When I asked Michelle Jones about her techie background, I assumed she graduated with a degree in computer programming.
“Actually, my degree is in history,” said Jones. “Tech is something I have always enjoyed.”
I enjoy technology too, and have tried my hand at several blogs, but Jones is a local treasure in the tech scene. Her blog, Consuming Louisville, has up to 30,000 page views per month. She has over 1,400 Facebook fans. Her new iPhone app, Menu and Hours, has 159 backers. This is more than an enjoyable hobby. This is an industry.
Nevertheless, Jones is humble about her accomplishments. She has been involved in technical writing for 12-13 years, before WordPress and when Blogger and Movable Type were in their early stages.
“At that time, there wasn’t much content management software, so I had to teach myself the basics,” said Jones.
While Jones worked as a technical editor in the early 2000s, she tooled around with her first online project, a personal blog. She didn’t give much information about this blog, except to raise her shoulders a little, as if to say, “No big deal.” As she played around with her blog, Jones wondered how to post links that didn’t have embedded programming – because embedded programming hadn’t been invented yet. For instance, if she wanted to share a music file, she had to learn how to program.
“I taught myself HTML, CSS, and enough PHP to be dangerous,” said Jones.
When Jones and her partner moved to Indianapolis for four years, she developed the precursor to Consuming Louisville: Consuming Indy. Once she moved back in 2007, the idea was already in place.
“[It was] slow and steady work to get traffic to the site,” said Jones. “It was all about being smart about keywords. Consistent publishing is the key. If you have something people know they can consistently depend on, that goes a long way.”
Jones added Web advertisements to her blog using Google AdSense. Today, the blog is popular enough that Jones only accepts Louisville-based ads and has been supporting her blog this way for the past three years.
Soon after beginning Consuming Louisville, Jones began attending meetups on tech topics. Most of these were hosted in bars, which was not really her scene. While attending these meetups, she noticed the few women in attendance sat at the back of the room while one or two men dominated the conversations. In response, Jones developed the networking meetup Let Them Tweet Cake, hoping it would appeal to women with varying levels of technology acumen, ranging from people who merely wanted to learn more about their phones to those seeking to build a website. The group has swelled in popularity, filling the space at Sweet Surrender Dessert Cafe, where it meets quarterly, to share smartphone technology, new apps, tablets, websites, tech trends, and, as Jones writes on Consuming Louisville, “Oh yeah, eat cake.” Occasionally the group will meet offsite. One meeting was held at LVL1, a hackerspace (community lab and workshop) on East Broadway, where they built smartphone chargers out of Altoids cases. Let Them Tweet Cake has fostered many friendships and even relationships. Jones talked about this venture like a proud parent.
While Jones still takes on consulting work every now and then – she worked at a Web startup two years ago – she is quick to point out where her true focus is these days.
“Menu and Hours is my job now, my unpaid job,” said Jones.
If you have ever read Consuming Louisville, you know that Jones writes all of the content, focusing heavily on local restaurant reviews, but also delving into local events, businesses, and artists. Her blog persona is honest, funny, and quirky. The site has a simple black and white design with line sketch icons. This corresponds with the Jones who sat across from me with a mug full of latte in a local coffee shop: Jones is accessible, direct, funny, driven, and vocally local.
-Amy Miller
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