Getting the most from a conference

Better Conferences - Response Needed : eLearning Technology

Tony Karrer, Mark Oehlert, Clark Quinn and others have a lot to say about about getting the most from and conference and how many conferences can be improved.

From my perspective I am a guy with a foot in both the corporate learning professional camp and the (I want to hang around the people way smarter than me) expert camp. I GET to attend one, maybe two conferences a year and that is probably above average for the corporate person and below average for the expert. As a person who has attended maybe 12 conferences in my career I can say that the value of going to another conference as they are mostly structured is diminishing EXCEPT when I can network with people the caliber of the blogging beer group (BBG). The newbie needs alot of 101 type information to get a framework to take back and have structure for doing the job. The expert needs to network with smart people and talk about what's new. All of the ideas mentioned here are great AND I think there needs to be a lot more clarity as to who the intended audience is for each session/event as well as publishing that information to the conference attendee. Then people can self select and get the best experience for the level of knowledge and experience they posess.

The facebook idea is awesome and I am on board for the wifi. Facebook could allow people to network before the event (identify experts for example) and also extend the conference experience with people they meet. Love the big screen idea and Brent on the RFID chip is brilliant except some people don't want to be found! Thanks for putting all the thinking time into this guys.