Learning Something New Everyday…WordCamp!

by carissao on January 23, 2010

WordCamp Boston 2010
I earned my first paycheck as a writer at age 14. I guess you could say I’ve been doing this for a while. That said, this past year has been a transformation. Blogging has introduced a new channel to my world, and with it has come a world of new lessons to learn. I have to say, I’m enjoying this learning and my next schooling comes in the form of WordCamp Boston. A few hundred bloggers will gather this morning to listen and share among four tracks—beginner, applied, practical and developer. With organizers also offering up an unconference and an expert genius bar, this event promises to be a great experience. I’m planning out my day and, in addition to sharing several hours with some smart and driven people, I have a handful of goals in mind…

1. Sharper clarity in my strategic approach to Wordpress
2. Better understanding of the best widgets and plug-ins
3. A primer on Wordpress security
4. Tips for better SEO
5. Some fresh ideas for how to leverage video
6. Some new blog marketing techniques
7. Thoughts on how to cultivate this learning for sharing among the EMS blogging community

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Always On

by carissao on January 23, 2010

"my new hat" by Tigresblanco, used under Creative Commons license.

"my new hat" by Tigresblanco, used under Creative Commons license.

Last week was a busy one. Lots of work. Several meetings. A few events. My last event came on Thursday night, just when I was starting to wind down and prepare for the final push before the weekend. It was a big social media event and I was helping to coordinate onsite. I had my marketer hat on. Little did I know I’d be swapping it for my EMT hat before night’s end.

As the Q&A session heated up, there was a shout from one of the 160 in attendance. It came from the row of seats behind me. We had a medical emergency on our hands and it was my duty to spring to action. There were no doctors, nurses or medics in the crowd. All eyes were on me and the patient to see what would happen next. I launched into rapid assessment and was quickly relieved to determine it wasn’t what I initially feared. Within a few minutes, the patient was conscious and stabilizing, but my work wasn’t over…we were waiting for local EMS, and the patient—and 159 others—were looking to me and me alone to manage the situation. So, manage it I did. I continued to check her vitals, got a SAMPLE history, and talked and joked with her to keep her calm in an unnerving situation…did I mention she was lying on the floor in the middle of an enormous room of people? To her credit, when she became alert enough, she asked that I kindly ask everyone to refrain from tweeting her episode. I passed it along. Most complied.

I’m not a full-time EMT and I’m not working for a service. Still, as an EMT, you naturally expect to be called on in all kinds of emergencies. But this was my first experience being caught out of context. I wasn’t surrounded by my EMS friends. I wasn’t in a patient care environment. And I had my other hat on. But it reminded me of something I should never forget…in EMS, regardless of what hat we’re wearing, we’re always on.

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2010: The Year of Positive Change

December 31, 2009

For many people, it seems 2009 was a year of challenges, changes and reinvention. That was certainly the case for me. I started the year reflecting and observing, reading the work of some of the smartest people in Marketing and Social Media (see a start to my list here), then took some time to define [...]

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Surrounding myself with smarties

December 31, 2009

What do I read? Well, quite a lot. But there’s a short list of folks who I try to keep track of regularly, and there’s a good reason. They are some of the smartest and most passionate folk in Marketing, Content Creation and Social Media, in my own humble opinion (though I could find a [...]

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Healthcare Bill Passes the House: What Would it Mean for EMS?

November 7, 2009

With a 220 to 215 vote, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962), blended and updated over many months of debate, passed the House on Saturday. While this milestone is a step toward broader access to healthcare in America, there is much debate over its finer points. Among them are the potential positive [...]

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EMS Expo Comes to You

November 7, 2009

Whether you were at EMS Expo in Atlanta or not, you now have an easy way of catching up on some of the best the show had to offer with video coverage at EMS Expo Live. Check out the interviews Chris Montera and I captured on the show floor and post your comments. We’ll answer [...]

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New Vehicles Start off EMS Expo Right

October 29, 2009

EMS Expo kicked off on Wednesday with great anticipation. As a healthy crowd prepared to enter the exhibit hall, I was poised with Chris Montera and Thaddeus Setla to capture it all on video. Chris and I had a great time co-hosting the video segments, interviews and podcasts from the show floor…and we’ll continue the [...]

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Making the Most of EMS Expo

October 28, 2009

One of the largest annual EMS conferences is taking place in Atlanta this week and I’m excited to be there. I always enjoy this show and usually have a few specific goals each year. I’ve taken on some new ventures and responsibilities since last fall, so my to-do list looks a little different this year, [...]

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Creating Community through Social Media

October 25, 2009

I spent my lunchtime on Friday sitting at a roundtable with some really smart people, many of whom have become my friends over the past several months. We were talking about Community Management, a term more recently associated with social media and the function of hosting and fostering an online community (and sometimes its offline [...]

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