My last interview before heading out to Philly was with Facilities Management. The next day I was on a plane heading to the other side of the country.
Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love, is a unique city to visit. Albuquerque and the similar West Coast contrasts with the East Coast and Philadelphia.
Four members, including myself, from our STC student chapter went the national STC conference on June 1-4, 2008. There, we networked with a bunch of awesome TCers, and then some. We proved to be quite famous out there while we networked with several professionals from our field.
In addition, we also met with Becca Taylor, one of our corporate board members from the TC program. Throughout the advice she and Char James-Tanny, the secretary for STC, we were set for our time at the conference.
Without the support of members of STC who adopted us while we were in Philadelphia, it would not be a memorable experience for us.
I thought I'd share that for this blog entry. I just wish we stayed in Philadelphia a bit longer to see more of the city and actually be tourists!
I met a couple of cool people for once!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Facilities Management
After interviewing Ms. Guo, I had another interview with Dan Jones from Facilities Management the next day. Yes, I might be crazy to extensively remember so much stuff from a month ago, but I'm trying my best to catch up.
I went to see Dan Jones to get an update on the construction projects that Tech is doing for the summer. Having something about the construction on the main Tech website is something that should deserve more attention. At least Public Information would have the official story.
I talked with Dan earlier in the week to set up the interview. It was important that I actually see the map and plans to get a better idea of what is going on with the construction. Dan is great to talk to because he gives you details down to the specific names for the terms. After spending two hours talking with him, my entire morning was already used up. I knew I had a great story. He was very helpful and followed up with an email with pictures of the maps to put alongside the story.
One thing to note, all construction projects are all subject to funding; however I can't say that in the article. I had to carefully write the article to make it sound like the projects are ongoing, but that there is no guarantee that they will come out the way Dan said they would be.
In the afternoon, I spent a lot of time getting things sorted out for the following week. I had plenty of articles to work on and get to finishing them and uploaded on the Tech website. I finished the article in-time before leaving for Philadelphia, yet it got lost in the emails that go to Kathy for one last-check before being uploaded onto the website.
I went to see Dan Jones to get an update on the construction projects that Tech is doing for the summer. Having something about the construction on the main Tech website is something that should deserve more attention. At least Public Information would have the official story.
I talked with Dan earlier in the week to set up the interview. It was important that I actually see the map and plans to get a better idea of what is going on with the construction. Dan is great to talk to because he gives you details down to the specific names for the terms. After spending two hours talking with him, my entire morning was already used up. I knew I had a great story. He was very helpful and followed up with an email with pictures of the maps to put alongside the story.
One thing to note, all construction projects are all subject to funding; however I can't say that in the article. I had to carefully write the article to make it sound like the projects are ongoing, but that there is no guarantee that they will come out the way Dan said they would be.
In the afternoon, I spent a lot of time getting things sorted out for the following week. I had plenty of articles to work on and get to finishing them and uploaded on the Tech website. I finished the article in-time before leaving for Philadelphia, yet it got lost in the emails that go to Kathy for one last-check before being uploaded onto the website.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
The shortfall of a failing memory
Okay, so I should have heeded Dr. Ford's insistence that I keep an updated blog of my adventures at PIO. At least I can remember pretty far back that it is scary to even think that.
To recall, I went to interview Ms. Guo for the Langmuir award. Thankfully that was quite an easy task to accomplish. She seemed to be very shy for an interview. I really didn't mean for it to be that way. But I guess that if you never have had to be interviewed for a news story, it can be quite intimidating.
I can wonder how much stress this is for people to just sit down and give out information to a writer. Rest assured, I love talking to people, it took a while to get her to warm up and give me good answers. Unfortunately, Dr. Zhang answered most of my questions and it was kinda decent in the article. Dr. Zhang seems to be more experienced at answering them than her Ph.D student. Hehe.
I got a bit confused on a few things in this interview, but I managed to get a good story out of it. Later that day, I got an email from Ms. Guo about how she felt nervous and she apologized for being that way. She answered the remainder of my questions that she was confused about. I replied back to see if I can get a photograph of her and the award so it can be posted on the Tech website. (I went back the next day in the afternoon to get the photo.)
My next interview was with Dr. Heizler. Let me say that this is going to be one of my most difficult stories that I will cover. I spent nearly an hour and a half talking with him about plenty of things. I still don't know what I'm going to do with this project. I have about five pages of notes from interviewing him, but it seems to be so scattered around different projects and I'm trying to find something to tie them all together and it is not working. I asked Thom for advice and he suggested to start typing and then go from there. Ask questions, figure out some other things, and proceed further.
Getting to know my office has been interesting so far.
To recall, I went to interview Ms. Guo for the Langmuir award. Thankfully that was quite an easy task to accomplish. She seemed to be very shy for an interview. I really didn't mean for it to be that way. But I guess that if you never have had to be interviewed for a news story, it can be quite intimidating.
I can wonder how much stress this is for people to just sit down and give out information to a writer. Rest assured, I love talking to people, it took a while to get her to warm up and give me good answers. Unfortunately, Dr. Zhang answered most of my questions and it was kinda decent in the article. Dr. Zhang seems to be more experienced at answering them than her Ph.D student. Hehe.
I got a bit confused on a few things in this interview, but I managed to get a good story out of it. Later that day, I got an email from Ms. Guo about how she felt nervous and she apologized for being that way. She answered the remainder of my questions that she was confused about. I replied back to see if I can get a photograph of her and the award so it can be posted on the Tech website. (I went back the next day in the afternoon to get the photo.)
My next interview was with Dr. Heizler. Let me say that this is going to be one of my most difficult stories that I will cover. I spent nearly an hour and a half talking with him about plenty of things. I still don't know what I'm going to do with this project. I have about five pages of notes from interviewing him, but it seems to be so scattered around different projects and I'm trying to find something to tie them all together and it is not working. I asked Thom for advice and he suggested to start typing and then go from there. Ask questions, figure out some other things, and proceed further.
Getting to know my office has been interesting so far.
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