TechEd 2010 - Pasadena, California or Lift Up Your Eyes

My head is buzzing from my trip to California to attend the TechEd2010 conference. This was my first time attending, and it's not surprising that you have never heard of this little jewel of a conference. The conference is put on by the Community College Foundation, which sounds like it out to be a national organization. And for community colleges. Since NTID is "the nation's community college" I was hoping that the presentations would be targeted to the same audience that we serve. But it seems that the conference is actually only marketed to schools in California. And the economy (especially for public schools in Cali) being what it is, there weren't that many people there. One of the presenters told me that he is on their board of directors and the conference is loosing money. When I suggested they might want to broaden their view and go after community colleges outside of California, he just sighed wistfully. It made me think how often we actually keep ourselves from succeeding because we don't raise our chins and look towards the horizon rather than at our feet. I know I was guilty of that for a long time.

But a couple of years ago I realized that I could actually do whatever I wanted to do. If I could conceive it, I could reach it. All that is necessary is to have the gumption to actually move and the discipline to not stop moving until you reach your goal. And you will have some failures, maybe a lot of them. So what? It really doesn't matter. Just take a step back and look at the situation and move forward. It really breaks down into four steps:

1. Decide where you want to be.
2. Start moving there.
3. If you stumble, stand up and keep going.
4. Don't stop till you get there.

I have about 4 more blog articles to write about the cool products and software I saw at the conference. So I'll get off of this philosphophical jag. But this was maybe the most important lesson of the conference. It's one I have to be reminded of regularly.