#Zendcon: Start your engines!

Less then 5 days to go to ZendCon.

This year, I’ll be there to check out some of the best PHP Talks out there, from the “bigshots” of PHP. Its the first international conference I’ll be attending, and I’m really looking forward to it.

So of course, if you are going to ZendCon, by now you have already reserved your hotel, bought your plane tickets (if you need them), but what else? Whatelse should you to while the conference doesn’t start? Let me suggest some things:

1. Make your schedule: The ZendCon site has a neat feature, allowing you to flag the sessions you want to watch. So my suggestion is. go there.. go through all and flag everything you find interesting. Then, on a separate day go back and check which choices clash, or will happen at the same time. Choose between them, or at least reduce your choices, got 3? drop one.. and so on until conference day, when you got a solid list.
2. Make a list: Not just any list, a people list. A conference usually offers on thing more valuable than any other, networking. So make a list of the people who will be there, who they are, how they contribute to PHP, which sessions they will speak at. When you meet them at the conference, you will be ready to identify and chat with them.
3. Make business cards! Yeah… they are a must, mine are late, its a shame, let’s hope i have them by flight time.
4. Join us in #zendcon on irc.freenode.net. Another great thing to do is chat with some of the attendees at the IRC channel, so you can check when everyone is getting there, who’s at you hotel, and just get to know everyone.
5. Check out the Wiki! The ZendCon Wiki has some interesting pages, put you name on the list of attendees, or check out the meetups list.

That’s a small list of things you should be doing before the Conference. I’m already there, you can find me in IRC or Twitter, just look for rdohms.

See you all at ZendCon.