Comments on: How To Always Enjoy A Conference

By: Web Designer Notebook » How To Give A More Exciting Presentation: A Note To Speakers

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:31:30 +0000

[...] experience around the event met my higher expectations—and following my previous article on How To Always Enjoy A Conference—I thought I’d compile a short list of quick tips for all you speakers out [...]

By: inayaili

inayaili — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 07:18:59 +0000

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for your suggestions. I’ve been thinking of going to SHiFT this year, but I’m not sure yet, it sounds really interesting.

I hadn’t heard of Reboot, but I couldn’t make it this year anyway. Thanks for the info!

By: Daniel Barradas

Daniel Barradas — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:27:39 +0000

If you’re into conferences you should check http://www.reboot.dk and http://www.shift.pt (I’m biased … I’m an organizer at SHiFT).

But the atmosphere is amazing, the speakers are amazing and everything is just one hell of an experience.

Why? They’re not ‘commercial’ conferences. :)

Reboot is next week (25, 26 of June) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

SHiFT will be in October (16, 17 of October) in sunny Lisbon, Portugal.

Just my two cents.

By: Krishna Reddy

Krishna Reddy — Mon, 25 May 2009 08:39:21 +0000

Hi, thanks for explaining “How To Always Enjoy A Conference”. It has inspired me to go to more conferences.

By: webdesignlondon

webdesignlondon — Mon, 18 May 2009 09:25:08 +0000

It’s really good to read this. I really like that you encourage people to interact and most internet speakers are in fact very accessible. Internet is an ocean of information that can help you accomplish the task. As such one can take the technology to their advantage to get right information from right source.

By: redswish - a web design blog » fowd09

redswish - a web design blog » fowd09 — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:40:37 +0000

[...] How to always enjoy a conference [...]

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:36:07 +0000

Networking is certainly the most valuable part of any conference, I’m made a lot of awesome friends and contacts by just attending unofficial before-parties and local meetups like OpenCoffee beforehand. Even having a poke around the conference hashtag on the Twitters is a good way to get to know some attendees in advance.

I’m organising http://www.buildconference.com later this year which you may also be interested in checking out!

By: Emily

Emily — Tue, 05 May 2009 10:17:37 +0000

I had a post prepared along similar lines which you’ve now made redundant Yaili, but nice work on a well written post (and not just getting there first!). Couple extra points I was going to make that I’ll add to yours here:

If you feel you are too shy to just walk up to someone and say hello, take the opportunity to talk to the person next you while you are queueing for a coffee, or waiting for the next presentation. I’ve made lots of friends at conferences this way! Its also a good time to catch people on their own, who might otherwise be ‘hiding’ amongst a group of colleagues.

In terms of meeting the ‘celebs’, I recommend having a question prepared – it doesn’t necessarily have to be in response to their presentation. In fact most of the ‘celebs’ I wanted to speak to weren’t presenting, but I knew they might be there and had made a point of remembering something I’ve always wanted to ask them.

@Mark I would say try and catch up with old friends at the Pre/After parties but try and concentrate on meeting new people/presenters during the actual day of the conference. This gives you a chance to meet some people who can’t make the parties (due to time/distance or serious shyness!) and/or make new contacts who you can speak to at the after party.

By: Simon

Simon — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:55:10 +0000

Nice post. I was a little bit more critical in mine.

The social aspect is interesting because if you’re not part of the London Social Media Clique it can be a little alienating, especially at the flagship (and less technical) events like FOWA.

By: inayaili

inayaili — Tue, 05 May 2009 09:42:03 +0000

@Molly: Thank you so much for giving us the perspective of the speaker. I loved your presentation last Thursday :)

@Stanton: I agree. After one or two times you’re looking forward to catching up with your friends more than you are to watching the conference itself.

@Tom: I hope we get a chance to meet next time.

@Mark: That is a very good question! It stars to get a bit more difficult to meet new people because there’s already all these people you want to catch up with. But hey, I met you, right? ;)