The STC is also offering other types of “help” to writers who would like to attend. Things like:

• The option to pay half your registration fee online and the other half onsite.
• A list of ideas you could present to your boss to see if your employer will pay for your attendance.
• A list of discounted hotels and transportation ideas.

Personally I have never attended the STC Tech Comm Summit, but I would definitely like to one of these days. You can be sure that I will be taking advantage of all the discounts (like registering early) to make sure I can go. Perhaps next year.

I found it a unique interview question (see what I did there?) because it’s not one that gets asked often. If it is asked, it’s not asked in that way, and perhaps that’s why it stuck in my brain.

We technical writers can be a peculiar bunch of people, so I found it an interesting question. We’re often:

• Type B personalities
• Very introverted
• Quite geeky
• Not always social

Of course there are exceptions to this, and I consider myself to be one of them. While I enjoy the tranquility and silence of my cubicle when I need to write, I also enjoy the company of my colleagues. I like to hear about their projects, and how they’re doing in general. I like to go out for a pint or two with friends and talk about our favourite hockey teams. (Go Habs Go!) I’m also a computer geek that likes to learn about VPNs, how to set up a server, or figure out how to change the code in my Wordpress theme so that all my post titles are in a sans-serif font.

So come on everyone, why don’t you tell me how you’re unique? I’m curious.

Sifting & Sorting

Who knew I’d have to spend so much time sifting and sorting through all the projects to find any that were worthwhile? Impressive. For every bid I put in (and I put in 7 of them this afternoon), I had to read at least 5 other project listings. Most of those are of the “$1 for 500 words” variety, which in my opinion aren’t worth it. I mean, even if you can churn out 2 or 3 articles an hour, that’s still less than minimum wage! You might as well go deliver pizzas, at least that way you’d get out of the house and see other people. Just kidding.

Seriously though, I can’t believe how many people are out there soliciting the services of freelance writers and then only pay them $1 or less for each article. And then they don’t even bother to proofread their own listings, so they’re rife with spelling mistakes and typing errors. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I want to work for someone who can’t spell “writer” correctly, what about you?

Phase 1 Complete

For today the first step is complete, in that I submitted bids for 7 projects (or was it 8? – I looked at so many this afternoon that I’m not sure anymore.) I should find out about them in the next week or so, and one of them was even an actual technical writing project! That was pretty rare, considering I was using the search term “technical writing”.

Phase 2 – The Waiting Begins

Now I just have to wait and see if any of my bids are accepted. A few of the projects were looking for multiple writers, so hopefully that bodes well for me. But if not, no worries, as I’ll just keep on with the rest of my marketing plan. I’ll keep you posted!

While on vacation last week in Vancouver, I thought it might be a good idea to start doing some networking, as having contacts in another city is always a good idea. A current colleague of mine used to live in Vancouver, and has a wonderful contact there who actually helped her find a job here in Toronto! So I dropped him an email and off I went on my networking escapade. We exchanged several emails, and he sent me a whole list of names and email addresses for people in Vancouver that I thought speak to. He was also going to be attending a networking even mid-week, and invited me to come, however as I developed a nasty cold while on vacation, I decided not to go and instead just recuperated at home.

Now that I’m back from my vacation, I’ll start emailing the people on the list I got, and making introductions to all these people that the Networking King  gave me (that’s the nickname I’ve given this contact, as he’s got quite a long list of contacts to pull from.) Stay tuned for more tales from the Networking Escapade as I start making contact with everyone.