I am back on the conference circuit and went to several events lately (from 20 – 200 participants) but something has changed – ok this is a very subjective assessment because it just takes into account the 10 conferences I went to in the last 3-4 months or so.. Let’s start with the basics: conferences are mainly for networking – the content is often not that interesting, it is repetitive and speakers tend to be unprepared (which is also something I am getting annoyed with) So arguably, the most important things during conferences are the lunch and coffee breaks – and maybe the occasional drink afterwards.
And unfortunately many conference organisers (again, very subjective observation!) don’t provide two essential items to make conferences a good place for networking:
- a participant list with contact details (for follow-up emails)
- conference badges with name & organisation (to identify interesting contacts during the breaks)
So – if you are organising a conference it would be greatly appreciated if you could remember to offer these rather important networking tools.
Name list with all emails – what about data protection…?
it used to be quite a standard thing at conferences (it is not published anywhere – just included in the conference pack). There was always the possibility to opt out from this – but for many people this is a phantom debate because for example everyone can find my email on the website of my organisation…
I was at a conference yesterday, wonder if it was the same one? From what you say it could have been.
I used to go to a lot of lawyers’ conferences, but stopped some years ago.
They became repetitive, useless, and because the same people attended, even useless for networking. Only useful if you can give a speech yourself.
I also don’t need the conferences for networking, I get far more clients through my blog.