We are four days away from HostingCon 2010 in Austin, and you can feel the excitement in the air here. We’ve got so many fun things planned – from showing off our new booth design to featuring some of our smart people in the conference sessions.

Monday, July 19

Around here we love metrics … If we can’t measure it, we don’t do it. Though it gets a little tricky when we starting benchmarking how witty our employees are – especially in blog posts. Our Chairman and CEO Doug Erwin will discuss a few of the measurements we’ve found to be beneficial in running a hosting business Monday morning at 9:00 on the “Adding Value to Your Business With Financial and Operating Metrics” panel. I know Doug well, so I can guarantee he’ll find a way to make a complicated topic interesting and relevant.

If you miss him in the morning, don’t worry: You have a second chance to see him in the afternoon at 1. He’ll be sharing his thoughts on “Opportunities and Advantages for Hosting Resellers.” Many of our most successful customers are reseller partners, so we’ll bring some great perspective on strategies that will help you grow your business if you’re a reseller.

If you haven’t met Doug, take my word for it – you should stop by one of his sessions. I might be a bit biased (since technically I work for the man), but he’s a blast. He is wicked smart, charismatic and passionate about the business.

Tuesday, July 20

That was just the first day? I’m already tired. Actually, I am really jazzed about Day 2. The exhibit hall opens at 11 a.m., and we are excited for you to see our new look. In booth 124, we’ll be showing off our data centers, people and products. If you’re up for it, we’re bringing back the Server Challenge and giving away a netbook for the fastest time in rebuilding a Pentium 1950 server.

In case you were wondering, my personal best is 32 seconds … See if you can top that!

While the booth should be a blast, I am most excited about the 9 a.m. panel: “Optimizing Media for Branding, Traffic and Sales.” “Why?” you might ask … Because my colleague, office-mate, and travel companion to all these shows – Kevin W. Hazard, Jr. – will be speaking. Kevin is one of the most visible personalities at The Planet. He is our Evangelist. When you talk to us on Twitter or post in our forums, the response you usually get is from Kevin. He breathes a lot of life into our brand everyday through our social media channels. If you’ve ever wondered how you can use social media to build your brand, you’ll get a lot out of this session.

#EvangelistAttire

Kevin is well known around the office for his T-shirts, love of Halloween costumes and constantly changing facial hair. My colleague Katie and I have dared Kevin to show off his unique style at the panel, so we want you to help us choose our Evangelist’s Attire. This should all shake out as a quick Twitter contest where you vote on what Kevin should wear during the panel.

The five styles we’ve narrowed down for K. Hazard to sport are:

1. A repeat of last year’s Halloween “Ron Burgundy” look – complete with pinky ring and mustache
2. The hipster look with skinny jeans, V-neck T-shirt, zip-up hoodie and Chuck Taylors
3. The clean-shaven “prepster in seersucker” look (my personal favorite)
4. A tuxedo T-shirt with Lemmy-esque facial hair
5. Let Kevin surprise us

It’s up to you, Citizens of The Planet.

Two ways to make your voice heard:

• Leave a comment on this post with your vote.
• Post a Tweet with the number of your vote and hashtag #EvangelistAttire.

The “polls” will open when this blog is posted and will close at 5 p.m. CDT on Friday, July 16.

We can’t wait to see you in Austin – in one of the sessions, at our booth or even on Sixth Street. If you haven’t registered to attend, we can save you a little cash: Register online at hostingcon.com, and use the promo code ThePlanet2010 for $10 off your exhibit hall pass.

Don’t forget to place your #EvangelistAttire vote by Friday at 5 p.m.!

- Sherry