Thanks to the combined efforts of the speakers, sponsors, staff, and most of all, to the NaSPA members who attended, NaSTEC 20 was a success! I had the privilege of meeting many of you at the conference, and only regret there wasn’t time to meet all of you personally. The whole conference was packed with informative sessions resulting in tough choices on which to attend. Thanks again to CA, IBM, Splunk, Cornerstone Systems, Mainline, and Liberty Mutual for making this year’s event possible! NaSPA founder Scott Sherer was honored with the Board of Directors award for his commitment to NaSPA and the IT community over the past 20 years. Cali Lewis and GeekBrief.Tv received this year’s “Technical Excellence” award for their innovative approach to delivering tech and gadget news. We also welcomed new NaSPA board member Matt Shakespeare from Toronto, Canada and bid farewell to departing board member Dr. Ed Anthony from Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, TN. Thanks again to Dr. Ed and his wife Barbara for your enthusiastic support of NaSPA over the last two years. We’ll have a complete recap of the conference in the December issue of Technical Support.
This month, with the start of the holiday season, we continue the tradition of featuring a variety of “Tech Toys” for your gift-giving pleasure. As a special twist in this year’s article, NaSPA member and author Shawn Conaway included a comparison of the digital tech toys available today with the analog toys available 20 years ago when NaSPA started. NaSPA blogger Bill Elder presents a great summary of the posts and responses to the discussions he’s leading in the “IT Forum” blog about “Net Neutrality.”  Be sure to check out his article on page 48 as well the blog itself at: http://www.NaSPA.com/itforum--and feel free to chime in with your thoughts on the subject while you’re there!
We also appreciate all the great feedback--pro and con--you’ve been sending about the transition of Technical Support magazine to its new digital format. From the postings on IBM-MAIN and other places and a special ad hoc session at NaSTEC 20, it seems we’ve created quite a buzz with the transition! Rest assured our commitment to providing you quality technical content continues unaltered. In fact, being freed from the limits of print, we’ve expanded this issue to 62 pages compared to the average of 48 pages in prior months. Over the years, the best articles to appear were written by our members, and we look forward to featuring your article in a future issue.  So if you’ve ever pondered the idea of “getting published,” here’s your opportunity! See http://www.NaSPA.com/writersguidelines to learn how!
Your active participation is vital for NaSPA to continue to be your association! So don’t hesitate to send us suggestions on how we can serve you better!
Radi