Tuesday, July 19, 2005
soooooo much fun
Even though people in other sessions and situations kept usurping my presentation topic (user testing) yesterday and this morning -- which, ultimately, only reinforces to me the value of what I chose to talk about -- my session later this morning was filled with attentive, interested, involved attendees and left me feeling like I really taught them something and said something meaningful and relevant.
Mission accomplished.
And, it was SOOOOO much fun... :)
Mission accomplished.
And, it was SOOOOO much fun... :)
"Hey, you're that user testing girl!"
The very last thing we did at the conference yesterday (before adjourning to the hotel to get ready for the crab fest!) was participate in a panel/roundtable discussion on how IT and marketing can get along (right!). Someone in the audience asked about user testing's role in persuading IT and/or marketing along to one's point of view, after which I began the excited-arm-thrust-up dance for getting a chance to talk. As it turned out, I was the very last one they called on to stand up and share thoughts, and I talked for three or four minutes about my experiences at work, including a plug for my user testing session today.
So after we were back to the hotel from the conference, and at random times at the crab fest! last night, people began coming up to me and saying, "Hey! You're that user testing girl! I'm coming to that session for sure!"
No pressure.
The room I'm presenting in is probably the biggest of the three we're using, but I've already seen that if any one session attracts more than a proportionate amount of attendees, things get crowded pretty quickly. I'm pretty darn sure my 33 copies of the one handout I prepared to hand out physically (versus loading up on a Web site) will hardly be sufficient.
But, I'm REALLY excited to be presenting later, and excited to hear what others have done and how they've done it differently than me.
So after we were back to the hotel from the conference, and at random times at the crab fest! last night, people began coming up to me and saying, "Hey! You're that user testing girl! I'm coming to that session for sure!"
No pressure.
The room I'm presenting in is probably the biggest of the three we're using, but I've already seen that if any one session attracts more than a proportionate amount of attendees, things get crowded pretty quickly. I'm pretty darn sure my 33 copies of the one handout I prepared to hand out physically (versus loading up on a Web site) will hardly be sufficient.
But, I'm REALLY excited to be presenting later, and excited to hear what others have done and how they've done it differently than me.
Crab fest!
Last night, I joined my Web geek colleagues at a genuine Chesapeake Bay crab fest! at this restaurant just over the Delaware state line -- called the Old Mill Crab House. What a bizarre experience. I've never had good crab (except in cream of crab soup, which I adore), really, so I have generally avoided the exercise altogether, but by the time I watched our waitress dump a pile of at least a dozen steamed and seasoned crabs within nine inches of me last night, I had fairly well resigned myself to the notion that I'd be trying crab last night.
This was Maryland blue crab, not the kind you typically get anywhere else in the country, and it had the mark of Maryland crab -- namely, Old Bay seasoning. And, OHMYGOODNESS, it was *awesome*. Totally yummy.
I was sitting next to this guy who works for the Social Security Administration near Baltimore and obviously has spent a good deal of his life living near the Bay and/or eating crab, because he was extremely skilled -- far more so than anyone else I've ever seen -- at cracking open crabs and getting at the meat. It was my good fortune to be sitting next to him, because he was able to coach me on how to crack my crabs, and even cleaned up a couple or three crabs for me, or handed me legs already cracked off with huge chunks of meat hanging out the end.
I didn't stuff myself with crab (that takes a lot more effort than my feeble skills would have allowed), but I did get reasonably full and had fun.
On our way back to the hotel, I sat next to a woman from Kansas State University whose husband is getting a Ph.D. (at KSU) in Military History. She's working on a master's degree in Mass Communications. I had a fantastic time talking to her -- we have a lot in common, and she was really cool.
So it was a fun evening. I came back to the hotel, finished up my presentation for today, and settled into bed with Harry Potter #6 -- which I finished. I have to say, I wasn't all that shocked with the ending, though I did cry just a TINY little bit. It was definitely one of Rowling's better books, though, ranking right up there with Azkaban, in my opinion. And it ended on far more of what I'd call a cliffhanger note than most in the Potter series, so I'm completely anxious to know how this all ends. (Not that I think it can be any but one way.) Perhaps the most satisfying part of No. 6 was the revelation that suspicions I've had all along about one of the teachers at Hogwarts were finally confirmed. Thank goodness. I was getting sick of constantly being assured my suspicions were unfounded, when I clearly knew they were.
Anyway, two more things on the crab fest ... yesterday in one of the sessions I attended, a woman from UMASS was talking about their calendar system. We submitted an event to their calendar (which will probably be taken down very soon, so click now!) for last night's event -- be sure you check out the location of the event (hehe); in that same event, we also submitted a random URL for the event, without first checking what was actually AT that URL, and found this delightful slogan: "Its not just Crabs ... its the Experience." Audience comments immediately after the Web site pulled up were, in this order: "What an unfortunate slogan" ... and, "Guess grammar's not their thing, eh?"
And that's EXACTLY why I love these people so much. These are my people! :)
This was Maryland blue crab, not the kind you typically get anywhere else in the country, and it had the mark of Maryland crab -- namely, Old Bay seasoning. And, OHMYGOODNESS, it was *awesome*. Totally yummy.
I was sitting next to this guy who works for the Social Security Administration near Baltimore and obviously has spent a good deal of his life living near the Bay and/or eating crab, because he was extremely skilled -- far more so than anyone else I've ever seen -- at cracking open crabs and getting at the meat. It was my good fortune to be sitting next to him, because he was able to coach me on how to crack my crabs, and even cleaned up a couple or three crabs for me, or handed me legs already cracked off with huge chunks of meat hanging out the end.
I didn't stuff myself with crab (that takes a lot more effort than my feeble skills would have allowed), but I did get reasonably full and had fun.
On our way back to the hotel, I sat next to a woman from Kansas State University whose husband is getting a Ph.D. (at KSU) in Military History. She's working on a master's degree in Mass Communications. I had a fantastic time talking to her -- we have a lot in common, and she was really cool.
So it was a fun evening. I came back to the hotel, finished up my presentation for today, and settled into bed with Harry Potter #6 -- which I finished. I have to say, I wasn't all that shocked with the ending, though I did cry just a TINY little bit. It was definitely one of Rowling's better books, though, ranking right up there with Azkaban, in my opinion. And it ended on far more of what I'd call a cliffhanger note than most in the Potter series, so I'm completely anxious to know how this all ends. (Not that I think it can be any but one way.) Perhaps the most satisfying part of No. 6 was the revelation that suspicions I've had all along about one of the teachers at Hogwarts were finally confirmed. Thank goodness. I was getting sick of constantly being assured my suspicions were unfounded, when I clearly knew they were.
Anyway, two more things on the crab fest ... yesterday in one of the sessions I attended, a woman from UMASS was talking about their calendar system. We submitted an event to their calendar (which will probably be taken down very soon, so click now!) for last night's event -- be sure you check out the location of the event (hehe); in that same event, we also submitted a random URL for the event, without first checking what was actually AT that URL, and found this delightful slogan: "Its not just Crabs ... its the Experience." Audience comments immediately after the Web site pulled up were, in this order: "What an unfortunate slogan" ... and, "Guess grammar's not their thing, eh?"
And that's EXACTLY why I love these people so much. These are my people! :)
Monday, July 18, 2005
asking the right questions
A few months back, I won a $100 American Express gift cheque for asking the best question at a Network World event ... they asked people to drop their candidates for "best question of the day" into a basket throughout the morning, and at the end of the day, they sorted through all of them and the final panel picked their favorite. Mine won.
I remind y'all of this (I'm sure I blogged about it at the time) today because I just came from a session at my university Web geek conference where a seasoned sales guy talked about the phenomenon of higher ed blogging while we all ate lunch. I've heard rumblings about how we should be exploiting this cutting-edge technology in bits and pockets across campus, but until just now I'd never heard of a single concrete example of what CONTENT we could podcast that would serve the greater mission of our Web site. Today, though, I got lots of good ideas.
However, that said, at the end of dude's highly exuberant presentation, I raised my hand and asked the question I'd been wanting to ask for the last half of his presentation (because of something he said, actually), and it was: "What about accessibility? Do we actually have to *transcribe* all of the podcasts we do?"
The room fell silent -- and we're talking about more than 140 Web geeks excited about the fact that we could speak geek without having to run it through our geek-to-English translator -- and after several seconds of quiet, the speaker dude just shrugged and said, "Wow. That's a REALLY good question -- I hadn't thought about it."
Ick.
In other Web geek news, just before lunch I met another Liz who's at Rice University in Houston. I lost her in the food court, but hope I'll get a chance to talk to her tonight at the "CRAB FEAST!!" (they're really excited about this crab feast thing) or tomorrow sometime.
I remind y'all of this (I'm sure I blogged about it at the time) today because I just came from a session at my university Web geek conference where a seasoned sales guy talked about the phenomenon of higher ed blogging while we all ate lunch. I've heard rumblings about how we should be exploiting this cutting-edge technology in bits and pockets across campus, but until just now I'd never heard of a single concrete example of what CONTENT we could podcast that would serve the greater mission of our Web site. Today, though, I got lots of good ideas.
However, that said, at the end of dude's highly exuberant presentation, I raised my hand and asked the question I'd been wanting to ask for the last half of his presentation (because of something he said, actually), and it was: "What about accessibility? Do we actually have to *transcribe* all of the podcasts we do?"
The room fell silent -- and we're talking about more than 140 Web geeks excited about the fact that we could speak geek without having to run it through our geek-to-English translator -- and after several seconds of quiet, the speaker dude just shrugged and said, "Wow. That's a REALLY good question -- I hadn't thought about it."
Ick.
In other Web geek news, just before lunch I met another Liz who's at Rice University in Houston. I lost her in the food court, but hope I'll get a chance to talk to her tonight at the "CRAB FEAST!!" (they're really excited about this crab feast thing) or tomorrow sometime.
the weather out here
The weather's not overly hot here, but it's humid as hell. Still, I think our Segway tour Thursday is going to be AWESOME!!! :)
Sunday, July 17, 2005
here!
After so much anticipation and endless hours at airports yesterday, I'm finally here -- "here" being on the east coast once again. Hooray!
Last year's trip to this conference in eastern Maryland started with me getting to the airport so late that my bag didn't make it to National Airport until much later than I did. So this year, not wanting to endure the same endless wait for my stuff, I had Daniel take me to the airport WAY EARLY -- so early that even my father, the king of allowing for "flat-tire time," would have probably complained at how long I had to wait for my flight.
I flew United for the first time yesterday, though the plane I was on was actually run by a smaller company that's an affilliate in the "United Express" network. The plane was GORGEOUS ... this was a plane that confirmed the notion that the next big MBA degree will be the MFA. By which I mean, it was a plane where every detail had obviously been designed. Not just put together, but thought about and created in an aesthetically pleasing and comfortable way. The flight wasn't totally full, and it was one of the more enjoyable flying experiences I've ever had.
Before I left yesterday, I popped into Target and bought the new Harry Potter book. I pulled it out about 30 minutes before my flight left DFW and continued reading through most of the flight. I had several people on the plane ask me about it or comment that they had bought it, too (or hadn't yet). Even after I got to Dulles, I could feel everyone was a-twitter with talk of Harry.
I'd never flown into Dulles before, but after my excruitiating experience there last night, I completely understand now why people I know have always found it almost impossible to mutter "Dulles" without prefacing it with the adjective "fucking." The airport's completely ginormous, requiring at least 15-20 minutes just to get from my gate, into a very bizarre-looking people mover shuttle to the main terminal, and down to baggage claim. There, I waited at least another 20 minutes or so to get one of my bags, and another 10 minutes for bag no. 2 to arrive. By the time I got my rental car and pulled out of the Hertz lot, the heavens opened up and it began pouring. In short, Dulles SUCKED. Can't WAIT to go back later in the week ... {sigh}
I finally got to AnnaLisa's house in Columbia Heights around 10:45 (after having landed at Dulles at 8:45, mind you) and we ordered pizza (I was famished) while we chatted a bit about boys and life and what's happened since we last saw one another in March. The house she's currently living in (but is moving out of next weekend) is located in what she refers to as "the hood," though once you make it in the front door, it's absolutely adorable. For a rowhouse in DC, I'd call it pretty spacious -- though the bathroom's absolutely TINY. I don't generally have the appropriate amount of grooming crap for a normal girly girl, but even I had a hard time navigating my morning in such a small space.
This morning we had a short chat before I headed out. I had intended to make for Salisbury straightaway, but I was anxious to stop at a Barnes & Noble or Target or something. So, I headed to my old stomping grounds in suburban Maryland and stopped by White Flint mall a bit before it opened ... still, I popped into Borders and picked up Laura Pausini's latest CD. (For some reason, I can NEVER find her stuff in Dallas, but always find it immediately when I look out here.) I wandered around the not-yet-open mall for a bit, then headed a little north thinking I'd go to lunch at one of my favorite DC diners, the Silver Diner. Before I stopped, though (remembering how busy they are around noon on Sundays), I headed just a little bit more north to go to Barnes & Noble ... not for any reason other than I felt like it. And this is germane because, as I was leaving B&N, lo and behold, I nearly ran smack into a Target. I asked at the checkout (yes, of course, I bought something), and it's been there for about five months. What luck!! The Silver Diner offered up fabulous lunch options, and while there I read another 100 pages of Harry Potter no. 6. (I'm now about halfway done, yay!). After lunch, I headed east.
The trip to Salisbury is WAY shorter than I remember or planned for. I say that so maybe next year (if I come next year), maybe I'll remember? (HA! Not likely!) I hopped on the Inner Loop of the Beltway around 2:30, and was at my hotel and checked in well before 5:00. Amazing!
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge was as stunning as ever ... I swear, I wish a camera were capable of capturing how gorgeous the view is from that bridge. I absolutely adore driving over it.
And that brings me to now ... in Salisbury, getting ready to head out for dinner and some more Harry Potter. I'd planned to have dinner with conference people tonight, but I'm feeling kinda antisocial, probably because I know the next two days will be absolutely stuffed with hanging out with total strangers. Not that that's a bad thing ... it's just tiring for me, and I'd prefer to be quiet tonight.
So, friends, I'll have photos for you soon!
Last year's trip to this conference in eastern Maryland started with me getting to the airport so late that my bag didn't make it to National Airport until much later than I did. So this year, not wanting to endure the same endless wait for my stuff, I had Daniel take me to the airport WAY EARLY -- so early that even my father, the king of allowing for "flat-tire time," would have probably complained at how long I had to wait for my flight.
I flew United for the first time yesterday, though the plane I was on was actually run by a smaller company that's an affilliate in the "United Express" network. The plane was GORGEOUS ... this was a plane that confirmed the notion that the next big MBA degree will be the MFA. By which I mean, it was a plane where every detail had obviously been designed. Not just put together, but thought about and created in an aesthetically pleasing and comfortable way. The flight wasn't totally full, and it was one of the more enjoyable flying experiences I've ever had.
Before I left yesterday, I popped into Target and bought the new Harry Potter book. I pulled it out about 30 minutes before my flight left DFW and continued reading through most of the flight. I had several people on the plane ask me about it or comment that they had bought it, too (or hadn't yet). Even after I got to Dulles, I could feel everyone was a-twitter with talk of Harry.
I'd never flown into Dulles before, but after my excruitiating experience there last night, I completely understand now why people I know have always found it almost impossible to mutter "Dulles" without prefacing it with the adjective "fucking." The airport's completely ginormous, requiring at least 15-20 minutes just to get from my gate, into a very bizarre-looking people mover shuttle to the main terminal, and down to baggage claim. There, I waited at least another 20 minutes or so to get one of my bags, and another 10 minutes for bag no. 2 to arrive. By the time I got my rental car and pulled out of the Hertz lot, the heavens opened up and it began pouring. In short, Dulles SUCKED. Can't WAIT to go back later in the week ... {sigh}
I finally got to AnnaLisa's house in Columbia Heights around 10:45 (after having landed at Dulles at 8:45, mind you) and we ordered pizza (I was famished) while we chatted a bit about boys and life and what's happened since we last saw one another in March. The house she's currently living in (but is moving out of next weekend) is located in what she refers to as "the hood," though once you make it in the front door, it's absolutely adorable. For a rowhouse in DC, I'd call it pretty spacious -- though the bathroom's absolutely TINY. I don't generally have the appropriate amount of grooming crap for a normal girly girl, but even I had a hard time navigating my morning in such a small space.
This morning we had a short chat before I headed out. I had intended to make for Salisbury straightaway, but I was anxious to stop at a Barnes & Noble or Target or something. So, I headed to my old stomping grounds in suburban Maryland and stopped by White Flint mall a bit before it opened ... still, I popped into Borders and picked up Laura Pausini's latest CD. (For some reason, I can NEVER find her stuff in Dallas, but always find it immediately when I look out here.) I wandered around the not-yet-open mall for a bit, then headed a little north thinking I'd go to lunch at one of my favorite DC diners, the Silver Diner. Before I stopped, though (remembering how busy they are around noon on Sundays), I headed just a little bit more north to go to Barnes & Noble ... not for any reason other than I felt like it. And this is germane because, as I was leaving B&N, lo and behold, I nearly ran smack into a Target. I asked at the checkout (yes, of course, I bought something), and it's been there for about five months. What luck!! The Silver Diner offered up fabulous lunch options, and while there I read another 100 pages of Harry Potter no. 6. (I'm now about halfway done, yay!). After lunch, I headed east.
The trip to Salisbury is WAY shorter than I remember or planned for. I say that so maybe next year (if I come next year), maybe I'll remember? (HA! Not likely!) I hopped on the Inner Loop of the Beltway around 2:30, and was at my hotel and checked in well before 5:00. Amazing!
The Chesapeake Bay Bridge was as stunning as ever ... I swear, I wish a camera were capable of capturing how gorgeous the view is from that bridge. I absolutely adore driving over it.
And that brings me to now ... in Salisbury, getting ready to head out for dinner and some more Harry Potter. I'd planned to have dinner with conference people tonight, but I'm feeling kinda antisocial, probably because I know the next two days will be absolutely stuffed with hanging out with total strangers. Not that that's a bad thing ... it's just tiring for me, and I'd prefer to be quiet tonight.
So, friends, I'll have photos for you soon!
Saturday, July 16, 2005
travel revelation
Let's compare:
On Tuesday, I was up at an ungodly hour to make my 7 a.m. flight to Houston. Analysis: HORRID.
Today, I got up around 7 a.m., but only so I could take leisurely advantage of the many daylight hours that precede my 4:30 p.m. departure from DFW to Dulles International in DC. Analysis: HEAVENLY.
I've run a number of errands (including an 8 a.m. trip to Target to pick up Harry Potter 6!!! yay!!), packed, printed maps galore, scanned things for my Tuesday presentation, played with some DVDs, watched two things on TV, including a movie, taken a shower, and still have about 3 hours until I have to leave for the airport.
Resolved: I shall henceforth take as many afternoon flights as possible. It's awesome! :)
On Tuesday, I was up at an ungodly hour to make my 7 a.m. flight to Houston. Analysis: HORRID.
Today, I got up around 7 a.m., but only so I could take leisurely advantage of the many daylight hours that precede my 4:30 p.m. departure from DFW to Dulles International in DC. Analysis: HEAVENLY.
I've run a number of errands (including an 8 a.m. trip to Target to pick up Harry Potter 6!!! yay!!), packed, printed maps galore, scanned things for my Tuesday presentation, played with some DVDs, watched two things on TV, including a movie, taken a shower, and still have about 3 hours until I have to leave for the airport.
Resolved: I shall henceforth take as many afternoon flights as possible. It's awesome! :)
Friday, July 15, 2005
weather check
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Prelude to a travelblog
I set this up to post travelblog messages on my imminent trip to DC. I figured it would be easier to reminisce if they were all in one central place.
