This is a guest post writ­ten by Yan Zhou. Yan completed her undergrad at West­ern Uni­ver­sity and is currently pursuing a post-graduate in Corporate Communications at Seneca College. She is graduating in August and is eager to start an exciting career in PR.  Find her on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

Why I’m volunteering for and attending #PCTO14

• – Two-day crash course on the latest and the greatest in digital media
• – Mix and mingle with the newest and the brightest talents
• – While hanging out at the coolest and centre-est city in Canada

But I am biased. After all, being a communications student, I’m expected to know all about those things. But in a way, I think everyone can benefit from learning new media and technology—as older technologies move on, so do we.

Social media, despite having the word “social” in its name, simply isn’t just for socializing anymore, as employers are checking to see what we been up to on our spare time. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, we are all building a brand for ourselves through our social media presence whether we mean to or not.

By attending (as well as volunteering), I am looking to hear about some new ideas to be passed on by the participants of PodCamp Toronto. There is an air of spontaneity here that really opens up the possibilities, as characteristic of an unconference—you don’t know who is going to show up and what they will talk about. Aside from that, I’m also especially looking forward to connecting with other digital and communication professionals and students.

Being an introverted person, it took me a long time to muster up the courage to start using Twitter. I just never felt interesting enough. I mean, if my tweet is going to show up after Rhianna’s or, god-forbid that you follow her, Miley Cyrus, how am I supposed to compete? So, that being said, I would love to learn how to build a successful twitter account, whether it’s a personal one or on behalf of a client. Like, where can I find the most interesting and relevant content to share with my followers? How to create content that’s relatable to the broadest audience as well as predictions for future trends and fads. I’m looking forward to finding out more about topics related to digital advertising for beginners.

Overall though, my expectation for this event is no other than the experience. As a participant, this will be my first unconference and I’m intrigued to see that concept in person. As a volunteer, I’m excited to take on some responsibilities and help facilitate a wonderful event to spread the knowledge to whoever is looking to learn.

Oh. And it’s free, so I think I’ll bring a few friends as well.