An argument for conferences
A while ago I happened to catch this tweet from Atom
@atomgroom – Lol, all that info is available for free, online! Waste of money on conferences!
and thought hey that would make a good topic to talk about on NWI Creative, so now months later I’m finally getting it done. First, you have to take his tweet with a grain of salt being he helps run the Insight conference but I do believe there are a lot of people who do believe this though.
Why would anyone feel this way? That’s pretty simple, there are a lot of really bad ones out there. I’ve spoken at some (and yeah I was one of the horrible presenters and can admit that, but hey it was my first time) that were quite bad and have read about more that were of the same vein. It also really hard to know if a conference is going to be of value before you go to it. There is always the hype of those who run it or say how great it was after even though but unless you are familiar with the sources you won’t know whether what they say is the truth or not.
Most of the time, it is not. You will here presentations that are out of date or of little relevance to things that you will find value in. As well the conferences themselves will be structured in ways that you will have conflicting talks that you would like to see while at other times there is nothing. Or worse, it’s some paid talk by a sponsor that no one wants to hear.
And really, why pay for something when all the info they are going to talk about is already online somewhere? Most of the time what is being talked about is something that is already known by those who really cared and isn’t bringing anything new to the table.
It’s pretty easy I think to see where a lot of people would get their feelings on conferences. Overall I’d have the same feeling if it wasn’t for a couple experiences I had through conferences.
But isn’t it right that all this info is online? It is but then it isn’t. There is lots of info out there on lots of topics. But can you trust what you find? There are tons of php tutorials out there that talk about mysql and give examples, BUT how many are out there don’t mention mysql_real_escape_string. I would say, in general, the more specific the conference the better it usually going to be. The people chosen are usually better known in the community for that specific topic. When you have a larger topic, like Web or Higher Ed, someone who might not be a real expert in field. They might be the person talking because they are the one who sounded like they know it better then the rest of the group, but that doesn’t mean they are really giving what is needed. When it comes to a more generic conference, the organizers don’t know enough usually about the smaller topics to pick who would be best to talk about it, or are even given a person who should talk about it counting on what the conference is.
The one thing you don’t really get online though is the ability to meet similar people and talk about a shared interest. People might lead you on to things that you never would have thought of or point you towards tech you weren’t aware of. You may have even seen it talked about before but never fully grasped that it was what you were looking for. While there are forums, mailing lists, and chat rooms that you can go to, talking in person can really help you learn about the things that you never knew to really ask.
As well, speakers may say things “off script” that are also of great value. One of the talks that I took the most home from was the APC @ Facebook talk at PHP|Tek 2k7 that opened my eyes to a lot of the possibilities of tech i had never really thought about. While I had read about caching online and got some of the points, it wasn’t until I saw it fully laid out by one of the engineers behind Facebook that I saw how it all came together in a grand symphony of pure awesome. As well, there were a ton of people in the crowd who questioned him on stuff that, while at the time I didn’t realize I cared, after I got back up into the hotel room and played more I realized that I would have had the same question and glad to have the answer. I’ve tried to pass out the slide deck from the talk and it really doesn’t do it justice at all and doesn’t give you that needed feedback to really understand what he’s saying.
And lastly I’d like to include another point made by Rahsaan
Rahsaan – “And some people learn better at [conferences] it all depends on the person.”
which is also very true. While for me overall I prefer to tinker myself, there are a lot of people who would rather have someone walk them through things and not just read it off a paper.
Well, that’s about all I had to spew on the subject. I hope I gave you some insight to both sides of conference debate and maybe swayed you a little. I hope that people from both sides (and the middle) come in and put in anything else they feel on the subject. For me, while I won’t be at a conference very often, hopefully I will catch you at one at some point so we can talk more in person.
Author Info: Richard Orelup
I think you bring up a lot of great points here Richard, thanks for the post.
I personally have had a lot of bad experiences with conferences, even with huge conferences like An Event Apart. Almost everything at most design and web development conferences was basic information. I was really let down at the prices vs. the knowledge gained.
Recently I went to the Global Leadership Summit at Faith Church in Dyer. It was by far, the most amazing and inspiring conference I’ve ever attended. If it wasn’t for Kevin Bruinsma and my business partner Joseph Gonzalez, I would have never went.
I took 16 full pages of notes that, totally impressive. All of which, I don’t think would be available online, as you referenced in my tweet.
I feel that the vast majority of this information is available online. As you said, you can’t trust it though, I think that’s where experience comes in though. I can clearly see when I am looking at bad info, or I actually experience it when it totally fails!
I attended a conference last year and it was mostly a retread, that is the sad thing about alot of these conferences. They are made more for people with less experience, no matter how much they charge. Roundtables are cool also. But while I didn’t learn much at the last conference that I was at, two of the people that went with said that they learned alot. I also left motivated. While I didn’t truly learn anything new, I did see some interesting applications of techniques that I already knew. The inspiration was worth it.
I agree, there’s something to be said for walking away inspired.
Although, I walk away feeling inspired from meetings with my creative friends all the time and that’s free.
That said, I don’t know if I’d pay for a conference just to feel inspired!
Yeah, that is the advantage of suckering someone to paid for it.