To Conference or Not To Conference

So..., question.

Why do you attend a conference?

Another question.

Why do you not attend a conference?

I think there are plenty of people confused about reasons and answers to the above two questions.

Here's my quest and reason for this post. I would like to know YOUR true answers. Not the reasons why you think others would attend or not attend. But how YOU feel and think. There is a purpose for my question, I promise. Just consider this as research. If you want to answer privately, send me a message through RBC or send me an email at rayannethorn@yahoo.com.

Help me out on this...

-Rayanne

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sandra McCartt on March 25, 2011 at 4:43pm

As i told Gerry Crispin. I have done my time going to conferences to listen to a bunch of recruiters lie to each other about how wonderful they are and how much money they have made and how they do it in their shop.

Other than being a bit jaded at this point :) It's a hassle and a big expense for me to travel. Horse sitters are expensive as well as leaving business hanging for the three to four days of being away from it. The loss of potential revenue or not being available is too big a factor. Part of the charm for me is being available to clients almost 24/7.

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Permalink Reply by pam claughton on March 26, 2011 at 7:46am

Although I've been in the business for about 16 years, I just went to my first conference a few years ago. I was with a big Boston agency for 10 years before opening my firm and the agency I was with invested in all kinds of training, but never went to conferences, so they were never on my radar. A few years ago, I heard about the local NEAPS conference and a colleague and I decided to check it out. We didn't expect to get much out of it, because we were both experienced. We were very pleasantly surprised! There was a great lineup of trainers giving workshops that year, among them Danny Cahill, who we both loved, and I've since gone on to invest in his training for recruiters in my office as well as his online monthly subscription. Jeff Skrensky (not sure on spelling), gave a great talk and there were others that had great tips that we were able to try out asap with our own businesses.

I went again last year to the NEAPS conference and it was fantastic, with all new speakers from the previous time. It's just a two day conference, on Friday/Saturday, so doesn't take too much time away from work and is something I look forward to. I haven't gone to other industry conferences primarily because the price is more than double, the speakers are the same and there's usually a plane ride involved, which is added expense and I'm not crazy about flying. The NEAPS conference is always local, this year it's in Newport Rhode Island. I attend these conferences strictly to learn new things, not to network.

For networking, I've gone to other conferences that are non-recruiting related, more industry or business specific. I have an interest in the cloud computing space and am looking to do more searches in that area, so last year went to the State of The Cloud conference in Boston which was fantastic and immediately resulted in a new client.

This year, just a few days ago actually, I went to the Momentum Summit, held at MIT in Cambridge. It was a one day event geared to startups, investors, and entrepreneurs. It was fascinating and I will definitely be going to this one next year. There were a series of interviews with CEOs and VC's that funded them and they talked about the challenges they faced and how they grew their businesses. When those sessions ended, there was a discussion lunch, where they had breakout sessions with all kinds of topics. The one I attended was on generating buzz and PR for your business. I especially enjoyed Brian Halligan, CEO of Hubspot's talk on inbound marketing and leveraging social media to drive traffic to your business. So, for me, this conference was more about how to grow my business vs. recruiting and also networking with potential clients.

Hope this helps. :)

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Permalink Reply by Gary Anders on March 26, 2011 at 3:09pm

It is definately worth conferencing to discuss issues.

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Permalink Reply by Ritu Chaudhari on March 27, 2011 at 11:18pm

Our company strongly believes in networking. Thanks to management push, we attend a number of conferences and find it an interesting way of understanding industry trends and movements. Does it translate to immediate business? Sometimes, not always. But does it pay off in the long run? I'd say yes.

Listening to CEOs talk about the changes they are bringing about in their business, what they see the industry moving to (e.g. these days there are any number of conferences on Cloud Computing) and how they see this affecting the market etc. is fascinating. This also helps when I talk to others in the industry (e.g. Mr. X in this company sees the market as this....how does your company view this Mr Y?) Great help in networking.

On the other hand, would I attend a conference for recruiters, by recruiters? Nahhh....no time! Would rather be out meeting clients!