The Bucks-Mont Online Marketing Meetup is a professional network for online marketing and social media professionals located in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, PA. The group’s goal is to exchange ideas, discuss strategies and talk about interesting industry topics. Their events bring together social media peers, online marketing specialists, bloggers, SEO experts and professionals interested in those areas.

The Bucks-Mont Online Marketers Meetup is an open and welcoming group, so please do come out to presentation. To join the Meetup and register your spot for the night, please visit the group’s meetup page. As a reminder, the date for Liam’s presentation is Wednesday, May 29, 2013 at 6:00 pm.

Presenting about WordPress

Liam regularly speaks to audiences about WordPress. He’s delivered presentations in and around Philadelphia, including speaking at WordCamp Philly 2012. He’s given WordPress talks and social media seminars in Chicago and London. Most recently, he spoke to the Main Line Internet and Social Media Marketing Group. His presentation from that event is below.

In addition to regular speaking engagements, Liam Dempsey is the co-founder and organizer for the Philly ‘burbs WordPress Meetup.

If you’d like Liam to present to your own group, meetup, conference, company or organizaton, please do get in touch.

Through our conversations with the truck accident lawyers at Whiting Law Group, we have come to appreciate more fully the inherent dangers of distracted driving. Talking on the phone, sending a text message or reading an email while driving is a quick way to cause a severe or even deadly accident.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has produced a series of moving videos that gives names, faces and real human stories to the tragedies caused by distracted driving. We found the short films to be very convincing. We’ve shared a video of a young woman who was killed not too far from our greater Philadelphia office. More videos are online at the DOT’s Faces of Distracted Driving site.

Even after National Distracted Driving Awareness month ends, we know that our own personal driving habits will no longer include using our cell phones when behind the wheel.

Being an avid traveller and photographer, Ngaire wanted to combine two of her favourite things into an informal blog. On a regular basis she will write informal tales from her past and present travels, including photographs from her designack.com website.

Impressed with the simplicity and informal quirkiness of Liam’s chickenmonkeydog.com blog, Ngaire decided to start off simple. She has chosen a very simple theme and plans to expand the look and feel as time goes on.

So, if you’re interested in a bit of a different read (with some travel photography in the mix) check out http://kiwifootprints.wordpress.com.

As a charity, Survivors Fund, or SURF, has committed itself to assisting survivors of the Rwandan genocide. April is always an important month for SURF as it looks to raise awareness about the on-going needs of survivors of the genocide, as well as supporting the survivors with their acute and painful memories surrounding this date.

For SURF, the theme for this year’s commemoration is kwigira (self-reliance). Self-reliance has long been a key aspect of SURF’s work: helping genocide widows through SURF’s HIV+ Survivors Integration Project, Widowed Survivors Empowerment Project and Genocide Widows Empowerment Project.

As part of the nineteenth anniversary commemoration, Survivors Fund (SURF) will be campaigning for the establishment of an International Trust Fund for Survivors of the Genocide against the Tutsi to enable the self-reliance of genocide survivors over the years ahead. As Noam Schimmel writes in the Huffington Post, it is critical that the UN and international agencies commit:  ”… funding and programming to meet the needs of genocide survivors in Rwanda today and transform vulnerability and disadvantage to security, rehabilitation, and empowerment.”

Having worked with SURF since 2003, we have great respect for their mission and dedication to such an important and unheralded cause. We consider it a great honour to work with SURF and look forward to continuing our support in this important year.

Design Techniques for a more valuable website

As her contribution to the seminar, Ngaire Ackerley will deliver a presentation entitled Design Techniques for a more clean, professional and engaging website.

Although this event is fully booked, the seminar details are online on the Gallery Partnership website, along with information about how to attend future events.

Designing for WordPress

The slides from Liam’s presentation are available on Slideshare.

Interested in our speaking availability?

At LBDesign, both Liam Dempsey and Ngaire Ackerley regular speak at events in both the US and the UK. We speak about online marketing, web design and WordPress. If you’re interested in having us speak at your next event, please get in touch.

Charities in today’s economy need strong web tools to build their websites, attract donors, engage with their communities and achieve their mission. In this session Ngaire offered two key approaches when developing a website based on taking advantage of WordPress.

Praise for Liam’s Presentation

The Main Line Internet and Social Media Marketing Group seemed to really like Liam’s presentation. A quick look at the comments from the events, on the group’s meetup page clearly indicates that WordPress is a popular topic and that Liam managed not to waste the group’s time.

Liam Dempsey speaking at WordCamp Philly

In Philadelphia

Liam begins this speaking marathon by presenting to the Philadelphia WordPress Meetup Group on Thursday, 07 February. He’s been invited to speak about the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, following his challenge to the Philly ‘burbs WordPress Meetup (more on that below.) On Tuesday, 19 February, Liam will deliver a presentation to the Main Line Internet and Social Media Marketing Group. Liam will be speaking about WordPress and its value as a marketing tool.

In London

Not to be outdone by her Philly office counterpart, Ngaire has been invited to speak at The FSI’s Workshop on February 19th. Speaking to representatives of small charities from across the UK, Ngaire will be delivering a seminar on economical approaches to creating a website. If you work for a small charity in the UK and would like to attend the free all-day workshop, please visit The FSI website to register.

That WordPress Challenge

The Philly ‘burbs WordPress Meetup aims to bridge the gap between designers and developers building WordPress sites and writers, bloggers and marketers who use them on a daily basis. At the January gathering of the group, Liam challenged his colleagues and fellow WordPress afficianados to improve their technical skills in 2013. To that end, he suggested that each member dig into the Advanced Custom Fields plugin as a way to dip their respective toes into developing for WordPress.

If you are interested in attending any of the above presentations or if you’d like to join the Philly ‘burbs WordPress Meetup, drop us a line or visit the meetup page.

At LBDesign, we have been fortunate enough to have worked with a number of amazing individuals and organisations working to raise awareness about these tragedies and to improve the plight of those who survived them. Mary Blewitt OBE, as the founder of Survivors Fund (SURF) and David Russell as its current Chief Executive have been working for more than a decade on behalf of the victims and survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Since 2005, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has been organising events and raising awareness about the dangers of hatred and the horrors of genocide in our recent history. As our contribution to these causes, we have worked with both of these important charities to build a strong web presence.