Lightning Talks: Inspiring Stories: M. Asif Rahman, Cory Miller, #wcsf14

Two lightning talks set to inspire you!
How WordPress Helped Me To See The World From Dhaka, Bangladesh by M. Asif Rahman
Official description:

I was a simple boy from Bangladesh. Back in 2004, when I just started University in Electrical & Telecommunication Engineering. I tried to make a site, as part of assignment, did not liked Blogger, that time I got introduced to WordPress. It changed my life, I find WordPress very easy. Started to make websites. Soon Became hard to manage, started hiring University friend, that also became unmanageable, took an office, started my company. Some of our web property worked super well, like The Tech Journal, it reached alexa rank 3000 within 1 year of inception. We kept working only in WordPress, built tons of plugins and theme, become attached with more important figure inside WordPress. Got my first invite from WordCamp Melbourne, spoke their during 2011. Since then I have attended over 10 WordCamp worldwide. I attended all last 3 WordCamp SF. Now I have a registered company in US, working to help young entrepreneur in US & Bangladesh too, managed and helped multiple WordPress MeetUp and WordCamp. I want to share my story.

My notes

• Talk is at asif.im/1581/wordcamp-sf-2014-presentation/
• Proud bangladeshi, loves WP
• A simple boy from small town
• He became and engineer
• Blogger was difficult to customize
• Some of his post became popular
• Started attending WordCamps in 2010
• He’s been to lots fo them. In one summer: 7 WordCamps
• Travels a lot
• Nice community in Bangladesh
• Working to improve WP
• Dreaming Big
• Easy to start: lowest possible learning curve. And then it is easy to go on.

How Simply Clicking Publish Changed My Life by Cory Miller
Official description:

In 2006, I clicked the Publish button on my blog … and it has led to a core philosophy of shipping my work, regardless of my fear or need for perfectionism. The Click Publish philosophy that I’ve continued to do over the last 8 years has changed my life and led me on an incredible adventure of sharing my time and talents with the world.

Over the years of working closely with people often associated with WP — from budding bloggers, talented designers and developers, I’ve realized that being able to release your work to the world is loaded with fear and anxiety and perfectionism and want to share my story to inspire others to click Publish and ship their work — whatever that may be.

I’ll share the stories of success (and failure) that living this philosophy has produced in my life.

My notes

• He put up 30 themes
• The Click Publish Moment
• “The tragedy of life is what dies within a man when he lives.”
• 1. Fear: self-talk of not being good enough. This stinks.
  • Try and fail and be critizied then never try and die with regret.
  • Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo
  • They don’t erect statues to critics
• 2. Perfectionism – it is a plague in our industry
• It robs the world of your good work you will never release it
• Beware of creating narcissistic art sculptures
• Your good is someone else’s awesome
• Push your work out
• Finish and ship it: someone is waiting for it
• Life expectancy: how many days you have left. That is your currency. Spend it wisely
• “Alas for those that never sing, But die with all their music in them!” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
• Now, Go Click Publish!