Symposium - Into the fire

 

Today I was a guest speaker at the Navy Public Affairs & Visual Information Symposium at the Renaissance Hotel in Baltimore, Md.  I was there to talk about what I've learned, and to give those in the fleet an idea of what to expect from MCs.

 A few words to describe it are: exciting, scary, and humbling.

It was exciting because of the opportunity.  How many E-3s still in school get to do something like this?  I was able to meet and hopefully make a good impression on many important people.  And I'm hoping with a name like Slaughter I'll be easy to remember.

It was scary because my job was to simply talk about my experience in the MC 'A' school course.  I was told not to get too technical, just to give the audience an idea of what I can do.  All my life I've been a planner.  I like to have details worked out.  This "just talk about" stuff gives me grey hairs.

I felt pretty humble as soon as I stepped into the hallway.  I'm not in Kansas/DINFOS anymore.

It's safe to say I was, by far, the lowest ranking Sailor in the building.  There was so much knowledge and experience everywhere I looked.  Everyone I met was very nice, though, and I never felt uncomfortable.  Rear Admiral Moynihan even gave me a symposium t-shirt.

Lt. Cmdr. Colkitt and I in front of one of the many booths set up at the conference.  I took pamphlets from all of them.

Lieutenant Commander Colkitt is the head of the Visual Information department at DINFOS.  VI is where members of every military branch come to learn everything they need to know about video, radio, and television.  We rode up together, which meant some great conversation about my field.

Haiti was the main topic, and the biggest room was filled with all sorts of talks about Operation Unified Response.  Another word on everyone's brains was "SOCIAL MEDIA".  Conversations about Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter were everywhere.  Crazy right?  The military understands that powerful community websites like these are here to stay.

More and more Navy ships have websites that are connected to Facebook pages.  My blog follows the same model.  Sign up here!  As far as ships go, the USS Harry S. Truman is a good example.  Stop by to see how they use Facebook on their website.