I will attend the BarCampCopenhagen on 22 November in, well, Copenhagen.

The rules of BarCamp indicate that I should present. After all, it will be my first BarCamp, and everyone knows that at BarCamps there are “no spectators, only participants“.

The “Rules of BarCamp” were written up by Tantek Çelik:

• 1st Rule: You do talk about BarCamp.
• 2nd Rule: You do blog about BarCamp.
• 3rd Rule: If you want to present, you must write your topic and name in a presentation slot.
• 4th Rule: Only three word intros.
• 5th Rule: As many presentations at a time as facilities allow for.
• 6th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
• 7th Rule: Presentations will go on as long as they have to or until they run into another presentation slot.
• 8th Rule: If this is your first time at BarCamp, you HAVE to present. (Ok, you don’t really HAVE to, but try to find someone to present with, or at least ask questions and be an interactive participant.)

Yikes! Three word intros. That will probably take me a month to prepare. Right now, my mindset would say: Communication. Communication. Communication. As for a presentation, what will happen if I say I am a technical writer or technical communicator? Will I stop all conversation?

I have high expectations for this “form of self-organized user generated conference”. I have experienced a distant cousin called Open Space. Some may think this all sounds “fluffy”, but we were almost stressed in my first Open Space group from trying to grab all the ideas and form action plans.

And obviously, there will be blogging from this event. More to come. Stay tuned.

For English readers of this blog, you need to practice your Danish first. The podcast is made by a Dane in the USA in Danish about the Danish blogosphere. The Dane, Rasmus, wanted to interview someone from Webgrrls.dk, and because the board knew how much I loved to talk, they invited me to do the interview on behalf of our network.

The interview was fun, with our connection on Skype falling out about every 5 minutes. Rasmus was very cool and didn’t miss a beat. Despite the technical challenges, it really is impressive how we could sit on opposite sides of the globe and carry on a discussion. Amazing stuff, technology.

I learned how talking is so different from writing. Doh! you say? Well, once the words have left your mouth, you cannot rearrange phrases as easily as you do with a word-processing tool. And 15 minutes into the conversation, I had no clue as to what I said just a few minutes ago!

I did have a few keywords on a piece of paper in front of me, plus some data displayed on my computer screen. Several times, I had the feeling that I was chunking my thoughts like a good technical communicator. I was trying to present clear concepts and then introduce sub topics along the way. I felt like I had a little watchdog in my brain making sure I didn’t go too far off course. I wonder how other writers experience interviews, or generally, how other people go through the interview process. I did know that I should trust Rasmus. He was the interviewer. He had the questions. I figured that all I had to do was answer!

Thank you, Rasmus. I had lots of fun talking about networking, blogging, WordPress, Webgrrls, Heltinder, professionalism, and lots, lots more.

After an unplanned and long pause in my blogging activities, it is only fitting that a WordPress meetup got me back in the blogging saddle again. In fact, that was the topic I discussed at the meeting. Our get-togethers are lovely organized chaos, but it is still nice to have a starting point. This means that any WordPress.dk members reading this can start thinking about what they might be able to present at our next get-together. Hey! If I can babble about blogging, so can you!

What did I babble about? I discussed my personal blogging career that was launched less than a year ago. My focus was for newbies like me – why blog at all, how frequently should you blog, what focus should the blog have, and so on. I was inspired by a recent podcast from Boagworld, where a listener asked about blogging (why, how much, etc.), so just go listen to that podcast, and you will get an idea of what I discussed. People chimed in with comments, and as usual, we had a good discussion. What I didn’t point out, but which would be obvious to all participants in today’s meeting: it is great to have a blogging support group like WordPress.dk

There were so many goodies (goodies being exciting discussions) today that I cannot begin to report them all now. More goodies are recorded at WordPress.dk where, of course, there are links to other blog reports.

I’ll just close with a link to a real goodie: a new tool/application? for podcasters over at Podhandle. Karin Høgh was showing this to a few people, and I insisted that she show it up on the screen for everyone to see. Go poke around the links on http://podhandle.com/podpros.aspx. I think there is some interesting potential in this kind of aggregation.

It’s nice to be blogging again.

That’s what you get from a membership in an appropriate professional organization, says Les Potter. I agree. Les talks about the value he got/gets from IABC, which I first learned about in October, when I attended the Region 2 conference run by STC UK. Silvia Cambié from IABC Europe and Middle East was one of the speakers. I regretted not hearing her talk, but it was one of those usual conflicts – two sessions you want to hear being held at the same time, so I tossed a virtual coin. At least I heard her on a panel discussion about the future of technical communication. The conference theme was the business value of technical communicators, and Silvia argued that they should sit “at the table” participating in business strategies. The entire conference was excellent, and filled with discussions along that theme. As a member of STC, I was keen to attend the conference, because it was nice to attend something by “my” organization that was close to home.

Les’ trio was there: networking with my peers, as well as leaders in the STC community; professional development resulting from very rich, inspirational, and information-packed talks that exceeded my expectations of a two-day conference; and friends. Wonderful friends.

Who wouldn’t want all this? Networking, professional development, and, above all, friends tend to have very long lasting effects.

Les says more with less. I am going to love his posts. Where’s the fan club? A big thanks to Allan Jenkins for announcing this blog.