P2P

55 I L T A N E T . O R G same problems you have. Now you get to be a part of the solution. Who's 'sus' now? You'll learn valuable project management experience, and get credit for it. Most of the volunteer groups are centered around a project or deliverable as an outcome of your work. Like your projects at work, they're bound by time and purpose and generally have a beginning, middle and an end. Working on the ILTACON conference committee means breaking down a hugely complex event into blocks of work that need to be completed on time. Planning for content delivery throughout the year on the Content Coordination Team means filling the calendar with valuable content across different formats for our members. The Content Coordination Teams also need to reserve opportunities for timely topics that can't be anticipated in a project plan. You'll learn a lot about managing large and complex projects as a result of your volunteer time. Your hours spent on these projects can be applied to appropriate professional certifications like the Project Management Professional or PMP. I have regularly included my hours spent in the ILTACON planning process when working toward renewing my PMP certification. Was that not enough credit? Well there's more! ILTA as an organization goes out of its way to recognize the contributions of their volunteers. Working on events gives you a chance to get out in front of the ILTA community. ILTACON committee members open each session by introducing themselves and explaining their role. Volunteers are given a high level of visibility by recognition at our Annual Meeting. Many of our volunteer rank are recognized by the Distinguished Peer awards, given annually to those who contribute significantly to our industry, community and organization. Contributing as an author gets your name into our Peer to Peer magazine or on a white paper. All of these are frequently celebrated by ILTA staff and members on their LinkedIn and other social networking posts. Those posts ripple out far beyond the ILTA-verse and into larger networks of professionals. Volunteering for ILTA has rewards that will pay dividends throughout your career and you will always get much more out of it than you put into it. You're more than ready to step up and contribute. You'll be very glad that you did. Working as a volunteer on the ILTACON conference committee has been one of the greatest pleasures of my professional career and the friendships and professional connections that I've made along the way are invaluable to me. You've got a lot to give back to ILTA and ILTA has so much more to give back to you in return. Check out the link below to find out the current volunteer opportunities. ILTA Mike Viscito, PMP is a Data Center and Systems Engineering Manager at Seyfarth Shaw and a dedicated, long-time ILTA volunteer. Mike specializes in Data Center Design and Management, Disaster Recovery and High Availability, Exchange Administration, Sharepoint Administration, Project Management, and IIS Management. As a volunteer, Mike most recently served as the lead 2021 ILTACON Co-chair and has been actively involved with ILTA in different volunteer roles for years. C U R R E N T O P P O R T U N I T I E S

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