Following posts by Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard and The Chronicle of Higher Education's Jen Howard, here's a peek into my email inbox -- a way of showing a glimpse into my life as an (ed-)tech writer. What follows is a list of all the emails that I've received over the course of today.
I should note that, like Howard and Beard, I've removed from this list most of the spam, listserve comments, G+ and Twitter notifications, Living Social emails, and the like (although I should add too that this process -- not deleting any of the emails I received today until I finished this post -- was a good reminder that I really do need to remove myself from a lot of mailing lists). There were over 70 emails that fell into one of those categories.
In writing up this list, I've also obscured some of the details regarding names and companies and what have you. "Protecting my sources" and whatnot.
1. Forwarded message from an editor with a message from OnlineUniversities.com. Do I want to publish one of their infographics? (No, no I don't)
2. Offer for a review copy of a SF video game
3. Offer to pay me to put a link on Hack Education. (Hell no)
4. Product details for a company who'll be at O'Reilly's Strata 2012 Startup Showcase. Offer to talk to an executive
5. Email from LMS's PR company about some new feature
6. Reminder that the super early bird rate ends Friday for an upcoming tech conference
7. Pinning down a time to talk to an ed-tech startup next week
8. Announcement from company about which ed-tech conferences they're planning on having booths
9. Press materials, logos for embargoed story
10. Offer to attend a webinar with some ed-tech grant recipients
11. Plans for a potential speaking engagement while I'm in Austin
12. Confirming coffee plans for this morning with an ed-tech CEO
13. Response from ed-tech company's marketing person re: my current freelancing plans
14. Change in schedule for a writing assignment that was due Wednesday
15. Pitch from PR person that still thinks I write for ReadWriteWeb for a technology I probably wouldn't cover even if I still worked there
16. Details about a "major enterprise content event" and offer to speak with an executive
17. Pitch to talk to an executive about a company that deals with kids' privacy online
18. Email from researcher with details about his latest research
19. Follow-up email from researcher with responses to questions about said research
20. Confirming date to talk to someone next week for my Mozilla research
21. More details about travel plans for a conference in April
22. Response from a startup who thanks me for being "persistent" but says they're too "heads-down" to talk to me for my Mozilla research
23. Embargoed press release for next week
24. Press release related to RSA Conference. Offer to talk to an executive
25. Offer to meet up with a startup at SXSWedu
26. Pitch to talk to a company about a data-related move they're making
27. Introduction to someone in Boston who sounds like they're planning a cool education/entrepreneurship endeavor
28. Press registration details for the DML conference this week
29. Offer to meet up with a startup at SXSWedu
30. Email from the Udacity class robot, clarifying this week's homework due date
31. Offer to meet up with a data scientist at Strata
32. Offer to meet up with a tech educator at Strata
33. Follow up and that offer confirmed
34. Feedback on a potential P2PU challenge I'll be co-facilitating
35. Buy WoW gold!
36. Offer to meet with a company -- one that isn't a PC company any more! -- while at SXSWedu
37. Request for information for a story going up on Hack Education today
38. Follow up to that email
39. Follow up to that email
40. Follow up to that email
41. Follow up to that email
42. Follow up to that email
43. Link to the story
44. Apologies for small error in the story. Oops
45. Note from Codecademy, telling me not to give up on learning to code. Reminding me about Code Year
46. Plans finalized for a meeting at Strata
47. Request to talk to a startup at DML this week
Photo credits: Tracy O
