How to Conference

But why?

Conferences are your way to meet people in the industry, find out what new things they're are up to, and learn new concepts. Within a given company, you can easily immerse yourself in an echo chamber of one set of perspectives, which doesn't always permit growth.

Knowing people in companies who make software you work with gives you a personal line into the company so you can figure out about new solutions to your problems. Having informal relationships with these experts is a very useful asset.

Finding out what companies are doing and networking can help with discovering products that you can use, processes you may never have though of, as well as with future job prospects.

Conferences can be held by companies whose software and services you use, but also by interest group organizations. Companies holding conferences often have announcments of new features and such, but the biggest value comes from the presentations about best practices and case studies. When interest group organizations hold conferences, the presentations are more generic patterns, ideas, and case studies. Both types of conferences can be great.

Conferences can also have expos where companies have their own booths where you can get jobs, find out what people are doing, and perhaps connect with them.

Finding a conference

Conferences need to be something you hope to learn something from or within an interest group that you want to expand in.

For company-driven conferences, the best ones have guest speakers who are users of the product, but if you want to learn specific things or have questions, these are still very useful.

For interest-group conferences, the best ones have prolific speakers from the community highlighting things like open source or something else.

The tricky thing is: how important are the topics you want to learn versus the time commitment?

What is Networking

At its essence, it's just meeting new people. There's lots of great reasons for it. Looking for future employers / employees. Trying to find multiple perspectives. Having points of contact to bounce questions.

Going to a networking event, there's obviously organic ways of meeting people such as standing next to the same table while eating. Often, you have to walk up to random groups and join a conversation. Generally groups without gaps between people are fairly closed to new people joining in, whereas you can sometimes just walk into a group that is has spaces between people and introduce yourself.

How do I navigate the agenda?

Planning your personal agenda is key to making the most out of a conference. Often, you can come and go as long as you don't interrupt in the middle of talks so you may not even need to be at the event the entire length. However, the best thing to do if you have time is to use networking spaces to chat instead of going to talks that don't apply to you.

Another thing to keep in mind is the food schedule. Sometimes conferences are really bad at planning around your food restrictions or can run out of food early on. Make sure to be at the food areas 5 minutes before meal time. Also plan to grab food to bring back

Preparation

• Business cards or even slips of paper with your contact
• Laptop if there are demos you want to follow along with
• Know what to wear. Don't wear t-shirts with a logo of a company you don't work for. Casual events have more an emphasis on networking or can even provide drinks. Whereas if the event if primarily talks, it's likely more formal.
• Make sure you alert your dietary restrictions and any other necessary accommodations in advance to organizers