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

I don't

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm old enough to remember a time where tech conferences were actually useful, when actual techies were present that actually knew about the tech.
Of course, there were already salespeople there, as well. But both categories knew their stuff:

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.

But it has been decades since that state of things. I have stopped going to tech conferences when they started getting populated by junior sales folks and booth babes only. All you seem to get now is some bored young person handing you a flyer before losing eye contact and returning to whatever is more interesting on that smartphone screen. I'm making it a caricature, but that's what it feels like to someone like me..

I can get that flyer as a PDF without leaving the office.. and a lot more information, online.. So why bother going to a conference?

Cheers,
Anonymous Old Grumpy

Re:I don't

[shanen]

I knew that reply was going to be here, but I feel like you mostly wasted your thoughtful reply on an invisible AC.

I would say the same thing, but perhaps too briefly as "Improvements in network communications have largely addressed the communications problems that technical conferences used to help with." You didn't mention bandwidth, but I think conferences have also become relatively slow mechanisms when it comes to information exchange. The logistical problems are the same as they ever were and require the same amounts of preparation and lead times. Only the marketing has gotten slicker (but shallower).

Going meta again, but I think the question would have been more useful with some background about trends in attendance. Maybe they're bigger and better than ever and it's just me who's gotten jaded?

Depends on the conference

[Anonymous Coward]

System level programmers (OS, codec, driver, browser, compiler, etc...) don't benefit much from conferences. But people closer to the IT level do. For example, I am a former system level developer and now am writing IT automation systems. Without conferences, I would lack access to resources of information from companies like Microsoft and Cisco regarding automation tools and APIs.

A great example would be Powershell DSC which is like Puppet, Chef or Ansible but likely to be supported for the next 20 years. Powershell DSC has tons of documentation, but there is no training or structured books on the topic which are relevant to current versions.

I can spend 1000 hours figuring it out or I can go to Microsoft Build or Ignite and corner a developer from the team and get it spelled out to me in 10 minutes.

While I'm at the show, I can learn that 125,000 lines of code and 6 months of work I have planned for the year which I'll have to support already exists but isn't obvious where it could be found.

So, for $10,000 for plane tickets, hotel, food, show entrance, etc... I can probably save my company $100,000.

Oh, and of course while I'm there, I can build my social network and find like minded individuals.

Knowledge

[MasseKid]

It's all about knowledge. The technical talks are rarely, if ever worth attending. Let's face it, now one is going to give out trade secrets in those things. At best, they are a minor muse towards how you could do something. The real benefits in conferences is seeing things you didn't know existed. Do you need a 10+2 1/10G ethernet, mil-rugged, layer 3 switch in a forum factor the size off your fist? If you do, then hell knowing the right company is the difference between a project going bust and making it. Conferences are about sharing knowledge of the technology that exists that you don't know about, not about saving costs on commodity items. No one is going to go to a conference and say "zomg, I just saved my company 50% on the price of steel!".

Re:Knowledge

[aldousd666]

True, but you're speaking only from a hardware perspective. I have been to 'good conferences' where they have talks that spark me to research new ideas that eventually lead to productive lines of inquiry (RailsConf or in a previous life, PDC) and ones that are just advertisements or feature "Touchy Feely" talks about programmer sentiment and egos (RubyConf, total Yuck.) The ones that make me think, or research, are worth it. Even some of the keynotes (RailsConf 2016, keynote by Paul Lamere, from Spotify, fired my imagination and prompted me to take 6 months of courses on Big Data and Machine learning, which will eventually pay my employer dividends and then some,) by big names in their fields are worth the entire costs. It just means you need to know where to go, and what to look for, and what to avoid. Talks about diversity for the sake of coloration, or whatever, are little more than rants about unfairness, which leads to nothing company 'costs' if you buy in to them. But ones about how they take advantage of technologies (like one I saw [by a woman, speaking of diversity, which didn't even mention the fact that she was a woman -- BECAUSE THAT ISN'T THE IMPORTANT PART] about how Github used the Scientist gem to migrate their entire security structure without any downtime...) they can lead to local 'breakthroughs.' My advice is to stay away from 'touchy feely' conferences about developers and how they 'feel' at work, and to go to those that focus on the actual state of technology and what's out there and how to use it for your own personal, professional, and business's growth. Being around people who care about the same things, especially when those things are putting numbers on the board, is a great thing. NOT ALL CONFERENCES ARE CREATED EQUAL. That's just how it is. Do your research up front.

Re:Go to the conference

[Anonymous Coward]

chance to make connections which could prove valuable to your career,

Absolutely this bit. Don't underestimate the networking opportunities at these kinds of events. If you go for no other reason than just networking then it's still invaluable.

If you're not good at networking, then practice and learn before you go.

Re: Go to the conference

[ruir]

Granted, you have conferences *and* conferences.
Some like Web Summit, are just over hyped bullshit.
Others, are pretty interesting.
In the IT field, for instance vmworld, some security and Linux/FreeBSD conferences expose you to a variety of sessions and labs with all the new trends, and booths were you can pretty much talk with much of the hot vendors, with actual technicians and/or experienced old timers from pre-sales to talk with.