Meet smart people. Share ideas.
The best professionals are always learning better ways to achieve results. Conferences are a great place to meet smart people, share ideas, and build skills.
Starting Point: Solid Presentations
A good conference will feature solid presentations. That’s a given. But it’s easy to find technical videos on the internet. Why would a smart person pay money to hear speakers present their material in real time? Because the presentations are only the starting point.
Relationships Are a Big Part
Beyond presentations, a strong conference will give attendees several chances to meet each other, interact, and build relationships. Great teams come from great relationships. Great companies come from great relationships. Everyone wins when great relationships are built.
Additional conference benefits:
- The opportunity to challenge speakers in real-time. You might ask a question that causes a presenter to re-think their approach to a problem. New libraries are born that way. Your project might benefit from the new library.
- Interaction with others who are hearing the same material as you. Maybe you’ve had this experience: You and a friend attend an event together. Afterwards, the two of you compare what you saw. In many cases you find that different things resonated with each of you. Many experiences are richer when shared with others.
- Meeting others with skills that complement yours. Are you a designer looking for a developer? Developer looking for a designer? Entrepreneur looking for both? Meet your team in a place that attracts passionate and skilled professionals.
Conclusion
In 2011, I attended nine conferences related to Ruby, Rails, Objective-C, Software Craftsmanship, and NoSQL databases. I won’t share the number of user group meetings I attend every week, but it’s enough to expose me to ribbing by my developer friends. My brain is not big enough to retain every piece of information that gets presented. However, at every conference I meet people who help me to grow into a better developer and entrepreneur.
A single individual cannot absorb every piece of information that’s out there. But collectively, we can achieve great things. To quote Woodrow Wilson, “No one of us is as smart as all of us.”
Why do I go to conferences? To meet smart people and to share ideas. That’s why.