Shout-outs to Mary Gardner, who happens to be my manager's wife. She is a very cool lady and someone you should all get to know. Here's an excerpt of her blog where she recounts our meeting over lunch today with most of the PHP Team and a couple of project managers:
The Charisma Coach!: Hanging out with the Techies
They’re programmers who have a personal interest in social media as well as doing it for their jobs.
For me, it was so much easier hanging with them for an hour than reading a techie magazine, and easier to pick up on the language. They gave me content for an upcoming business article and ideas for others.
Hanging with those outside your own industry can give your own creativity a boost and sharpen your own knowledge about something that might be out of your comfort zone but that is interesting.
I told her she MUST go to BlogOrlando and add me on twitter as well as Eric and the other twitter folks at the table. For her it makes lots of sense, she is in the life coaching and professional speaking fields, and she wants to build a personal brand around celebrities with causes. I think she will find some great resources and utility through twitter, so Mary, hoping you have Google Alerts turned on, sign up; or if you saw the "new blog post" link in Twitter, good for you!
Either way, welcome to the Dark Side, Mary. I look forward to your update in my daily (OMG, they mean daily) Orlando Business Journal update.
See, Ryan, you *are* a
See, Ryan, you *are* a celebrity!
Now to just get her to switch
Now to just get her to switch to WordPress instead of blog spot. What's her twitter? I see sway signed up and is following me.