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

Go to the conference

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's on your employer's dime.

For you: fun, broadening, exposure to more of what the industry segment is about, chance to make connections which could prove valuable to your career, opportunities to attend technical seminars or paper presentations which will clue you in to what academia or standards groups are up to.

For your employer: a way of rewarding selected employees with a nice perk, boosting their morale, gflying the company flag to keep up name recognition with others in the industry, giving them a chance to get a clue about what academia or standards groups are up to.

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!".

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

[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?