Preparing for ISTE12

As I sit here somewhere over California at 37,000 feet I’m excited for ISTE12 after missing it last year for reasons I can’t really talk about. 😉

But I’m back and ready to connect and reconnect with my PLN that for years now has supported me, pushed me, and even razzed me from time to time. ISTE is an interesting conference it is huge both in venue and in participants making it overwhelming to many and it definitly can be.

There is no shortage of bloggers and tweeters giving their advice on how to prepare for and have a succesful ISTE conference….everyone has their system their “how tos”. It is all great stuff. I think the bottom line is to have an approach. If you don’t you’ll be swallowed up quickly.

My approach is rather simple. Sit at the Blogger’s Cafe and connect with friends new and old. Maybe go to a session here or there that really looks interesting or that is someone who I want to see present. But really I’m here to connect with people. The content is great, but people are better. 

I think my favorite thing to do at ISTE is help people new to all this social networking get connected. In ’10 I remember sitting around helping a bunch of new tweeter educators get signed up and explaning to them just how this twitter thing works. Or talking about blogging and how to get started with it.

So that’s my approach at ISTE12 this year. Have conversations, help newbies who need it, and enjoy people. If you see me around please come say Hi, introduce yourself so we can start putting faces to names to twitter handles to blog titles. 

Ready or not ISTE12 is here!