willie jackson

Blog

  • Tough choices

    We make hundreds—if not thousands—of decisions every day. Many are inconsequential and are done without much conscious thought. Others require our rapt attention.

    We all have goals that we’re trying to reach. And the decisions we make on a daily basis play a role in our trajectory towards said goals. Most people are reactive and address decisions on a case by case basis. This is fine, but often comes with some tradeoffs.

    If you get request every week to have lunch or drinks with people—especially friends wanting to “pick your brain” about things and the like—you might consider carefully examining how much time this takes out of your day and how long it takes to get back to your work after.

    I’ve had to cut down on the number of engagements I involve myself with during the week. It’s great to be social and meeting people is great, but what’s it worth in the big picture?

  • Adventure

    If you told a stranger about your company, would they smile to be polite or be genuinely interested in what you had to say?

    Could you set a room on fire in taking them on the adventure of your story? Is the thinking behind your idea or dream worth sharing?

    If so, share it. If not, change something.

  • Hey, look at me!

    When people are getting their product or service off the ground, they often take to various social networks with commendable zeal. The trouble is, they go about it with a “Hey guys, look at me!” approach that quickly gets old and causes people to tune them out.

    If you look at the most successful bloggers on the web, you notice something interesting about the material on their sites: they highlight other people. And ideas. And helpful resources.

    This is in stark contrast to what we see plastered on various social networks, isn’t it?

    • Friend us on Facebook!
    • Become a fan of our site!
    • Subscribe! Comment!
    • Become a part of our community!
    • Look at what we’re doing over here!

    Nobody cares. Seriously.

    • Do something useful, remarkable, or helpful
    • Help as many people as possible
    • Call attention to others

    That’s it.

  • Eating right

    Robb Wolf’s book the Paleo Solution is a must-read, and have been singing its praises since I started reading it last week.

    The book provides an excellent look into our ancestors’ diets and how what we’re eating now is killing us. I’m actually not being alarmist—there are countless diseases and conditions linked to poor dietary choices.

    On that note, there are two really great restaurants here in the Atlanta area that I can recommend if you’re looking for grass-fed, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, grain-free burgers: Farm Burger and Yeah Burger. Both restaurants have gluten-free buns, but Yeah Burger definitely has more options (fries, onion rings, salad, salad dressing, etc.) for the gluten-averse.
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  • An army of soldiers

    I work with lots of individuals with products, services, and ideas to promote.

    Invariably, they want as many people to know about them as fast as possible. I always struggle with explaining the harsh reality of marketing: effectively spreading messages doesn’t work like that. It takes work. And patience. And time.

    Sometimes lots of time.

    Connecting with as many people as possible on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is not going to result in legions of raving fans overnight. As a matter of fact, you’re going to be largely ignored by most people (save for the once who are using you like you’re using them).

    Even the mightiest army is comprised of individual soldiers.

    Start by helping someone. Then help nine more people. Give them a place to learn more about the help you provide and the problems you’re solving and the ideas for which you stand. Keep doing that long enough and you’ll never have to worry about marketing again.

    Get started now though.

  • Getting started in the Cloud

    Amazon has introduced a Free Usage Tier to their AWS line. This will allow developers, students, and hobbyists to begin developing applications for the cloud for a very attractive price: $0.

    Beginning November 1, new AWS customers will be able to run a free Amazon EC2 Micro Instance for a year, while also leveraging a new free usage tier for Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Block Store, Amazon Elastic Load Balancing, and AWS data transfer. AWS’s free usage tier can be used for anything you want to run in the cloud: launch new applications, test existing applications in the cloud, or simply gain hands-on experience with AWS.

    I can’t wait to see what enterprising companies and school will take advantage of this. It’s a big deal.

  • Lazy Business

    My full first name is Willie. Not William, Willis, Willy, or the like. Willie. Just like my father.

    I’ve been getting calls recently from a company that’s looking for a William Jackson. I spoke with someone last week, explained that they had the wrong number, and asked to be removed from their list. I get another call this week and instead of ignoring it, I decided to readdress the issue with them.

    When I picked up the phone, I got a message letting me know that Company X was trying to get in touch with William Jackson and it prompted me to press 1 if I was William and 2 if I was not. I wanted to speak to a human about this, so I pressed 1.
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  • Why WP Engine has already won

    Fast websites really do it for me. Over the past year or so, I’ve found myself gravitating toward the performance side of the WordPress world.

    I’ve actually become something of a hosting snob at this point. I enjoy building servers now that I know what I’m doing and although I’m very much a novice at these things, my interest in expanding my knowledge motivates me to dive deeper every week.

    It should come as no surprise to you that the announcement of WP Engine (aff link) last month made me excited in ways that technology shouldn’t excite a grown man.
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  • Customizing WordPress

    The casual WordPress user customizes their theme by selecting a theme, installing their choice of plugins, and perhaps hiring a designer to create a custom header image. This works for many people and there’s something to be said for tasteful minimalism.

    With that being said, there are a number of ways that we can begin tapping into the power of WordPress on the path to mastery. Among these are the creation of child themes, the utilization of theme frameworks, and custom plugin development.
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  • The WordPress Loop

    Most people probably haven’t checked out the WordPress Codex pages on The Loop and The Loop in Action. This is a shame, because there’s no more important concept in WordPress. Let’s get it.

    The Loop is used by WordPress to display each of your posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each of the posts to be displayed on the current page and formats them according to how they match specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code placed in the Loop will be repeated on each post. When WordPress documentation states “This tag must be within The Loop”, such as for specific Template Tag or plugins, the tag will be repeated for each post.

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