Well it’s official, my registration is through and I will be attending EMC World in Las Vegas, from May 9th to 12th.

It will be my second time attending this event, and if the last year is anything to go by it will be an intense few days. While I will be leaving my wife to look after our 2 children while I’m away (that part I hate) it will be another opportunity to meet Customers, Partners and EMC’ers who rock in their expertise.
It’s particularly good this year as the Support Forums / Community will be highlighted prominently. More on that in the coming weeks. What I can tell you specifically is that we are again highlighting the Most Valuable Players of the EMC Support Forums at a luncheon in their honor.  https://community.emc.com/message/539276#539276

For those of you reading this and not registered Powerlink users the following explains the Program:: 
“The MVP Program recognizes outstanding members of the EMC Support Forums based on their contributions, collaboration and innovative ideas.  The Program is designed BY and FOR forum users and is sponsored by EMC Corporation.” Winners of the MVP award will receive a conference pass to EMC World, with travel and accommodation expense.  What’s really cool about this is that it allows people who would not normally attend EMC World to go.

Last year at EMC World, I attended as last minute replacement for my boss who left, but did not go far thankfully 🙂 It was an intense experience and was a baptism of fire in networking, meeting people, collaborating on ideas.
I really got steeped in Social Media, and had many firsts in that setting. My first tweet up, my first meeting with a person I followed on Twitter! My first foray in Four Square and getting badges. It was a great experience. It brought me face to face with EMC Support Forums contributors. People I had worked with on the Forums for the last nine months were greeting me in person. The freaky thing was that had already had our preamble on the Forums, so our first meeting was like catching up with a friend I’d seen last week 🙂 Instantaneous conversation. I also made many new friends and colleagues. It was all new to me. I loved it, and id it really ignited my passion in advocating our Support Forums and Social Media engagement in a Support context.

I look forward to this year’s  event, I will be attending with my new boss, although he’s been my boss for almost a year now so not so new. I also look forward to seeing Vegas. I’ve never been, all I’ve seen is what’s on TV. A long way from West Cork. It should be blast!

See you there, if you’re going 🙂