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A First Timer’s Summit: It’ll be “Gone With The Wind” Fabulous!

Kenya-Moore
Kenya Moore of the Real Housewives of Atlanta shows us the “Gone-With-The-Wind Fabulous” twirl.

Here’s the last of the pre-STC Summit blog posts I’ve done for the STC Notebook.

A First Timer’s Summit: It’ll be “Gone With The Wind” Fabulous!.

Hopefully, I’ll meet many of my readers there. Please feel free to introduce yourself! I’m really looking forward to the whole experience. I’ll be blogging for both Adobe Day and continuing my “First Timer’s Summit” series during the STC Summit, so keep your eyes open for those new entries!

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A TechCommGeekMom Milestone: A baby blog is now a toddler

WOW!

10KCelebration_041913

I think my little blog just grew up a bit. I not only reached the 10,000 all-time hits mark, but even passed it. For a niche blog that’s 13.5 months old, I think that’s pretty amazing! I’m a proud TechCommGeekMom!

Thank you to every person who’s a regular reader, who just popped in once in a while, or who came only once for a visit. 10,000 all-time hits is a lot! Now, I know of blogs that have definitely had more traffic than me, mostly because they are much more hyper-focused on a particular segment of technical communications, like everything you want to know about a particular type of software, everything you want to know about a particular strategy, or else they’ve been around for a long time, so they’ve built up a following after a while. I do not begrudge these people, as they are my inspiration, and in some ways, they have contributed to this blog too through curated content now and then. TechCommGeekMom wants to be like those blogs as it grows up!

I trust that you enjoy what you read, and that you keep coming back for more. I’d like to think that the variety presented here, mixed with my own eccentric flair, brings about a lot of different perspectives of what technical communications is and what it can be. As I’ve said in the past, this blog started out very small, as a grad school project to build a community via social media, and I chose to work on building my tech comm/e-learning/m-learning community. I’m guessing that perhaps–just perhaps–I may have achieved my goal of creating a TechCommGeekMom community, and yet I hope the family will continue to grow. If you have any suggestions or ideas of things you’d like to see here, or if you’d like to contribute a guest post, please let me know!

Many thanks from the bottom of my heart for helping me reach this milestone! This blog is a labor of love, and it has opened so many doors for me, which I hope continue to open! I truly appreciate the support!

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Adobe Day is Back– STC Summit Style! Don’t be Tardy for the Party!

KZ-ATLOne of my favorite indulgences offline is watching reality shows on the US cable channel, Bravo, and one of my favorite shows is the Real Housewives of Atlanta. During a past season, one of  the Housewives, Kim, decided that she was going to be a singing star, and recorded the song, “Tardy for the Party.” It was a minor one-hit-wonder song, but it still sticks with me, just because it’s a fun song, and it makes me think about fun in Atlanta.

So, as I start thinking about the upcoming STC Summit in a month, lo and behold, I receive news about a tech comm celebration. Adobe is having another Adobe Day–this time in the ATL!  Adobe is hosting another one of its fabulous free networking and thought leadership Adobe Day events in Atlanta, GA (USA) on 5th May 2013 (Cinco de Mayo!), from 8:00 AM-1:30PM.

If this Adobe Day is anything like the one that I attended at Lavacon in Portland, OR, then we are in for a treat and a good time! You can access the details for this event and register by accessing the event microsite.

The thing that is really great about these Adobe Day events is that they are free (I can definitely afford that), and the talks presented are not a long-winded infomercial for Adobe products. The talks are about the leading trends going on in tech comm right now.

I was SO glad that I was able to attend the one at Lavacon, because the information I learned at that Adobe Day actually helped me get my job. No, seriously. Because the Adobe Day talks gave me a better understanding of current trends in content and mobile strategies, I was able to speak competently about these topics when I had my interview for the content strategy job I have now. It really helped! That’s how good this event is.

At the Lavacon Adobe Day, I met some of the top movers and shakers in the tech comm industry, and was blown away by all of them. It was an incredible experience for me.  For the STC Summit Adobe Day, the speaker line-up looks fabulous. I met or saw at least half of them at the Lavacon Adobe Day, and they were all creative, smart (and friendly) people who had great information to pass along. I’m looking forward to hearing them speak, as well as meet and listen to some experts I haven’t seen before.

One of the highlights that should be exciting is that the “father” of Framemaker himself, Charles Corfield, is scheduled to speak. How cool is that? I mean, Framemaker is a long-time standard in tech comm software, so to hear about its origins and what he has to say about the tech comm industry now? That’s going to be a treat in itself. And yet, there will be so much more!

It should be a great time! So, don’t be tardy for the party! You don’t even have to be attending the STC Summit to attend Adobe Day. You just have to be sure to register on the event website.  If you are in the greater Atlanta area, and want to attend, or you are attending the STC Summit and can come into town early, it’s definitely worth the trip. I’ll be going for sure! I’ll be blogging and tweeting about the event, so keep your eyes peeled for that as well!

NeNe Leakes
My favorite of the Real Housewives of Atlanta,
Nene Leakes

If you do attend, please make sure to thank the Adobe TCS team members present for such a wonderful opportunity to learn, and then make sure you say hi to me, too. I’ll be the one with the Nene Leakes haircut. 😉

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For Technical Writers, The Future Looks Bright | MindTouch

See on Scoop.itM-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications

Danielle M. Villegas‘s insight:

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

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A First-Timer’s Summit: Packing Heat—Where’s Rick Steves When You Need Him?

See on Scoop.itM-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications

Here’s my fourth entry in the series of “A First Timer’s Summit: Packing Heat–Where’s Rick Steves When You Need Him?” I discuss my thoughts about what to pack for my trip to the 2013 STC Summit–just a little more than a month away now!

See on notebook.stc.org