Ask Slashdot: Why Do You Care About Tech Conferences?

An anonymous user is "just starting a programming career," and has several questions for Slashdot's readers: What exactly is the role of tech conferences? I always assumed they were mostly for exhibitors to pitch me things, but then what's in it for me? Am I just going there to network, or am I learning new cutting-edge techniques and getting enlightened by awesome training sessions? Or is it just a fun way to get a free trip to Las Vegas?

And then what's in it for my employer, who's paying to send me there? If my boss has to approve the cost of attending a conference, what's going to make him say yes? I mean, do employers really get enough value from that extra conference-only information to justify sending off their employees for several days of non-productivity? (Don't they know all that networking could lead me to job offers from other companies?)

It's always been a little intimidating the way people talk about conferences, like everyone already knows all about them, and drop the conference's name into the conversations like you should already know what it is. I always assumed people just attended only conferences for their current programming language or platform -- but is there more to it than that? What exactly is the big deal?
I'm struggling to even find the right metaphor for this -- is it a live interactive infomercial or a grand gathering of geeky good will? So leave your best answers in the comments. Why do you care about tech conferences?

Comments

Back in the day it was a vacation

[Snotnose]

It was a reward for getting stuff done.

In the 80's I wanted to go to a Usenix conference in Mission Valley. Boss said "why would I send you there". Me: "because for the past 3 years you've sent me to a week long conference in Vegas that I didn't want to go to and couldn't contribute". Boss: "But your good at what you do (telemetry), and I thought you liked those trips. Me: I don't gamble, I don't deal with customers well, I hate crowds. Boss: No.

Ended up paying the entrance fee myself and taking vacation days.

Did I mention Mission Valley was 10 miles from my condo? No airfare, no hotel, no food chits? Something like $60 and a couple days off, and I learned more at that damned USENIX than I did in 8 years of that stupid show in Vegas.

Best show? Got an all expense paid show to New Orleans, before Katrina. What sucked? Took the wife. I'd do the show, get to the hotel, and say "Ya know, I'd like to see foo" . Her response? "I saw foo yesterday, what else do you wanna see?".

Of course, back then companies would reserve 3-5 airplane seats 6 months in advance, then a couple days before the show decide who got to go. That all ended well before 9/11 when airlines decided they could charge fees for changes.

Here are the criteria I use to tell if I care

[El Cubano]

I've gone to quite a few different events (both as an attendee and as a speaker), including free events, pricey events, events where I went for my own reasons, events where I went for an employer or a client, etc.

Here are the criteria I have found that help me judge whether I should really care about the specific conference:

• Cost: cheaper is better, because if the event costs $$$ to attend you know you are getting the business-only crowd where most of them have expense accounts, or plenty of manager-types, or any of a number of other elements that make the conference decidedly less "tech" (sweet spot is $0-$100)
• Size: too small and you might not get much out of it, too big and you definitely won't get much out of it (sweet spot: 100-1000 attendees, though the number of sessions, tracks, etc., plays an important role as well)
• Schedule: if it is on a weekend, you know it is all about people who love/enjoy the topic so much that they give up their own free time to hang out with a bunch of other people who are similarly inclined; if it is during the week it is an expensable business boondoggle, though there are some exceptions that I can think of, like DebConf (sweet spot: weekend events)
• Bonus: If John "Maddog" will be there, you probably want to go, and if he will be speaking (as he often does) you would be a fool to miss it

For me, this mostly means that I end up attending events that resemble meetups, Linuxfest-type, coding workshops, hackathons, etc. While some of them do have vendors, the type of events which I favor make it pretty easy to stick to the "interesting" parts and avoid the vendors altogether.

Of course, if you want to just go and socialize, just about any event will end up with groups of people that skip all the sessions and do nothing but talk.

Re:I don't

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

One could actually learn something, get good information from insiders, pose and get immediate answers to relevant questions, access that was hard to get otherwise, in those days.

Yes, that's the big difference. Going back maybe 15-20 years, if you wanted to learn a programming language, you bought a book or read the manual or help text that came with your compiler. We did have online programming communities to some extent, but they kept in touch through forums like bulletin boards or electronic mailing lists or Usenet groups. Discussions would take place over days or even weeks instead of the minutes or hours they often last nowadays. Those discussions were usually more civilised than a lot of online forums are today, but there were no YouTube videos of presentations by the key people who actually designed the languages and tools you were using, we had manually curated FAQs instead of the huge Q&A sites like Stack Overflow today, and so on.

In that context, going to a conference meant an opportunity to meet the experts at the top of a given ecosystem, watch presentations on the next big things they were working on, and even pick up a copy of the new version of your favourite compiler to take back.

Of course, today, we do have much better online channels. We can watch presentations on YouTube whenever we're ready. We can pose questions in forums and have a fair chance that more experienced programmers will answer them within minutes, and we can collaborate with other leaders in close to real time if we're in that expert position for some particular subject ourselves. We can share code snippets for peer review, download the latest tools, or upload our contributions to community projects. And we can do all of these things from the comfort of our own homes/offices, without worrying about where we're going to stay overnight, or who's going to look after the kids, or the frustration and abuse that is common with long distance travel in the 21st century.

In short, most of the key advantages conferences used to have don't really matter any more, and business travel isn't what it used to be either. Some people argue that they're still worthwhile for "networking", whatever that means. I'm pretty sure I have far more opportunities to connect with other people who share my interests online today than any conference ever offered, though.

Re:Depends on the conference

[OrangeTide]

I'm a kernel developer and things like X.Org Developer's Conference and Embedded Linux Conference are pretty useful for me to go to, and for the same reasons you cited. Also, we get to meet other vendors and get contacts to start things like plugfests.

Re:If you have to ask...

[ruir]

I had the luck to work for a consulting outfit where my direct manager sent me to all conferences he could (actually several a year), to in his words "broaden my horizons". After all his years, I am the proof he was right.
While sending guys early in his career does not seem beneficial, believe me it is. He helped me achieve a certain place, and in exchange, I also helped the firm secure several businesses in a market abroad.