Staying connected to SC, year round

insideHPC’s buddy Rich Brueckner from Sun’s HPC Watercooler is heading up the use of what the kids are calling “social media” tools for SC09 this year, and he’s doing a great job. I wanted to point out all of the new ways that you can stay engaged with SC throughout the year. Pick your favorite, lurk for a bit, and then when you see something that wakes you up, jump into the conversation.

SC09 on Twitter. Everything you’d want to know about SC09, in 140 characters or less (and don’t forget to follow insideHPC on Twitter as well).

The SC09 blog. From Rich’s blog entry describing the blog (how very meta), “While the SC show has a wonderful conference site that tells you pretty much everything you need to know, until now we haven’t had is a place for us share our stories as a community.” The blog is that place.

SC Conference group on Facebook. I’ve recently joined the facebook (yes, I know, I’m giving away my unhipness), and I like it.

SC09 at LinkedIn. A bit more staid than Facebook, LinkedIn groups seem to facilitate different sorts of conversations, and I have found them to be very helpful.

Bonus: if you are new to the profession and are mapping out what ways to grow professionally, I can personally vouch for involvement in the SC conference series as a volunteer. SC is actually surprisingly open as a community, but engaging with the conference using some (or all) of these outlets that Rich has put together is a great start at learning the names and building the relationships that will make getting involved even easier.