Here we are, just under 2 weeks until Cisco Live 2016 in Las Vegas begins. Depending on when you are travelling there to begin the conference, whether it’s for the DevNet Springboard event or Hackathon that begin on July 9th, or on Sunday or Monday, I know if you’re anything like me, you’re getting excited. If it’s your first time or your twentieth time attending Cisco Live, there’s always some things that I like to remember before I attend, so I figured that I would share some of those reminders with everyone.

Bring a variety of clothing. I know this might sound weird, but if you’ve never been to Las Vegas before and look at the weather forecast, you probably think that you will want the coolest clothing possible. While this is true when you’re outside, the convention center seems to have an uncanny ability to keep the session rooms like ice boxes. Jeans aren’t a bad idea, unless you are going outside.

Have room to bring things back with you. I know it’s tempting to fit everything into a small carry-on for the week, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll more than likely make at least one visit to the Cisco Press store during the week. Couple this with the vast amount of shirts and other trinkets that you’ll be inundated with at the World of Solutions, and you might want to make sure you have some room to haul all of it back with you.

Socialize!!! This is a tough one for me to do, and even after meeting people over the past few years at CLUS, I still find myself sending messages to people via Twitter who are literally 5 feet away from me during the event, but make sure you engage with people. I’ve met some really cool people through this event, and it’s always nice to have people who you can throw ideas off of once you leave and head back to the real world.

Check out new things. If you’re a developer, and especially if you aren’t, you need to check out the DevNet zone. There is so much cool stuff going on here, and I’m sure that there will be even more this year. My main interest has been VIRL over the past year, and I’m going to be checking this area out to learn how I can use it even more to help in my studies and in my every day work. Trust me, as someone who knows very little about the developer side of things, it’s really cool to see the sorts of things that are on the horizon.

Cisco Live is my favorite event of the year, mainly because it’s something I’ve had the opportunity to attend for the past 6 years. This year, through the Cisco Champions program, I get to sit on a panel as well. So if you don’t already have something scheduled on Thursday at 11:15am, feel free to sign up for CISTHT-1001 and hear me and some other awesome people discuss Building Your Personal Brand with Social Media. I look forward to meeting more new people this year. When I’m not in a session, I usually lurk around the Twitter/Social Media zones, so feel free to say hello if you see me.