This was posted on LinkedIn and created by Experts Exchange. I think it has some pretty accurate predictions of things that will be predominating our collective tech conscience. A few of these topics are once I’ve already seen overtures to in the last year, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens in the coming year and how that will change our perceptions of content going forward.
Check it out here:
What do you think? I think this is mostly spot-on. Do you agree? Share your insights below.
It occurred to me that while I haven’t been writing or curating as much as I usually do, I still make sure that I’m reading my various social media feeds, so I can see what the latest trends and conversations are about these days.
The thought popped into my mind–what’s wrong with being a lurker, who is someone who reads but doesn’t comment online? After all, not everyone likes or wants to be writing all the time. I personally have a big mouth that translates here into writing, but that doesn’t mean that everyone likes to talk as much as I do. There is no requirement in social media that one needs to be posting or re-posting tweets or other information that they read every five minutes, after all. Even so, what’s the advantage of being a lurker online?
The way I see it, being a lurker is similar to being the person in the room who obviously isn’t saying a word, but is absorbing all the information that’s going on in the room. The lurker can read, observe and learn a lot just by staying still and not saying anything, and in the process, acquires a vast amount of information being given through comments made and by reading articles posted. This is not a bad way to learn a lot about any given topic, while learning about the people who shape those thoughts or trends.
In the end, however, the lurker loses out. Social media is not only about communicating information, but it’s also about the connections made through this kind of communications. Communication with each other is the key to why we can have discussions or debates on issues. The person who writes those posts or tweets those tweets appreciates it when you retweet, or even make a brief comment of, “I agree!” or “That was a great article.” It validates the position of the author, but it also shows your competence in the subject matter too–that you understand the concept being presented. By respectfully responding with your own commentary, it allows others to see YOUR perspective as well. You automatically become part of the conversation and the process.
Don’t be a lurker and sit back for too long. Feel free to participate! You might be surprised to find that your original perspective might be enjoyed and respected by others.
See on Scoop.it – M-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications
This comes to me via @Nancy_Coppola through LinkedIn. This is good news for all technical communicators and writers! I remember Nancy telling her students three years that things would be picking up in this field–and she was right! There are more job opportunities in tech comm now than when I started my journey into tech comm three years ago. The flexibility and agility of tech comm workers makes us great candidates for many positions. Going forward, the trick will be keeping up with technological trends and making sure that those who are entering the field have a chance to not only be trained on certain software products and practices, but that they have the chance to continue with career development to keep tech comm relevant.
–techcommgeekmom
See on www.mindtouch.com
Last week, I had the privilege of doing my first professional presentation as a fully-fledged technical communicator. The STC-Philly Metro Chapter (STC-PMC) had its annual STC Mid-Atlantic Technical Conference, and the theme this year was, “Sharpening Your Personal Brand.” Let’s face it–if anyone has figured that out over the past year, that’s been me! The STC-PMC was gracious enough to accept my proposal for this conference, and I truly appreciated the opportunity.
The presentation I made was based on my blog post, “What Did You Do To Get That Tech Comm Job?” that I posted here a few months ago, after I accepted my current position. I added some additional information that I hope will be helpful in this SlideShare presentation. Of course, you miss out on the anecdotal information in the process, but you get the main idea here. When you get to the slide that says, “Mobile Learning Revolution”, go to this page instead. I put the Prezi presentation without the voiceover into these slides, which was based on a social media project I did last year, but this link provides the basic voiceover that I did for that section. The idea was that this is a template for how to become immersed in a particular culture in order to get involved via social media. For me, it was m-learning that I pursued, but my rules apply to any topic. This is just an example.
I was really proud of myself in this respect as well–I presented my entire presentation from my iPad. While other presenters had their laptop computers out, I just connected my iPad to the A/V system in the presentation room using my A/V cable adapter for my iPad, and away I went! It did make it a lot smoother than using my laptop, and definitely lighter! I brought my big 17″ laptop with me, just in case my iPad didn’t work, but I now know I didn’t need it. Hooray! Another victory for mobile! 🙂 Maybe next time, I’ll see if I can present from my iPhone! 😛 I can confidently say that I practice what I preach about using mobile now.
All in all, it was a great experience, and I’d be glad to give the presentation again if someone asked. I met a lot of great people, including many who were Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook names and faces before the conference, as well as people who I hadn’t connected to before. One thing that helped ease my anxiety in giving my presentation was that the keynote speakers actually touched upon some of the same things as I did–and they’ve been doing this a lot longer than I have! I had to learn things the hard way (on my own). That helped me realize that I’m on the right track, and I’m always happy to share that information with other people.
So, without further ado, please enjoy my slideshow of my presentation below from last week!
One year ago today, I took steps that would change my life. I started this blog. Its purpose was two-fold. First, I was encouraged by my friend, fellow grad student, and technical communicator, Shay Shaked, to write a tech comm blog. He insisted that I was a good writer and that I had some interesting insights to technology, tech comm, and m-learning, and that I should just start writing some of this stuff down. I thought he was a little crazy, but I had done blogging before, so it seemed like a natural thing to do. At the same time, I was taking a fantastic social media class for my last semester in NJIT’s MSPTC program with Dr. Andrew Klobucar, and one of our assignments was to start a blog that centered on creating community for a particular topic. Since I was already about to start writing a blog upon Shay’s encouragement about tech comm issues, Dr. K had no problem with me continuing on my own with this, as long as what my end product produced, along with building up my social network through Twitter and Facebook (and any other outlets) also showed that I was immersing myself into my community and participating in that community. So, a little tech comm blog, with the goal of just having a niche audience in tech comm, e-learning, and m-learning was born. I never expected many people to notice my blog, or at most, it would be very, very small.
Boy, was I wrong! TechCommGeekMom.com has changed my life! It has opened many doors that I would have never expected, and has become a bigger blog than I ever expected. Sure, it’s still a fairly small blog with a small niche following, but even so, it exploded from my perspective.
As of this writing, since the first words were published on this blog a year ago, TechCommGeekMom has received 8800 hits, with my best day having hit 112 hits. It has been read in 107 countries. 107! I have about 634 registered followers of the blog as well. All this was accomplished through 306 posts (this is number 307) and 996 tags of both original and curated content. I pulled in content that I thought was interesting, and even had the aforementioned Shay do a guest post, but otherwise I just wrote about what I was going on in my mind. Little did I know that others had similar thoughts, or enjoyed my writing. I made sure to promote my little blog through my TechCommGeekMom Twitter account, which I had started shortly before the blog, and on my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts as well. Getting exposure is all about marketing yourself, especially if you’re out of work, and looking to graduate soon and find a tech comm job, as I was at the time.
My efforts definitely started working. The number of Twitter followers I had went from a mere 20 followers to 100 within a few weeks. Now, I have about 600 followers. Again, as compared to the major players in tech comm, that’s not a lot, but to have gone from 20 to 600 in about a year–that’s a pretty big jump! I started seeing people retweeting the links I was posting to my blog posts, and that was exciting! I think one of the biggest thrills for me was when I saw my tweet promoting my blog post about the m-learning Whitepaper that I wrote re-tweeted by one of the leading m-leading experts out there, and he was even one of my references in the paper–WHOA! I was even thrilled that another one of my references in the Whitepaper was actually my editor, too. I mean, who gets that kind of help? I also have enjoyed talking one-on-one with many of these experts through social media, and glad that so many have become not only mentors, but friends as well.
My big “break” was, as regular readers know, due to Adobe. I had written the post about wanting to know more about tech comm software, and of all the software companies that I mentioned, Parth Mukherjee of Adobe’s TCS marketing group actually responded. I really never expected ANYONE to respond to it. It was just a frustrated, ranting post, and yet here was someone from a major software company contacting me. So thanks to Parth, to whom I’ll forever be grateful, he helped me gain greater exposure, offering me a chance to do a Thought Leadership webinar when I was still a graduate student (I delivered it a month after graduation–see the link on the right sidebar), and between him and his team, have provided me with many great writing opportunities. This relationship has grown, which is evident from the advertisement that you see in the top right corner from them. (Do click it!) Through Adobe, I had the chance to go to their pre-conference event at Lavacon this past October, and meet other movers and shakers in the tech comm industry who truly are the ones who are moving this profession forward. It’s very cool to say that I was yarn shopping with about half the presenters at the Adobe’s pre-Lavacon event, and I continue to keep in contact–or at least keep up–with most of the people I met there even now.
This also helped open doors through the STC. I started making connections locally and through those I had met both through Twitter, my blog, and meeting at the Adobe event. Long story, short, this created some notice within STC that my local chapter asked me to do some articles for their newsletter. Also, after attending a webinar by the STC, the moderator recognized my moniker, and asked if I would be interested in writing for them! You’ve been seeing the result of that collaboration most recently with my “First-Timer’s Summit” posts, which will be continuing for a little while.
I also received fantastic mentions by TechWhirl.com and Tech-Tav.com, who have also been great supporters, as well as the professors and fellow MSPTC’ers, for continuing to be a source of support. Couldn’t do it without y’all too.
I just completed my first professional presentation yesterday at the STC Mid-Atlantic Technical Conference in Philadelphia yesterday. I was nervous, but happy that my talk was well-received, and I got a chance to meet some of the people whom I had gotten to know on Twitter and other social media venues in person. I think the biggest thrill–or perhaps it was shock–that I got yesterday was that two people came up to me and asked, “Aren’t you TechCommGeekMom?” They weren’t people whom I had met before online, either. One of the attendees to my session even told me she attended because a co-worker saw that I was presenting, and told her that she should go see “TechCommGeekMom”. For me, that totally blew my mind. I’m still (happily) freaking out over it.
So, from what started out essentially as a student project for grad school has grown into something much, much bigger. I’m working full-time now, so it’s not as easy to keep up the pace of writing as regularly as I used to during the past year, but this is my special project, and I’m not about to stop. I have grown in so many ways since starting this blog, and when I look back on my life a year ago, so much has changed, and changed for the better. I finally did get a job, and part of it was that they liked not only what I had to say in my interview and liked my e-portfolio, but they liked what I had to say in my blog. There was an interview that I got (although I didn’t get the job) in which the hiring manager actually included me for the interviews because he said he was intrigued by what I had to say about mobile learning in my blog.
It appears that when one feels insignificant in the world, just another number in a huge statistic, she can still have a voice, and I found mine in the past year. I’m just incredibly grateful, more than words can actually describe, that people who have read this blog appreciate my voice.
I’m excited to see where the next year is going. TechCommGeekMom is not going away. I feel like I’m just getting started! I love meeting all the wonderful people that I have in the tech comm and e-learning/m-learning fields. I’m not going to stop writing about either topic, and I will continue to try to write and curate articles that I think are important or have any kind of impact on others, or just feel that it needs some sort of commentary. Ironically, second article that I wrote for this blog, written immediately after the first one, was a small rant about how iWork documents for iPad wouldn’t be saved in the iCloud. Ha, how things have changed. The presentation that I did yesterday was done on my iPad
(me, still promoting mobile!), and it has a backup in the iCloud. Oh yeah.
If you would like to help me celebrate, be sure to refer my blog to others, and feel free to look at past posts over the past year, and let me know if you’d like to see me write or comment on anything in particular! I am always open to suggestions, and it helps me bring together the TechCommGeekMom community that I hope I’ve created. Helping this blog grow would be the best present ever.
TechCommGeekMom 
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