I used to have a little blurb on my “about” page that read something like this:<\/p>\n
Freelance technical writing pays my bills. In between gigs, I submit stories to travel, culture and outdoors publications in hopes that one day, Conde Nast will call.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Today was that day. This morning, at about 9am, Conde Nast called.<\/p>\n
This is a story of Web 2.0. If you don’t get what technology can do for you, pay attention, because this is a really <\/em>good example.<\/p>\n
About three or four months ago I caved and signed on to Twitter. (What’s Twitter<\/a>?) I didn’t get it right away, but a bunch of my imaginary<\/a> Internet<\/a> friends were talking about how great it is and I figured I’d try it out. After the first few weeks of reading what people were having for breakfast and what they saw on TV three minutes ago, I trimmed my followers down to people I know, would like to know, or those who work in or are all hopped up about travel. A HA! All of a sudden, it was like having a live news feed of (mostly) travel related goodness from people who shared my priorities. Nice. (I’m way behind on dealing with new followers. Sorry and thanks.)<\/p>\n
One of the guys I “know” from Twitter mentioned how he had a Gnomedex pass he couldn’t use and was willing to let go for half price. I thought Gnomedex sounded cool (it was<\/a>) and, hey, it was here in Seattle. The guy, Elliot Ng, one of the founders of Uptake, a\u00a0 travel search engine<\/a>, said he’d be happy to let me buy the pass and would I write a post for their blog<\/a>? You betcha. I’d be delighted.<\/p>\n
So there I was at Gnomedex, writing about it on Twitter, and all my travel contacts were seeing that stuff. Including Wendy Perrin from Conde Nast<\/a>. She seemed to think I had a lot of interesting and exciting things to say, which is no small compliment when you consider that Twitter restrains you to a 140 character format. She liked my coverage so much that she passed my name along to the PR person for an upcoming Conde Nast hosted event.<\/p>\n
That’s when the phone rang. “Wendy loved your writing about that tech conference you attended,” said the nice gal from Conde Nast. We were wondering if you’d be interested in coming to New York and writing about the World Savers Conference<\/a> for our site?” The WSC is a Conde Nast sponsored event that recognizes good work being done by travel organizations – superior environmental groups, cultural groups, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n
Whoa. Conde Nast is on the phone asking me if they can fly me to NYC, put me up in midtown, send me to a super cool travel event, and hey, would I write about it for them? Whoa. Also this: Um, yes please.<\/p>\n
I’m a little bit dizzy with the wonderfulness of it. And I’m feeling like giving the Internet a great big hug because wow, it does an incredible job of connecting the dots. Watch this space and, um, Conde Nast Traveler<\/a> (heh, I’m cracking up a little bit as I write that) for Nerd’s Eye View updates from the World Savers Conference in midtown Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Sidenotes<\/strong>: I’d just scheduled the travelbloggers meetup for that exact same day. Luckily, the generous and bloggy Debbie of Delicious Baby<\/a> is going to step in. You should still email me for an eVite – not only because the nice folks at Holt have given me a few copies of some travel lit to give away in a drawing – but because travelbloggers? They’re good people. You should meet them.<\/p>\n