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Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The D.C. Area InDesign user group had its first meeting of the season on October 26. It was held at the usual site, but the meeting format was anything but usual.

The evening started out like many of our meetings, with pizza, soda, and cookies. Thanks to the participation of Book Builders of Washington, we also had wine and beer. (By the way, we welcome other related organizations to our meetings.)

After an hour of schmoozing and snacking, we entered the U.S. Navy Memorial auditorium for the main event.

Claudia McCue from Practicalia in Atlanta (www.practicalia.net) moderated a game-show scenario in which five member contestants were challenged on their knowledge of InDesign®. The competition was fierce and the match was close, but at the end of the evening we had our winners. But the audience members were winners, too, because Claudia explained and demonstrated each feature that was the basis of the questions. Everybody learned a trick or two.

The grand-prize winner, Dan Kohan of Sensical Design & Communication, received a copy of Adobe Creative Suite Premium Edition! Second place went to Leigh Lawhor, who received a copy of InDesign CS2. The three runners-up all received gift cards for Starbucks.

At the end of the meeting, we had door-prize drawings for software, books, and more Starbucks gift cards. The meeting was adjourned at 9:00 pm.

Feedback from the audience about the meeting was almost universally positive.  Comments such as:

“WINNER. Fun way to learn new features.”

“As a new InDesign user, I found it very interesting. I learned a lot. The lady asking the questions was hilarious.”

“Game-show format was fun and educational.”

“Excellent program! Learned great tips!”

“Great idea... fun — learned some interesting things.”

“It was wonderful. Learned a lot.”

“Loved it. Can’t wait until the next one.”

“It’s great to be back. Very fun presentation style tonight.”

“Learning was made easier by adding game-like feature.”

There was lots more positive feedback.

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