I considered everyone else in my field the competition early in my career. I had to fight them for jobs; they were the enemy. I didn’t really get the value of professional memberships or conferences. I didn’t join STC, the Society for Technical Communication, until I was laid off from my first job, after 12 years in the field that I fell into.
I went to my first STC NY Metro chapter meeting, and right away someone said ‘you look just like Bernard [Aschwanden]’. I had no idea who Bernard was. Now, he’s a good friend and twin. Several years and several meetings later, I connected with someone who got me my current position, which I’ve now held for over six years.
Ed Marsh and Bernard Aschwanden meet at STC Philadelphia Metro Conduit 2016
My wife recently attended a weekend-long hackathon. I noticed that no one at the competition was a content strategist or content professional. Why not?
What’s a hackathon?
A hackathon is a competition where teams compete to create the best version of the concept that they can.
Jack Molisani, president of ProSpring Staffing and Executive Director of The LavaCon Content Strategy Conference talks about technical communication hiring, rebranding, content strategy, and how he’s seized opportunities his entire career.
Content Marketer Teresa Meek has had a varied career path in journalism, real estate, and more, but always focused on writing. She is currently based in Seattle, Washington, from where she talked about how content marketing and technical writing have similarities, her brief career in technical writing, how to transition to content marketing, and more.
At the end of a very long 2016, I scanned all of the business cards I collected from meetups and conferences. It was quite a pile! While scanning them into Evernote for safe-keeping, a few information architecture issues became apparent.
This is how Evernote displays scanned/photographed business card information
Business cards are no longer just a way to creatively and memorably share our contact information. They’re also another data point that can be scanned, shared, analyzed, and retained in various ways. Continue reading Architecting your business card information→
