How do you make the most of a conference?

#1

My first “Agile” conference happens on Monday.

It is the Agile Tour Australia and lasts a single day.

The last time I went to a conference was for a tech product about 9 years ago. I expect this will be a slightly different experience as it was a single track and the events were not great.

I am curious, how do members here get the most out of their conferences?

I’m looking forward to the day and the people, I’ll meet. What are your tips for the day?

#2

I do prep work and have a plan of the session I want to attend a head of time. Then I check our to see if the speakers of those session have blogs and such.

There is also the someone new, support a friend, and known speaker. Start with one of each and build from there.

I will sit up front and use the recorder on my phone to get audio from the session. That’s how the Agile Bootlegs thread started here. Now I use a Zoom h6.
Which was the device used to get my metric talk we posted on the podcast.

If the conference is going multi day or I know a bunch of people going Pedialyte is a must.

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#3

@Scrummando you have revealed what was up to now the best kept secret of your amazing presence at conferences… the only question remaining: What’s your favorite flavor?!

#4

@andycleff this is one of those it depends answer. If it is a one or two-day event. I go Grape or Cherry powder for portability. If its longer than that I direct ship a case of Berry Frost liters to the hotel. Why the Berry frost? It is the new advanced formula with 33% more electrolytes.

Ritual goes.

  1. One before bed + 2 Aleve
  2. One upon wake up + a Mountain Dew Kickstarter (Caffee, B Vitamins, electrolytes)
  3. Breakfast
#5

I try to meet as many new people as possible. I purposely surrounded myself with people I didn’t know at the last one I went to and I ended up with these other AU miscreants.

I also plan out an agenda as to who I want to see/ what sessions I want to attend. If I see the same ppl in the same sessions as me I strike up a conversation as we obviously have similar interests.

#6

There is one session on pair programming I’m really looking forward to, but I think I’m mostly going to meet passionate people in the community. So hopefully the conversations are many.

#7

And of course, refer them all to the Agile Uprising :slight_smile:

If we only had swag to send you to give away… sigh… one of these days…

#8

Lol. I pretty much do that anyway. Bringing the Sydney community online one person and a time.

#9

We’re trying to get the developer of the “flag” add-in for Discourse to add a summary of folks by country, to allow folks to connect on a local basis.

Or even a nice map:

https://discourse.angusmcleod.com.au/c/events/l/map

Although that is more topic specific, not member demographic specific

#10
  • First I focus on which sessions are of interest to me.
  • Then I filter those sessions down based on the person leading them (certain names catch my eye based on past experience, others need some googling)
  • I try to leave considerable time for “walking the halls” as the majority of my best learnings are the “how do you handle…” conversations. And this is in either the mentor or mentee role… as I learn a lot by listening, but also by explaining.
  • if the conference is multiple days, then use the evenings to “fanboy” your best speakers and if you get REALLY lucky you might end up in a bar drinking and learning from someone like Alistair Cockburn. :beers:
#11

Wait, that’s not standard?

#12

^^^ AND clause, not OR. :wink:

#13

It wasn’t Alistair Cockburn or Kent Schwaber, but I did attend a session with Craig Smith of Agile Revolution fame and have a great chat afterwards. The day was great with a focus on workshops in place of talks, I have to admit I loved it. There are some fantastic and inspiring people in this community of ours. I don’t have to agree with a person, but I can learn and be challenged by them.