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What Do You Look For In a Conference?
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?"
For a non-academic conference, it needs to be
a: A good enough topic to convince the boss to pay...
b: Cheap enough to convince the boss to pay...
c: In a nice enough location that you want to go...
So a $100/person conference in Hawaii sounds about right to me.
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I'd just file this under "networking". That's really the reason people go to conferences: to meet other people in the same field, and share business cards and bs anecdotes.
Free stuff (or at least stuff that'll fit on the T&E card) is just gravy.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
My employer deals almost entirely with higher ed clients. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, our customers basically *aren't* looking to go to conferences. Instead of our yearly training, which goes for 3 solid days, and costs over $1000, we're doing webcasts once a week for free. The end cost to us is about the same (we don't aim to profit off the conferences monetarily, so they break even, and WebEx is relatively cheap), they're getting the training they need, and our customers are happier.
So, to answer your question, I'd say they're either not looking for a conference, or for something really cheap. Try again when the economy picks up.
Pick any random 25 conference attendees. If at least one of them doesn't end up waking up in a ditch on the side of a highway 50 miles from your conference with no memory of the preceding three days except vague flashes involving tequila, three midgets, and a donkey, the conference is too lame for anyone to go to.
You're a self absorbed douchebag who got a taste of reality when nobody wanted to attend your coma inducing conference.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
This sort of thing only seems to happen at the political conferences, not the technical ones.
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Copenhagen's city council in conjunction with Lord Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards out to 160 Copenhagen hotels urging COP15 guests and delegates to 'Be sustainable - don't buy sex'.
"Dear hotel owner, we would like to urge you not to arrange contacts between hotel guests and prostitutes," the approach to hotels says.
Now, Copenhagen prostitutes are up in arms, saying that the council has no business meddling in their affairs. They have now offered free sex to anyone who can produce one of the offending postcards and their COP15 identity card, according to the Web site avisen.dk.
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,665182,00.html
What Do *I* Look For In a Conference?
The exit to the buffet / bar.
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.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
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.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I've had my share of security cons in my life. Invariably, whether I liked them or not boils down to a few simple points:
1) Interesting talks from interesting people. I don't want to hear about something I knew since 2 years ago from someone who was just accepted because nobody would willingly come. Have a lineup of people presenting something new and I'm there.
2) Spare the ad blitz. Concerning point 1, spare the corporate sponsored talks that peddle some of their latest crap and give little to no information. First, they're boring and second, the people who attend the cons I attend don't make the sales decisions anyway. I actually remember one talk by a certain poor fellow from a certain security company that I will not mention to protect the guilty who couldn't get his presentation done because everyone just started chattering amongst themselves without listening. And nobody was bothered by it. It was one of those "mandatory attendence" talks, so we were there. And made the best out of the situation. It was really embarrassing for the poor guy and him talking through a microphone kinda interfered with our conversation...
3) Make sure your guests feel welcome. Hire local students if you need cheap labour, but I want to get my registration done speedily and I want to have someone to ask organisational questions whenever I have one. It's kinda bugging me when I stand there and would like to know my way around and there's nobody to ask. Yes, signs help but not always. Also make sure the hotel bar has enough Vodka if you invite people from east/northeast Europe! GOOD VODKA! I can't stress it enough.
4) Don't put the most interesting talks at 9am. That Vodka needs time to settle, ya know...
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