Many of us in
high-tech public relations ask ourselves this question, myself included. You
see, while technology was never my strong-suit, I always intended to pursue a
career in PR. But how did somebody who can hardly turn on the TV end up working
with some of the most innovative technology
companies around? In my own defense, I can hardly turn
on the TV because my engineer husband has it
hooked up to just about every audio-visual product under the sun.

I met said
engineer at my first job out of college in the advertising and PR department of
GTE Wireless (now Verizon) in the Seattle area. I took the job at GTE
Wireless for three reasons: it was a job in PR, my boss was a fantastic mentor
and third, because I got a free cell phone (this was back in the day when only
rich people had cell phones). Looking back, I not only learned a lot about PR, I
also learned a great deal about a technology that is used by millions of people
worldwide today. Wireless telecommunications affects most of us, and I take a
bit of pride knowing not just THAT it works, but HOW it works.

When my more
tech-savvy half was transferred to GTE’s internetworking division outside
Boston, I packed my bags and
started a job in the marketing communications department of CIO magazine, a star publication of high-tech publishing giant IDG. So here I was, again
faced with technology as a focus in my career. At this point, I really began to
understand what technology can do to make our companies run more smoothly, our
jobs more productive, and our lives easier.

Six years
later, high-tech hubbie is now a telecommunications consultant with Detecon and I’m a communications consultant at Voce Communications. I
really feel that I’ve come full-circle. I love the fast pace of high-tech PR
consulting. I love the fact that I have a diverse group of clients with a broad
range of technologies. I love that I know what terms like VoIP, SIP, IP
SAN, SATA and iSCSI mean.

I used to be
disappointed that my career is focused on technology, instead of something more
glamorous like movies or travel. But I’m now convinced that high-tech is pretty
much the center of things. Technology isn’t just for geeks, it’s for all of us -
even if we don’t know the innermost details of how it
works.