I attended thirteenth meeting of the WordPress London local group on 21 June 2012 held at Skills Matter.

The presentations included:

• Chris Adams outlined ways of improving workflow when working on WordPress projects involving more than one one developer or designer.
• Florian Penn spoke on various ways of carrying out search on WordPress powered sites.

After the meeting it was beer at the Sutton Arms.

WordPress London meets on a monthly basis – many thanks to Keith for organising the gathering.

If you’re not based in London, see if there’s a WordPress local group near you on the WPUK wiki.

I attended MailCamp 2012 held at the National Audit Office in Victoria on 17 May 2012.

The follow-up to MailCamp 2011 once again proved to be fascinating, and showed that email still has an incredibly important communications role to play.

The format was two series of (timed) five minute presentations, each followed by a 45 minute open session consisting of parallel breakout groups, with each group involving each presenter, allowing attendees to discuss the preceding sessions.

Reports of proceedings can be found on the event live coverage page.

The event was held in the magnificent NAO building (formerly the Imperial Airways Empire Terminal), pictured above.

Many thanks to the NAO, the speakers, the sponsors and Steph for organising the event.

I went to meeting 12 of the WordPress London local group on 16 May 2012, held, for the first time, at the spiffing Google Campus.

The sessions included:

• Scott Cariss (pictured above) led a fairly detailed session, You Don’t Know Query, about how to alter the main WordPress query the correct way by not using query_posts().
• Alan Son gave a self-explanatory talk: how to properly setup WordPress for SEO using the Yoast SEO Plugin.
• I gave the experimental version 0.1 of an introduction to custom post types, custom fields, custom taxonomies and meta boxes (no code!) (53kB PDF).

Afterwards it was beers at the nearby Masque Haunt (pictured above).

WordPress London meets on a monthly basis – many thanks to Keith for organising the gathering.

If you’re not based in London, see if there’s a WordPress local group near you on the WPUK wiki.

Uniqlo in Regent Street at 1656 on 22 May 2012.

I attended TV Fast Train 2012 at the BBC White City building on 16 May 2012.

Unfortunately, unlike last time, due to other commitments during the day, I could only attend two sessions:

• Editing with FCP – A very useful introduction to the basics of using this popular non-linear editing system provided by DV Talent.
• Design Futures and Innovation – This session looked at some of the methods used at the Prospect and Innovation Design Research Studio (Pi Studio) based in the Design Department at Goldsmiths College, University of London. The session included a practical timeline exercise looking at the past and possible future of the BBC – I’ll write further on this interesting technique in a future post.

Many thanks to the organisers and partners involved in arranging another great TV Fast Train.

I attended the preview of Tales of Television Centre at the BFI‘s NFT1 on 15 May 2012.

The audience must have consisted of 90% BBC and ex-BBC staff, along with many who have associations with the BBC.

The programme, produced and directed by Richard Marston, who worked on Blue Peter from 1998 to 2007, is a very enjoyable documentary covering the history of BBC Television Centre, told through the reminisces of those who have worked in the building over the years.

I worked at the Centre on the staff from 1988 to 2007, and quite a number of the stories recounted in the programme I have not come across before.

The preview of the programme was introduced by the BFI’s Dick Fiddy and Richard Marston (pictured together above) along with Sarah Greene, who said “anyone who has worked there [Television Centre] can’t have failed to be affected”.

I agree with Sarah.

Boats muster near Hammersmith Bridge for the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant at 1416 on 3 June 2012.

Sales of discount early bird tickets for WordCamp Edinburgh UK 2012 end at midday on Friday 1 June 2012.

After that time, tickets currently on sale at £35 will increase to the full price of £45.

WordCamp Edinburgh UK 2012 is being organised by WPUK.