What Do You Look For In a Conference? 186
Michael Lato writes "I've been a speaker at several Information Technology conferences and I know that I use conferences as both an opportunity to gain new skills and to network with my peers. In hopes of assisting others, I've started my own conference in order to boost the soft skills of computer professionals. However, we may need to cancel due to a lack of attendees. What are people looking for in a conference in the midst of this recession? Have we missed the mark in thinking topics like project management and remote team leadership will be well-received?"
Re:Location Location Location... (Score:3, Insightful)
Say what you will about Tiger Woods, the only thing he did wrong was get married.
I think doing the "I'm a genuinely humbled man, blahblahblah" spiel is all wrong. He should set himself up as the next Hugh Hefner.
Two words (Score:2, Insightful)
Booth babes!
Interesting Topic, Great Location, Great Speakers (Score:5, Insightful)
I run a biennial scientific conference. The first two times we had it, it sold out (we had to turn people away); there is every indication that the next session in 2010 will be the same.
What makes it a successful conference?
1. Fantastic location (we chose a Greek island).
2. It's a little hard to get there, and a little expensive -- so people are committed to being at the conference.
3. We serve lunch on-site -- so people have good opportunities to be engaged.
4. There are plenty of breaks -- so people have good opportunities to interact with the speakers.
5. We have lots of time for discussion after each talk, and good moderators. Also, the length of time for each talk is just long enough to present one idea in detail and depth.
6. All of the speakers are invited and meet three strict criteria: (a) they are widely recognized as experts in their field; (b) they give excellent presentations; (c) they are people you want to hang out with for a few days. You would be surprised at how many potential speakers fail at one or more of those criteria, especially the last two.
7. We have separate periods for social interactions (a welcoming reception, and a final banquet).
8. The morning of the third day of our four day conference has no formal presentations, to help avoid attendee fatigue.
9. We serve alcohol during the poster presentations in the evening.
Free software. (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course it helped that the conferences themselves were also free.
How to Organize a Conference (Score:5, Insightful)
The best way to organize a conference is to attend lots of them and pay attention to what works and what does not. Take the positive aspects and concentrate them. Make sure you don't nickel and dime your attendees. Have on-site food that is good, and serve alcohol with it. Have a single-track. Pick speakers very, very well. Pick a great location. Visit the location well beforehand (months) and talk to the people who run the facility. Get to know your vendors. Give attendees decent take-home items (pens, pads, etc.) that won't be thrown away immediately. Provide maps. Make sure the program is trivially easy to use. Make sure the conference site is trivially easy to find. Have a good web site that's easy to navigate. Make it easy for potentially interested attendees to contact you. Advertise. Promise the best experience ever, and follow through. Make sure your finances are well-planned so that if something goes wrong, you, and your attendees, aren't screwed. Ask for feedback, and take it to heart. Hire an A/V person and tell them that under no circumstances are they allowed to dim the lights (or promise a big bonus if that never happens), and that they should feel free to interrupt speakers to adjust microphones until such time as the speakers are clearly audible.
Re:Teach me something I can't with a Google search (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Location Location Location... (Score:3, Insightful)
Say what you will about Tiger Woods, the only thing he did wrong was get married.
I don't know if you're trolling or what, but I'll bite.
Quite honestly, yes, Tiger probably should not have married. It was a mistake (although, probably more of a mistake for his wife), especially considering how many women he apparently wanted to sleep with. However, it is a decision that he made. Nobody marched him down the aisle at gunpoint. He chose to do it. And, once he did that, then his whole life changed which set him up for many other mistakes (so far, 5 of them, if the news/rumors are all true).
Your line of logic basically says, "You're only responsible for one mistake and not responsible for anything after that," which is absolutely wrong. If someone slams their car into a pedestrian and then drives away, their mistake doesn't stop with just hitting someone. It's now a Hit & Run. Each decision that Tiger made led to other decisions. He just kept making bad ones. Repeatedly.
What you should be really asking yourself is why you care so much.
Re:Teach me something I can't with a Google search (Score:2, Insightful)
The good thing about conferences and lectures (at least those I have attended) is that most of the crap has already been filtered by someone who knows about the subject. A good lecture usually get me thinking in new directions, talking about best practices and giving good advice - usually things that drowns in a flood of useless/amateur advice when using google.
Filtering out the crap and giving you zero substance.
Conferences are you sitting down and listening to some schlub talk for an hour or two in vague generalities about a topic barely related to your work.
Thinking about stuff is great, but at the end of the conference you've got nothing implemented. At best, you've got some scrappy notes about things you might want to look into.
People talking at conferences see ego boosters and paychecks.
People sending you to conferences expect you to somehow come back on Monday and make everything faster, cheaper, and more buzz-wordy by Friday.
People willingly attending conferences for anything other than a break from work with free food and swag or a chance to meet someone who will give them a better job are inept.
At the end of the day, you've got to get down to brass tacks and do the WORK. Tech work involves looking stuff up in boring documentation and then looking up the fixes for shit doesn't work as it's supposed to.
No amount of talks, lectures, or other such fluffery will get anything done. In the end, the time spent on the conference is time you could have spent getting some framework and test cases/demos up and running for whatever newfangled thing you're trying to get going.
Yep, missing the mark (Score:3, Insightful)
Without more detail, the conference you started sounds suspiciously like every other "professional" conference I've ever heard of. You know, the ones middle managers dream up and attend to make it look and sound like they're busier and more important than they really are.
You don't say who your target audience is exactly, but if you're looking to attract the Slashdot crowd, you have to have:
Running a con is hard. I was on a conference committee once and while my job was comparatively easy, many other organizers (especially the conchair) spent an entire year of their free time all for the sake of one great weekend. If you really want to figure out what makes a con tick, get involved with another con before diving into one of your own, no matter how great you think your event planning skills are. There are a few cons with a relatively open planning process, one in particular that I can recommend is Penguicon [penguicon.org].
Re:Free software. (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course it helped that the conferences themselves were also free.
Those aren't conferences, those are launch events. Also called propaganda events. Any schmuck off the street can register, show up, and get free marketing material.