Every time I attend a WordCamp event or a WordPress Meet Up, I meet more people like myself. It’s an awesome thing to experience. Usually I’m an outcast at these kind of events. Usually because I’m the guy who get’s on stage and swears a lot. I do put up a disclosure before my speaking session stating that I will be using adult words. In the recent years, I’ve seen more and more WordCamp talks taking on this approach. Here’s why. Over a period of time, you get fed up with saying / hearing the same things over and over again. Maybe I’m just ahead of the curve. Maybe everyone else is just catching up to me? That’s what I used to think. Until I met Kitty Lusby. This woman has changed the way I view meet up’s and WordCamp events.
Hello Kitty Lusby
The first time I met Kitty Lusby was in the Las Vegas Bloggers Group. She was there to learn new ways to blog. She was also there to make new friends. She just moved to Las Vegas from Virginia. She moved here because of tacos. No kidding. She’ll tell you that herself. She packed her bags, and her rabbit, and moved across the country. That’s ballsy for anyone to do, not just for Kitty Lusby. In the Las Vegas bloggers meeting, she was quick to point out facts that some people were not that quite sure about. She knows everything about what she does and it just adds to her impressive charm. A week later, I met Kitty Lusby for a second time. She joined the Las Vegas WordPress Meet Up Group. To her, this group was a bit advanced for her. We were talking about custom post types and meta boxes. She didn’t fear the group though. She attended and took in all of the information that she could. After the meet up was done, I approached her. In a non creepy stalker kind of way. Just to be clear.
“Hello. I’m Russ. I’ve seen you at the bloggers meet up. Do you use WordPress to blog”? That’s the only way I could think of to introduce myself. Full disclosure, I’ve met some awesome friends through out the years, thanks to WordPress. “Yes. I’m a professional blogger who’s totally adorable” Kitty Lusby Replied. That’s the truth. Her resume even says “Totally Adorable” in the Skills column. After the meet up events, there is usually a small gathering outside of some attendees. We talked for about an hour outside. When she told us her website address, I thought it was kittylovesme.com. I even asked her that. That’s when she handed us her card. We all laughed and then went our separate ways. I went home and I started to read her blog. I was greated to a post about how books are more than just books. I though that this was going to be a lifehack kind of post. You know, where people find clever ways to use thing outside of their normal ways of daily uses. I was wrong. It’s a good post. Go read it.
Don’t be that asshole commenter online
After a few more meet up groups, I asked Kitty Lusby to talk at WordCamp Vegas 2015. I had never seen her talk in person, in front of a group, about WordPress or blogging. She told me that she does it all the time. I also needed to add more diversity to the speakers lineup for the Wordcamp Event. The weekend of WordCamp arrived faster than I thought it would. Everything went off with out a hitch. Kitty Lusby was one of the last speakers to take the stage. I don’t think that there was a better way to end the speaker sessions, than with Kitty Lusby. She gave some amazing advice about getting free publicity online. One of the best ways to do that is by contributing to the community. I’m glad she said that. Our WordCamp was all about community and she played a perfect role in that. “No one likes that asshole. Don’t be that asshole commenter online”. This was one of the biggest take aways from Kitty Lusby’s talk. She mentioned that some people like to comment on other people’s blogs and leave links to their website. Instead of contributing to the conversation, they just spam the comments with another link. That’s when Kitty Lusby delivered her famous line from WordCamp Vegas 2015.
A WordCamp challenge that ends in a Cute Confessionals war
The keynote speaker at WordCamp Vegas was Ben Fox. Ben challenged every attendee at WordCamp Vegas 2015 to make a new friendship and put some time into the relationship. Well, I made a ton of new friends and one of those was Kitty Lusby. After a while, we started to talk about some things and we both decided that there is way too much negativity on the internet. I shared a blog with Kitty called 40 days of dating. It’s a blog where two friends start dating. After each date, they both write a blog post about how they felt before, during and after. Until the blogs were posted, both daters had no idea how the other one felt about things. It’s a cute blog and you should read it. It’s one of our favorites now.
I decided to take Ben and Kitty Lusby’s advice and put it to work. I challenged a new friend from WordCamp Vegas, to join in on a cute confessional war so we both can get some free publicity. I wrote Kitty Lusby an email one day and I challenged her to a Cute War. She promised me that there was no way in hell that I could be cuter than her. I wanted to find out. So we both wrote a blog post called Cute Confessions. We both confessed one detail about ourselves that proved we were totally adorable. After, we asked the readers to vote on who is cuter. That’s where the war comes in. You can read my cute confessions first. I mean, you’re already here. Why not. There is a link to her blog where you can read her post and determine who is cuter.
https://russellenvy.com//cute-confessions-i-am-cuter-thanz-you/