Catalyst 2008 is finally here! We arrived on the scene bright and early this morning for the Red Carpet Experience (pics and more on that later).

While this may sound elementary I’d like to cover something very important:

Meeting People!

One of my favorite things to do at Catalyst is hook up with people I haven’t seen in forever or meet some of you whom I’ve only interacted with on my blog. This is the Granddaddy of all meetups.

Here’s a few tips:

1. Don’t be shy, Introduce Yourself!
I’ve had people tell me that they saw me at a church or event after the fact but never came up to say hi. PLEASE, if you see me today or tomorrow at Catalyst, come up and introduce yourself! Even if I have no clue who you are or if you’re one of my silent blog stalkers (you know who you are) I still would love to meet you face-to-face!

2. Don’t Assume I’ll Recognize You
Let me tell you something up front, I am not the greatest at remembering names or faces. Just in the last week alone I’ve gotten emails/Twitters/texts from over 80 bloggers as I’ve been organizing the Bloggers Meetup. That’s a whole lot of names and faces to remember. Please don’t be offended if you’ve commented on my blog 20 times or chatted with me by email and I don’t recognize you. I’m doing my best to keep up with all the new people I’ve been meeting.

3. Meet Some New People
Even better than hooking up with people you already know is making new friends and Catalyst is the perfect place to do that. We’re here with 12,000 other leaders that are impacting church culture. Look for someone new to introduce yourself to starting with whoever is sitting around you. Find people with shared interests at some of the Vendor booths. There’s so many awesome world-changers gathered in this one place that it would be a shame not to go home with new friends.

I’m so excited to share this experience with everyone this week. I have great anticipation for another life-changing, paradigm-shifting, culturally-defining Catalyst Conference.