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| The Importance of Attending Conferences In Person | ||
| Not
long ago, I attended a conference that I look forward to all year, every
year. On an informal basis during this conference was an ongoing discussion
about the importance of attending the conference. Why Attend Any Conference Attending a conference is an opportunity to meet other people like you. That is to say, to meet people doing something similar to what you’re doing. At the same time, those people are not doing exactly the same thing, as they are all coming from other places. A conference is a unique opportunity to discuss best practices within the industry, or those in other industries if the people you meet are doing related things. Getting a variety of viewpoints can help us see where we can change or improve our own ideas and processes. Why Attend In Person Another reason for attending a conference in person that attendees mentioned is their “professional loneliness” (my term for it), or isolation. Many of us recognized that we are good at what we do and that we know where to find information on how to do things a little differently or where to find resources to help us learn something new. The human interaction of discussing these issues, however, makes them clearer and gives us a variety of new ideas that we don’t necessarily receive by merely looking for information in non-human resources. When we specifically look for information in printed and electronic sources, we have an idea what we’ll find. When we discuss something with a number of other people, they sometimes bring new perspectives to the question we’re asking. We determined that interaction with other humans at the conference—and elsewhere—was invaluable. Whether they are customers or other consultants, people who I personally know will sometimes marvel at the volume of information that I can provide for them. Although I tend to rely on my memory, I must admit that it is only part of the equation. The other part is the fact that I know quite a number of people who I can count on when I get stuck trying to find some information. Although I know a number of people simply as a result of e-mail contact, the people I rely on most are those I’ve personally met and spent some time with. I met many of those people at conferences such as those that used to be run by the LIMS Institute. It Should be Fairly Small I think you may agree that it’s difficult to just meet people at big conferences like Pittcon. You can meet with people you know if you arrange it ahead of time, but it’s difficult to just run into new people who may be advantageous to know. Smaller conferences such as the old LIMS conference were focused so the people attending represented a variety of contacts within one area. These conferences were also small enough that you could run into a number of people who were doing things similar to what you were interested in. The problem with the smaller conferences, however, is that they tend to attract the same people year-after-year, which may not promote the diversity needed to enable people to make a number of new contacts each time they attend. Unless the conference focus is very narrow a good meeting also may attract people from different industries and areas of the industry (e.g., end-customers, software vendors, consultants), which increases attendees’ access to a wider scope of knowledge. Types of Conferences Many people attend conferences specific to their software or specific to a topic (e.g., validation). It’s also important to gain access to other information, as well. Although the technical conference may help you understand the best way to implement a specific brand of software, or a validation conference may discuss current trends in that field, it isn’t the same as attending a general conference that includes speakers on overall best practices and the state of the industry as a whole, for example. The Onset of Online Meetings The reasons online meetings are attractive are that they are less expensive to attend and that we’re too busy to take the time off to attend a convention in another city, or even in our own city, for that matter. However, although we can get information and feedback from online meetings, we need to remember how powerful personally attending these conferences can be because we can meet a wide range of people face-to-face and forge more permanent bonds with them. With
just about everything in our lives being cyclical, maybe the need and
desire to meet with others in person will come back on the upswing,
as well. I hope so, because I miss you! |
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