Connection and Technology Tools from the AWC Conference

It was so good to meet each of you at this year’s conference in Orlando! Recurrent themes of connection, ethics, and technology bubbled up in each of the sessions. So how do we stay connected when we are communicators located all over the United States. And, we have lives and careers to manage to boot? For myself, I have personally been giving this some thought. It’s been a little over a year ago that I returned to work from maternity leave after having my first child. Going back to work full-time, finding a daycare situation my husband and I could trust, and keeping my child well (read: ear infection free!) turned our world upside down. And now, I can say I’m finally getting my legs back underneath me – and am ready to re-connect with all of my AWC friends and colleagues who have supported me through this transition.

Several of the presenters at the conference spoke in depth about all of the various social networking tools. And I must admit that I’ve gone off the deep end and signed up for LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). This interesting service allows you to visually see and connect with all those important people in your life that have helped you out, mentored you, and helped you grow in your career. Once you sign up, it makes it easy to re-connect with colleagues you keep forgetting to go to lunch with or those who are far away. You can build a site with lots of information about what you do (a mini-resume of sorts) and introduce each other to friends and colleagues. Quite frankly, I’m becoming a bit addicted to inviting all my AWC buddies to join. Turns out – many of them had been members of LinkedIn for some time. I was holding out because keeping up with two email addresses and chasing a toddler the house has left me with less spare time that I had before. Go figure. Somehow I’m finding a way to fit it in.

The other neat tool I’ve begun using is an RSS reader. I signed up on Google.com (www.google.com/reader) so I can subscribe to RSS feeds. Basically, you enter in addresses (hyperlinks) of RSS feeds, and it populates a website with links to new blog posts and podcasts when they've been updated. You pick the blogs and podcasts you want to read - and it is a like a little web-DVR and it goes and gets them for you. It's a handy little tool. The great thing about it is that you can log-in and read them when you have time, and your email box doesn’t get overloaded with more email that you fully intend to read and then delete later on because it’s not worth the headache.

I’m interested in hearing which new technologies you’re using which make your life easier – what you couldn’t live without—and links/websites every communicator needs to have in their “toolbox.” Please share!

Kimberly Dozier - The Matrix Foundation's Helen Duhamel Achievement Awardee

From the conference, it wasn't all about technology, Kimberly Dozier's story of her time spent in Bagdad and other foreign countries and her commitement to journalism and telling the story was so inspiring and put in perspective the role we all share in supporting those who choose to risk much to allow us to an opportunity to see what is happening and make up our own minds. Most of us wake up and get ready for work and worry about the day's todo list and think about what problems and issues lay ahead, not about real land minds and car bombs....

Headline: CBS News'Dozier resolves to make Iraq survival count, Orlando Sentinel, Oct. 7th

CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier describes covering the Iraq war as a thankless assignment, but one she cherishes.
"You get kicked for almost everything you put on the air," she said. "A lot of people tune away from it. But you can't stop covering it. The rest of the world is judging us by what happens in Iraq. Even though we're sick of it and might want to turn away, we can't afford to."

Dozier was honored Saturday with the The Matrix Foundation's Helen Duhamel Achievement Award at the Association for Women in Communications National Conference in Orlando.

The 2007 Annual Conference

This is our first posting. Our Conference this year was themed "Communication Innovations" and held in Orlando. I am a bit biased having served on the planning committee, but the program was invigorating and the participants were motivating. This blog is a direct result of one of our speakers encouraging us to get involved and connect with some of our new media outlets. I am inviting all our attendees to share their thoughts.

More from me later.