Saturday, 6 September 2008

When a conference isn't a conference

On Thursday and Friday I attended a conference. During the sessions I'm guessing that there were about 40 people in the conference room. I did the sums; taking away the total of speakers and suppliers meant there were no more than a dozen at most left who were just there for the conference.

Does that make it a conference or a friendly chat between various like-minded people? I confess I was one of the speakers, but it was also a good use of my time because I learnt a number of new things that would have context and be useful back in the office.

My criteria for training courses, conferences, supplier days, whatever, is that if I learn one new thing then it's been worth it. Not only did I learn new stuff, but I gained experience in talking at conference something pretty new to me. Whilst I felt my talk went well, I realised there's no such thing as enough prep and my slides could have been better - particularly more visual. So, that's good for the next one in late September!

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