The Illinois Section American Water Works Association and the Illinois Water Environment Association are hosting this year's WATERCON in Springfield, Ill., from March 18-21. And if you're involved with water or wastewater at all, you'll want to be there! Every year, the conference offers many interesting and informative educational sessions. And every year I have gone, I've found the exhibit hall to be so busy with vendors and other professionals that I can barely make my way through in only one day.
As great as all that is, this year WATERCON will be ramping up even more to share information and reach out to the community. It's definitely a place you'll want to be with all possible exhibit space already sold out and over 1200 people registered to attend. Below are a few more items of greatness you'll want to know about WATERCON2013:
New this year!
- Exhibit hall opens at 1pm on Monday
- Water Art Show Monday
- Potable water technical sessions begin Monday 2pm
- Career fair Tuesday
- Field trips – Green Technology and Small Systems
- Water Operator Challenge
- Mission Impossible Challenge
Online Engagement!
This year the sponsors of WATERCON are encouraging everyone to share their conference experience through social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. They are even hosting a Tweeting Contest – you can find out more about it here: WATERCON Tweeting Contest.
Abby Crisostomo (@abbyMPC) and I (@publicworks) will be roaming the exhibit floor, attending sessions, and posting online directly from WATERCON. So if you want a few social media pointers to get started or if you want to share your experiences, knowledge, or product or service information, make sure to stop us and say hi – we'll be wearing special "Follow me" shirts so we should be easy to find. You can also sign up for a free webinar we'll be giving on March 12th to get some pointers for Tweeting from a conference:
HelloTweety! Always wanted to learn how to tweet?
Join us for this FREE, how-to tweet at WATERCON2013 webinar
Tuesday, March 12, 2013 – 2:00pm CST via GoToWebinar
Pre-conference Program and Registration
You can check out all the glorious details in the WATERCON 2013 Pre-conference Program and Registration Booklet below.
Can't Make the Conference?
I am sorry to hear you can't make it to this year's conference, because each person who attends makes it that much better. But working for government, I totally understand. Even so, we're not going to let that be water over the bridge. This year, you can just follow what is going on, and it will be almost like you're there! Here are some ways you can still participate:
Follow the #WATERCON hashtag on Twitter – by using an online tool to "follow" the #WATERCON hashtag, you can still keep up with what is going on at the conference. Although this can be done by going to the Twitter website and typing #WATERCON into the search window at the top of the screen, you can also use other tools like Twitterfall.
Follow a live blog of the sessions – if you can't make the conference but have a specific session you really want to know more about, send me the session title and when it will be held. I can attend that one and live blog the session – I'll let you know the site where the live blog will be posted so you can follow it and even have the opportunity to ask questions during the session.
Send us your questions – everyone seems to have some question or product they want to find out more about. If you can't make it to the conference, but have a need to find an answer to a problem you're having or if you want some information from a particular vendor, just send us your request. Abby and I can check it out for you and post the answers online. And if you have the ability to chat live, we can set up some face time between you and a vendor or industry expert!
Use the form below to send us your requests!
Disclaimer: I have received a complimentary registration for the conference from ISAWWA because I will be working to promote the conference.
