Mellissa Ruryk provides her perspective on her second day at the Summit.
This post is a little late—sleep is a hard commodity to come by here in Atlanta. Day two, Monday, was a day of education sessions and SIG luncheons, the Annual Business Meeting, Communities Reception, and this year, the Diamond Anniversary Celebration Party. And after that, people even went out for karaoke after the karaoke at the celebration party? Hard core.
The first session I attended was Empowering the Introvert Within: Becoming an Outstanding Leader presented by Ben Woelk and Hannah Morgan. Best tip for us introverts: Stall #6. Many people mistake me for an extrovert because I can be social, but really, I find it exhausting and a challenge. I need to recharge often, and alone, doing something pretty mindless and repetitive (Candy Crush Saga, anyone)? But luckily if there are only 5 stalls in the washroom, #5 works well, too. Great place to recharge and regroup.
After that was the first of two Lightning Talks that featured a range of topics and speakers who obviously practiced quite a bit. I think, if you can finish talking before the 5 seconds for your slide are up, you must be ready for giving a NINJA lightning talk! (That’s the one where you haven’t seen the slides before and you have to speak ex tempore for the longest five seconds of your life. Twelve times.) Most laughs went to Nathaniel Lim, who spoke in his Lightning Talk on “What’s in a Nametag.”
There was a lovely three-hour break for lunch on Monday—time for lunch, a nap, and some conversation. I do wonder why the SIG luncheons aren’t more spread out though. There are 13 SIGs that met at the Summit this year and 4 “lunch” hours, so it’s feasible that six SIGs could meet each day (and one at breakfast) so that you might luck out and be able to attend the business meetings of multiple SIGs (my two, IDL and Technical Editing, met at the same time on Tuesday, so I had to pick one).
In the afternoon I attended the Professional Development Progression. If you haven’t been to the Summit before, you might not know what a progression is. These sessions, in which multiple topics are discussed simultaneously, let you pick three topics. You go to the table where your first choice of topics is being presented, and listen/participate for 20 minutes. Then you get up and change tables to your second pick, while the presenter stays and gives her presentation again. These sessions, unlike most of the other sessions at the Summit, are not recorded for inclusion in Summit-at-a-Click. For that reason, I like to make a point of attending these over other, sometimes more attractive, options. I know that I can listen to the recordings afterwards and catch up on sessions offered at the same time.
I’d tell you what I learned there but this blog post is already double what I was asked for and I haven’t mentioned the STC business meeting (where for the first time I actually heard someone filibuster to try to run the meeting out of time during discussion of a potentially contentious issue!). The Communities Reception was fun; we had a crossword puzzle to figure out, along with swag from the various communities to pick up. I’ll take it home for the next chapter meeting night and share. The crossword puzzle was themed on Atlanta and the wonderful state of Georgia and we handed our entries in to a giant peach. I remarked to an acquaintance that it was great so many people seemed to like doing crossword puzzles … who’da thunk?
And then, to cap the night off, the Rough Drafts played rock and roll and a bit of country, inviting all and sundry to come up and jam and/or sing backup vocals. This was interspersed with karaoke as well as a cute spoof for Tricia Spayer, Queen of the CAC. I had to call it quits early but the place was rocking when I left. Tomorrow is another day—of learning and laughing and language.