 2 of the greatest artists of the 21st century; Elvis Presley and Bruce Lee.

Elvis Presley was remembered as a “niger lover”, he was one of, if not the first caucasian singer/songwriter to follow the negro music known as “the blues”. His story lives on as the man who opened the “white audience” to “black performers”.

Similarly, Bruce Lee was the one of, it not the first asian martial artist to teach the “gwylo” (non-asians). Bruce Lee was challenged in the ring by the community’s elders to put an end to teaching non-asians. Bruce Lee won the match, but shortly after was ambushed and had his back broken.

This didn’t deter him from teaching non-asians at all… as a matter of Fact, he went further by bringing the martial arts to Hollywood where he finally became a movie star. To date, Bruce Lee is remembered as one of the founding Father’s of “mixed martial arts” having been the first to create his own art; Jeet Kune Do (available to all creeds/races).

Now back to George Chevalo… most Canadians especially baby boomers know him well as the Canadian hero of boxing and the father who lost three children to heroin.

After the loss of three children to drugs, many of us would simply die of a broken heart. George took his pain and used its energy as a means to raise awareness, by sharing his story, in an attempt to fight against drugs.

Today, when I ask someone if they’ve heard of George Chevalo, they will usually say “Yes, isn’t he the guy who put Muhamah Ali in the hospital” or “Yes, didn’t his son die of a heroin overdose”. These are both events, both “milestones” in his life… they don’t remember George based on his talent, looks or character but by his story.

There is a very compelling video I’ve placed on his home page using the “WordTube” media player plugin for WordPress. We used this plugin so that he could host the video exclusively on his own website as well as assign any image as the thumbnail preview… even brand it with his own watermark.

The video is a public service announcement that gets me every time. Take a look at his website to preview the video and the WordTube media player.

I’d like to introduce you to a very good friend of mine named Kevin Gregor; founder of the Gentle Giant Moving Company in Toronto. While I was attending school, I worked for Kevin as his right-hand man as part of his moving business; The Gentle Giant – targeting small jobs such as office moves. Throughout my time with Kevin I learned a lot about the labour industry… what it could be versus what it should be. You see, like most people, when I see a box or a couch that needs to be moved, I simply pick it up… then tire myself out or even hurt my back.

When i first started working for Kevin, I amused him. Here he was, a middle-aged man outdoing me; a young and healthy male student who trained in the martial arts. Slowly but surely I began to grasp what was happening. I was moving the hard way which it could be, whereas Kevin was moving the easy way which it should be. With all his experience, he could move more boxes than me in less time and with less sweat. He could even move a couch from a living room onto his truck BY HIMSELF!

How? Tools!

To start… use your head he says! Why carry when you can roll? Why lift when you can hoist? Why force something through when you can articulate the angles? Here I wanted to plow through some heavy lifting, burning myself out before the job is finished dying to go home. This experience taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life, i.e. pace yourself… there’s a hard way and an easy way always. That being said, I would like to bring your attention to Kevin’s company The Gentle Giant

Of all the professional movers in Toronto that I have ever worked with, the ones who have been trained by Kevin have always been a pleasure to work with where as the ones who have not been trained with Kevin have always been counter-productive. For his humour, his wisdom and all his cool tools, there is no better mover in Toronto than The Gentle Giant