Picture it: Philadelphia, 2007. I had just quit my hellish admin job to pursue my Masters of Journalism degree at Temple full-time. Amy Webb was my professor. She taught a class called "Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting"--CARR for short. It was one of the few mandatory courses we had to take. I wasn't sure what the class was about; Googling things, I guessed. Turns out that the class was about all things web-related. And, as a teacher, I liked her immediately. She was whip smart, tech-savvy, and a HUGE George Michael fan.
Let it be known that before her class, I had zero interest in blogging. It never appealed to me. I certainly didn't think that I had anything to share with the world on a consistent basis. Besides, HTML was intimidating. Just looking at lines of code made my eyes cross. But as part of our coursework, we had to start a blog. Mine was called Cupcake Brigade and it was mostly about my two favorite things: Fall Out Boy and cute short guys. Amy taught me all about RSS feeds, manipulating web code, understanding web statistics, and proper online etiquette. With my newfound blogging confidence, I played around with the guts of my blog's code and even customized the layout. I was super proud of that.
Shortly after Cupcake Brigade came together, using the skills I honed under her guidance, I launched Shmitten Kitten in 2008. Fast forward five years and my life has changed in ways I'd never imagined all because of this blog. It's not an understatement to say that her class and expert teaching changed the trajectory of my life. It doesn't get more awesome than that.
I'm proud to announce that Amy has a book coming out. It's called Data: A Love Story and it's about how she gamed online dating to meet her husband. Watch the trailer below. It's adorable.
2 comments:
That was the best book trailer I've ever seen!
Wow, cool story & great trailer!
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