Twitter – Page 12 – TechCommGeekMom

Happy 1st Birthday, TechCommGeekMom.com!

Posted on March 9, 2013 by TechCommGeekMom

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.

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“A Fear Stalks Our Profession…”

Posted on March 5, 2013 by TechCommGeekMom

The STC posted this on Facebook today (I was so busy today, that I don’t know if they posted it elsewhere), and I was struck by how focused it is in the message. Credit goes to Rick Lippincott who gave this presentation, and to the STC for posting it!

This Lightning Talk from the 2012 STC Summit in Chicago expresses exactly why I get so excited about technical communications. It’s an fantastic time to be a technical communicator! Enjoy!

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Is English an International Language? – Part 1

Posted on February 5, 2013 by TechCommGeekMom

I mentioned a while ago that I had several writing projects that were coming up, and the first of them is now published! I was asked by the STC-PMC to write a two-part article about the differences and similarities between American and British English. Of course, I think there’s much more to that simple debate, and this is a favorite topic of mine, so I gladly accepted the challenge. The bigger challenge was to try not to write an entire book!

To find the original article, see the January/February 2013 edition of the STC-PMC Newsletter here.

The article itself is below:

Is English an International Language?
Part 1

Is English an international language? Yes…and no. There is no question that English is a predominant global language. Half the world’s technical and scientific periodicals are written in English, as is eighty percent of the information stored in the world’s computers. There is no question that English is the most prominent language on the Internet, which has contributed to its continued spread around the world.

However, among English speakers, there can be huge differences, as if English speakers from different countries actually spoke different languages. The argument is often made that those who speak English do speak the same base language with just a few different spellings or colloquial idioms now and then. This is only partially true. While most of the world thinks of English in terms of American or British English, there’s also Canadian, Indian, Australian, New Zealander and South African versions of English to consider among others. Each version of English has further nuances that distinguish itself from another version. For the most part, an Australian can understand a South African, an American can understand a New Zealander, and someone from India can understand someone from the UK. But there will be moments that any one of those speakers could elicit a bewildered “EH?” amongst themselves in understanding.

Since most countries that speak English as the dominant language or a second language are former British colonies or Commonwealth countries, British English is usually the standard taught in schools. The exception to this, of course, is American English, which is usually taught in the United States and much of Central and South America as a second language. Even so, between American and British English, one would think that with a few small exceptions, they are essentially the same language, right?

What many Americans don’t realize is that British English has enough nuances that in several cases, we can’t understand our British brethren, and vice versa. For example, if a person came up to you in London and mentioned that he had a mate who sold so many crisps from his lorry that the crisps were falling out the boot and bonnet, would you know what that person meant? If you’ve watched a lot of BBC America or read enough books from the UK (as I have), then you might. An American would have to translate what the Londoner said, which was that he had a buddy who sold potato chips out of his truck, and the chips were falling out of the trunk and hood. Another example would be that if an American said that he would lose his pants over a financial deal, a Brit would misunderstand it to mean that the American would be losing his underwear over the deal, as “pants” is used to refer to underwear instead of “trousers” in the UK. Those are just two of many examples of how Brits and Americans don’t necessarily understand each other.

This divide is an important consideration in technical communications. Single-sourcing and translation are a large and continually growing component of technical communications. While software is becoming more intuitive about translating written content into different languages, it’s not flawless. Using a standard commonality in the language would be desired as a result.

See the March/April issue for Part 2.

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I’m not a writer. Wait…you say…I AM?

Posted on January 28, 2013 by TechCommGeekMom

I still remember sitting at my little desk at school one Friday afternoon when I was in first grade. It was the early seventies, and Friday afternoons were usually the time where all of the kids would have a little free time to paint, play, build puzzles, etc. I remember working on some sort of story, drawing the pictures and writing my words on the lines provided, and thinking, “When I grow up, I want to write stories.” I was told that people who wrote stories were authors, so for a while, I went around telling people I wanted to be an author. It sounded a little more prestigious to me that being something else at that age.

As time went on, I lost that desire to be an author because I lost my initial love of writing. I had lots of ideas in my head, but I didn’t know how to put them on paper in a way that captured someone else’s imagination in the same way that it was in my imagination. I grasped at figuring out how to write lyrical details in my stories. I also ran out of ideas. It was just a few short years later that my concept of being an author–let alone a writer–died. I hadn’t even graduated from elementary school. My perception was that writers were really smart and creative people, who were huge book lovers who wanted to create the same thing. Writers and authors were so imaginative that they created whole books of wonderful stories with such intensive details. I could never come up with such a thing. I succumbed to just trying to learn to read books for pleasure (and for me, it took a lot for a book to give me pleasure, since I was often forced to read for school or even during the summers), and while I read plenty of fiction, I also read a lot of non-fiction. I tended to gravitate (and still do), after a while, towards non-fiction simply because I felt I could relate to the people in the various biographies or history books that I read. And let’s face it…sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

As I got older, my grasp of grammar was always good, but talking about literature in any language hurt my head. When I went away for my undergraduate studies, I initially declared my major in International Affairs, but then switched to History when having to take literature classes in French for the IA degree just made me ill. It was in my last two years of college that I had a great mentor (Thanks, Dr. Hughes!) who convinced me that I was a good writer and editor. I couldn’t understand how this professor thought my writing was good when most thought it was just okay. I thought he was just being nice. My best friend would always ask me to edit her papers, and she would end up with an A while I ended up with a B. But did I think I was a good writer? No. Better than average? Maybe, but not really a good writer. I was not creative, but I could research the heck out of a topic, and pull together quotes and facts really well. But that wasn’t writing…or so I thought.

As my professional career took off, I had to write response standards for consumer affairs departments of major companies. I had some great training in the process, I will admit, but some of it just seemed second nature to a point. Proper grammar, using manners when writing, and just writing coherently seemed to be a skill that I had in great quantity.

It wasn’t until I got to my first post-stay-at-home-mom job that I started to understand that my writing skills were not as shabby as I thought. With a little more training in technical editing (although I didn’t know it was called that), I was starting to get pretty good at it, and…blimey…I liked doing it. Going to graduate school sealed it for me. Suddenly, I was writing at the highest academic level I had in more than twenty years, and I was getting very good grades. What? That can’t be right. I’m not a writer…I’m a web designer…yeah…that’s it. But a web designer who took editing courses and liked that too. It was a weird conundrum for me. For over thirty-five years, I had not thought of myself as a writer, and here I was…writing.

This blog has been the pinnacle of realizing the truth. Sure, I might not be the great American novelist who will be winning a Pulitzer Prize or Newberry Medal anytime soon. But being a writer simply means being able to express your voice however you want to express it. Being a writer is saying what’s on your mind, but being able to substantiate what you are saying as well.The response I’ve gotten from this blog has been enormous to me, even though by some standards it’s still on a very small, niche scale. And believe me, all the attention I’ve gotten is highly appreciated. I think it’s that it’s a childhood dream that was long forgotten come true. I might not write fairy stories, and I’m not a journalist, but I am a writer.

This realization crystallized for me in the past six months due to several requests I’ve had to write articles for other sources. First, it was to help talk about my experiences at Lavacon’s Adobe Day. Next, it was the request to write some articles for my local STC chapter for the next couple of newsletters. But I think it’s the latest writing requests that I’ve have me excited. I’ve been asked to write some articles all about the 2013 STC Summit–before, during and after the event. I’m really excited about doing all this writing! While it’s not like I haven’t been trained in how to be a writer, everything I’ve done–especially in the past year–has lead to this. I am REALLY a writer now! I speak about what I know as well as what I don’t know, and I speak from the heart. I share stories and information as best as I can. If someone else can write it better, I share it as well.

I’m a technical writer, and it suits me. My training in history and my experience in business, as well as my training in technical communications has brought me to this point. I look forward to continuing to write here, and I’ll be sharing all those requested articles here as well, referring to their respective sites, once they are published.

Now, about that book…not sure about that yet. That creativity block is striking again. Perhaps someday I’ll have a revelation and it’ll come together.

In the meantime, if you are reading this, thanks for helping me become a writer.

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But what shall I pack?

Posted on January 17, 2013 by TechCommGeekMom

The event is still about three and a half months away, but I decided that this year, I’m going to go to another big tech comm conference. I really feel that going to a professional conference truly benefits me, because I learn SO much from people who have more experience and know-how than I do. Just attending the Adobe Day at Lavacon last fall boosted my IQ enormously, and I have to credit information that I learned there in helping me get the content strategy/web publishing job that I have now. All the forward-looking thinkers attend these sort of events, and I don’t want to miss out.

I’m going to a really big one this time too. I’m going to my first STC (Society of Technical Communication) Summit. I’ve been a member of the STC for the past year, and just re-upped my membership for a second year. It’s not a cheap membership, especially for someone who’s just getting started. I started at the affordable student rate when I was still a student, and fortunately I can still take advantage of their “new professional rate” being that I’m still rather new out of school. It’s been worth it, as I’ve met several people who are members, and I think there needs to be some sort of organization that helps to bind the profession together and provide resources for all tech comm professionals, both new and experienced. This year’s Summit is in Atlanta, Georgia. I haven’t been to Atlanta for slightly more than twenty years, and again, it was for computer training, I think. Atlanta has changed a bit since that time, so it should be interesting to see it now.

I’m looking forward to not only going to the various talks and events from the STC Summit, but I’m also looking forward to seeing people I know from online and those whom I met at Adobe Day at Lavacon, but also meeting new people. Conferences are a great way to connect with people who have similar professional experiences as you do, and that you can share information in person. Ha, I was just thinking this is almost like the biggest gathering of “Technical Communicators Anonymous” addicts! But seriously, It’s an incredible opportunity to meet with the movers and shakers in the tech comm world, as well as meet those rising stars and foot soldiers who brave through content every day like you do. It’s a great time when the academic side of tech comm meets the corporate side of tech comm. So, just from a social networking perspective, it’s going to be big.

I also heard from a little bird that there might even be another Adobe Day event especially for the STC Summit, but that hasn’t been confirmed. And if there is, you know that I’ll be there to check that out. I loved my Adobe pre-conference experience from Lavacon a lot, as you know, so I can’t even imagine how great this one could be….If there is another one, you can be sure that I’ll be passing the word along and letting all of y’all know. (Yes, practicing my Southern accent in writing already. ;-))

I think the difference, this time, will also be that I am truly a tech comm professional now. Yes, I’ve been talking the talk for a long time, blogging, doing the social media thing, doing some odd jobs here and there, but only in the past month have I gotten a real tech comm job working on content management. I will not be an unemployed wannabe this time around. For the STC Summit, I will be a fully-fledged technical communicator.

And for these reasons, I can’t wait to go! I know I’ll be packing my iPad and iPhone…but what else will I need (other than clothes, of course)? STC Summit alumni–let me know! Let me know if you’ll be going too!