Next time you register and pay good money for a conference, try this experiment.
Skip all the sessions and speaches. Assume that you can learn anything you missed by watching video replays or reading the speakers' books or blogs.
Stay in the hallways and mingling areas and connect with the people there. You'll come out of that conference having enjoyed yourself more than any previous conference. You'll also have learned more.
At least in the research community this is the typical approach to conferences (except for maybe the junior researchers that still don´t dare to miss a single session).
When registering to the conference you get the full conference proceedings with all the scientific papers that are going to be presented. Presentations are just a summary of that content (except for the possible questions at the end of course).
Therefore, most of us prefer to focus on networking activities with the benefits you point out above
Posted by: Jordi Cabot | 02/27/2011 at 03:10 PM
I would add, attend some sessions, but try to be the presenter.
Posted by: Kevin Broccoli | 04/13/2011 at 08:17 AM
The experiment seems rather exciting but isn't that the real point of attending conferences? To meet people and learn from them, not sit and listen to lectures that you can learn through reading books. Do you have other ideas in mind similar to this?
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