Skip to main content

This week's Thank You Note: The professional contacts

Card and original verse created by Kay Foley
The energy at a good conference is palpable. The buzz of new ideas and repurposing old ideas permeates every session and congregates around every outlet. I love going because I always learn so much and I feel like I absorb that energy and excitement. I struggle a little bit because, while my primary goal is to build relationships with professional contacts, my inner voice tells me to sit off in the corner, or better yet, disappear to my hotel room after the sessions are done.

That's why one of the best practices networking experts often tout is to set up meetings prior to the show, and that works doubly well for introverts like me. Knowing I have a face-to-face meeting, which I love, gives me something to look forward to, instead of looking for the next opportunity to duck back behind my computer screen and surreptitiously watch from afar.

I was able to schedule those meetings with a few of the editors I work with during the three-day event. It broke up the time between information absorption and feeling like a needy puppy -- "Won't someone come talk to me? I'm an interesting person."

These editors all had many other friends and colleagues they could have spent time with or they could have just brushed me off like a few others did (cue needy puppy). But they didn't. We chatted about what they were working on, interesting projects they recently completed and a few mutual interests. Because they made time for me, I wanted to make sure they knew I appreciated it.

In order to stand out from the regular thank you notes these editors probably get, I stopped by a local store that sells interesting cards, usually by local artists, and I was not disappointed. One editor got a card from a long-time personal favorite, Ampersand Cards, and I found a fun sentiment perfect for the personality of another editor from Curly Girl Design.

Thank you, Liz, Laura, Ebony and Matt for spending a little of your precious time with me during the controlled chaos of the conference!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Infographic: Presentation Tools for Sharing an Idea

I put together this infographic as part of an internal training program I do for our account managers each month called "What in the EdTech". The account managers selected topics from a list of about 20 that they wanted to learn about. This is the fourth in the series, and after this one, we'll do another survey to see what else they want to learn about. Previous sessions included: Khan Academy ( and their results ), Gamification/Game-based Learning and 3D Printing .
Post a Comment
Read more

Unchosen: The Graduation Invite

Sometimes I'm really bad at predicting which design a customer is going to choose. And that leaves me with some of my favorite designs unclaimed. I'm going to start highlighting some unclaimed designs here in the blog, as well as some of my favorite designs that were chosen. I'm pretty proud of my concoctions, and I want to show them off! I've been doing a lot of invitations lately, and they are a lot of fun. I'm sticking to the small, intimate parties (no Bridezillas here, please) like bachelorette and graduation parties. My customers have great ideas for themed parties and you just can't find invitations at Target for the "She Got Knocked Up" baby shower. Okay, I haven't done that one yet, but I bet it would be a blast! This unchosen design came from a recent graduation party invitation. The soon-to-be alma mater's colors were green and gold, and the graduate is a big fan of pink. That's where the color scheme came from. Because it was a ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Finding Out How Similar We All Really Are

Story by Rossyyume Flickr CC BY NC ND I love stories. Especially people's stories. The stories they've created. The stories that created them. Stories were a big part of why I majored in Journalism. It was an excuse to listen to people tell their stories. As a 19-year-old soon-to-be Journalism student, my goal was to live in a tiny apartment with five cats and interview interesting people all day. And while it's probably best for everyone -- including the cats -- that the career muses didn't send me down that path, I am still drawn to the experiences of others and how they share those memories and ideas. It's fascinating to me that we now have so many ways to tell stories -- ours and others. So many ways to document our lives, the lives of the people we know and the people we pretend to be. With each story comes a chance to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. In doing so, we get a little more understanding of how similar we all are. Here are a few ...
Post a Comment
Read more