During one of the breaks, one of the attendees came up to me and said “Rufus says hello.”

Wait… I only know one guy named Rufus: Rufus Deuchler, the charming and absurdly talented Adobe evangelist based in Italy — and I’m pretty sure he isn’t in Birmingham.

I ask, “You know Rufus? How is he?” The attendee says “No, I don’t know him; I was tweeting about being here at this seminar, and he picked up on it on Twitter, and tweeted back ‘tell Claudia hello for me.’” It was like a tap on the shoulder from across the world.

I’m so unhip — I confess I’m behind the curve on social networking; I should have started blogging long ago. I was dragged unwillingly onto Facebook (and it’s proving to be more of a time-vampire than a truly useful professional tool). And I think I’m too verbose to be a Twitterer. Tweeter? Twit? (I don’t know what Twitter participants are called…) But I’ll confess it was kind of cool to be on the receiving end. Maybe I’ll give it a shot: is there a “Twitter for Dummies”?

Just looked on Amazon: sure ’nuff, the “Dummies” book is due in July

Oh, and hi, Rufus, wherever you are.

You can sign up here.

This is not, however, a shipping announcement, just a glimpse of upcoming wonderfulness. The announcement of that announcement will come later.