Volunteering @ Grace Hopper 2012

I'm starting to get really excited for this year's Grace Hopper Conference!  Everyone is busy planning; my friends and the co-presenters are making travel plans, there are planning groups at work for Microsoft employees, and the conference organizers are getting ready.  This last one is a special interest of mine, as I've been busy helping the GHC Communities Committee recruit bloggers, tweeters, and all-round social networkers to help make GHC a great experience for everyone!

I've now attended three GHCs and volunteered in some capacity at each:

• In 2007 where I was a Hopper.  I counted attendance at sessions, ran errands and messages for conference organizers, and helped register attendees.  It was a fantastic way to get to know people and was a gateway to further involvement!
• In 2008 I blogged; a great way to meet people through the online community and spread the word about the excellent talks I attended.
• In 2010 I served on the Communities Committee even though I could not attend the conference, mostly because of the wonderful experiences GHC gave me and the awesome people I got to work with on it.  
• In 2011 I was able to attend as a Hopper, again helped with the Committee, and blogged and tweeted my way through the conference.

This year, I'm once again helping with the Communities Committee and have committed to blogging and tweeting the conference, and I'd like you to as well!  As I've written before, here's why:

• The appreciation of your fellow attendees who can’t possibly attend every session but are dying to know what happened in the session you blogged!
• An extra boost to your networking ability at the conference: you’ll be highly visible as an official blog/wiki poster – other attendees will recognize you and seek you out to ask questions about the sessions you attended.  In past years, I’ve made valuable connections as an official blogger and am in contact with them to this day!
• The chance to see your blog’s name in lights!  There will be over 3000 attendees at GHC this year.  A great many of them will read your contributions to our communities and you’ll see a definite boost to your blog readership/Twitter activity/Klout score/etc.
• A cool GHC Communities ribbon for your badge (ribbons are highly coveted at GHC, and the more the better!)

Want to volunteer but don't have a blog?  Not to worry, you can take notes on three or more sessions for our wiki, or create a new blog!  Don't forget you can always tweet using #ghc12 to tag your posts, or you could join our Facebook group.  Any contribution, no matter how small, helps make our online communities richer.  Don't forget to sign up here!

And if you don't believe me about the ribbons, check this out:

Ribbons are awesome!