Atlanta: Day 1 - Part II

Subtitle: Murf puts on her extrovert hat

Once unpacked and settled it a bit, I headed to the basement levels of the hotel for the conference first timer's session. Despite the organization being for communication, I've always found their website to be a bit lacking in that area and the information for where the conference sessions were located was much the same way. Once I registered and received my name tag that I had to wear the full conference and a bag of goodies from companies that were at the expo, I stopped to organize all my belongings and struck up a conversation with Penny from Boston. Since I'm not the most outgoing of people (shocking, I know), I was kind of worried about the meeting of people thing. The last time I was in a situation where I didn't know many people was at a bridal shower a year ago. It was one of those times where I kept mentally kicking myself and asking "Why did I just say that?". Together she and I wandered around to find where the first timer's session was and eventually located it. Once in the room, she was a front row person while I am more last row so we separated at that point and I was back on my own...but not for long. Helen who works for IBM in Germany but is originally from Britain sat next to me and she was very talkative and refreshing.

An hour later once the first timer's session had ended and I had my "First Time Attendant" ribbon on my name tag, everyone headed over to the official Welcome session which pertained mainly of people higher up in the organization talking about things like the economy (no better way to start a party than that topic) as well as their adventure in getting the official job description for technical writing/communication updated to reflect the things that people in this role do today. Lastly, someone spoke about the importance of remembering the handicapped people when designing something.

After that, across the hall to the official opening of the Expo that featured quite a few vendors eager to demonstrate their goods. At this point, I was more open to just the appetizers that were going to be served since I had yet to eat since the peanuts on the plane. As I was waiting for the Expo to begin, I struck up a conversation with Joan from Jersey (everyone at this conference was insanely friendly so my initial worry became moot). She's managerial level so I got some pearls of info from her while trying to impress her that I already knew software such as Adobe Photoshop since technical communication also includes design. We split up shortly after entering the Expo and I meandered a bit before I just got tired of being there so since that was the last event, I went back up to my hotel room to prepare for the next day which was my full day of educational sessions.


Next up: Day 2