By Charles Hanlon

Have you ever wondered what job opportunities there are in the field of technology? Have you ever felt the urge to program a computer? Have you ever dreamed about working with animation and webpages? If you answered yes, then Techies Day is the trip for you.
Techies Day is an annual event run by the Chester County Intermediate Unit sponsored by the Innovative Technology Action Group of Southeastern Pennsylvania to help students explore the technology field. This year, on October 8th, a group of 14 students attended Vanguard in Malvern. Vanguard is a local business and investment firm. The bulk of their business is “virtual,” which naturally requires a lot of computers. Vanguard is the largest employer in Chester County, servicing almost 12,000 jobs.
The day began with an introduction from the main presenter, Damian Pizzo, Manager of
Vanguard Web Technical Support Services. Mr. Pizzo showed the two student groups (Phoenixville and Coatesville) around the building of 45 Liberty Blvd which features cubicles, group work areas, usability test areas, and an amazing lobby that features fountains and neat architecture.
One of the highlights of the tour included the demonstration of usability testing. This is where customers get to try out new software. Testers are shown the Vanguard website and asked to do simple things like create an account or search for information. Testers make $150 per visit, and all they have to do is say whether or not they found their experience to be easy and why.
After the tour of the building, Mr. Pizzo brought us to the presentation room. He made a short presentation about Vanguard. Some topics of the presentation included the Founder, Careers at Vanguard, and Vanguard’s mission as a company.
Lunch was supposed to be served after Mr. Pizzo’s presentation. Unfortunately, lunch was running late. The presentations about different parts of the company that were supposed to be after lunch were bumped forward.
Thankfully, lunch eventually came. One of the best parts of the entire trip, lunch consisted of a Caesar salad bar, twelve boxes of pizza (Plain, Pepperoni, Sausage, and Pepper/Onion), and cookies and brownies for dessert. With plenty of food to spare, the students were encouraged to go back for seconds, and thirds. I happilly obliged!
After lunch, Gina Puzo held a hands-on group exercise. As an information architect, Ms. Puzo organizes information to make it easily accessible for everyone. To exemplify this, we were given animal crackers and we had to sort them according to different personas (made up people). The exercise was edible, and we went home with more than a few bowls of animal crackers.
This concluded Techies Day ’08. The highlights of the trip included Animal Crackers, lunch, and some really neat goodies. I look forward to the next Techies Day trip. To get involved, see Mr. Barron, Secondary Instructional Technology Specialist in his office in the library.