In most of our articles we have urged you to attend seminars/conferences, to take part in all such academic events, to outperform yourself etc. But, we never discussed as Toto what to do in such events? How to make these conferences useful? Attending such conferences and seminars are time consuming and sometimes expensive too, and we believe that if you are involved in a right way in a right conference, you can make your investment worth. Because we at LegalPulp believe, “Conferences are what you make of them. If you’re not sure why you’re going, or what you want to get out of the experience, you’re unlikely to get it.”
Conversations are more valuable than the sessions
It’s so surprising that most interesting, informative and educational moments are not spent in the sessions themselves: it’s in informal interactions with other attendees. The lectures, talks and panels might provide some new ideas, but are one-directional and you can get the PowerPoint presentations or research papers of the speakers later. However, the unique, personal, and insightful conversations you have with other people can only happen outside the purview of the structured event.
This means that you need to invest time in connecting with other people. Like, going to a party where you don’t know anyone except the host, you must have a plan. Otherwise you’ll end up standing alone in the corner, holding a drink, hoping for someone to talk to you.
Contributing something
All events have ways to participate. Anyone can submit a paper, panel session idea, or workshop proposal. There is no better way to meet others and access the most interesting and friendly people than participating. Even the process of submitting something is rewarding: you’ll spend some time trying to express your work in a way that others can get value out of, which always improves your ability to think and communicate about what you do. In most cases, even if your submission isn’t accepted (which usually happens in many cases!) you will be benefited. You’ll get feedback from the experts on the review committee about your work and your writing, which you could argue is a free service to you. Volunteering is a great way for anyone to transform a dull event into a fun and engaging one.
What events offer what?
Workshops: Academic events always have slots for small/mid-sized groups to spend serious time discussing a topic. The requirement for entry is usually some registration fees! However, in some serious workshops you will need a position statement, expressing your point of view on a subject, and your references supporting why you’d be a useful member of the workshop. These are consistently the most enlightening sessions, and give you the largest opportunity to meet and interact with intelligent people interested in a topic that you are interested in. Even in a bad workshop, ask around for people who want to go out for dinner. Sometimes the conversation over dinner is better than the workshop (but the workshop gives you access to the right people to have an interesting dinner conversation with).
Tutorials/Lectures : These are half and full day sessions with an invited speaker. The sessions are often lecture based, which means a lot of sitting and listening. If you need training on some aspect of your job, and can’t find it local to you, tutorials are great. However, the sessions are often large, and for popular topics or teachers, can be hard to get into. Ask about tutorials you’re interested in, especially about the quality of the speaker.
Panels/Conclaves: A panel session has 4 or 5 invited speakers sharing a time slot together. In a good panel session, there is a diversity of points of view, and everyone is comfortable sharing them. But too often, panelists shy away from the intended topic, or avoid disagreeing with their co-panelists. They often feel pressurized to represent their organization. This is why most panel sessions are dull. Worse, some panels don’t allow for discussion, giving too much time to prepared presentations from each panelist. For these and other reasons, panels are a wild card, and often result in a fairly bland experience for everyone involved. When it works though, and the right people are invited and facilitated by the organizer in the right way, it can be the most enlightening session you’ll see at a conference.
Posters: Some conferences have poster areas, where professionals or students put together summaries of their work for people to look at. This can often be a lot of fun. I like the fact that it’s an active environment: you walk around to different displays, and drive the experience (instead of the persistent passivity of almost every other kind of conference session). Posters are a great thing to stroll through if you get bored in the other sessions. Sometimes there are scheduled times where the posters are manned, so you can ask questions of the people that did the work. This can be great fun. Don’t be shy: usually they’re thrilled that anyone is looking at their stuff, much less asking questions.
Paper sessions: At more academic conferences, there are paper sessions, where the authors of selected paper submissions get a chance to talk for a limited time about their paper. To be frank, this is the biggest waste of time for conference attendees unless you are presenting the paper. First, if there are proceedings, all of the papers are available to you to read or skim at your leisure (say on the way back home). Worse, these students were accepted on their ability to write a good paper, not on their ability to engage or communicate through a presentation. In many cases, the presenters simply talk through the same outline and structure that is in the paper, sometimes even scrolling through the actual text of the paper, reading highlights. Nothing will make the paper authors’ day more than to get a short note from the chairperson or a friend telling them they enjoyed the paper.
Build a Plan: A day before the event, sit down with the proceedings and the small guidebook or agenda that they often provide you with. Go through with a pen, and mark anything that looks interesting. If you find things that sound cool but vague, flip open the proceedings and check them out. If it looks like something better captured in a paper, then it’s probably not worth going to. Circle all of the sessions that look interesting, and if two or more occur at the same time, flag the one you want to go to first.
Then during the actual conference, go to the first session you’ve marked. Have a plan to bail after 15 minutes if you’re bored. Odds are it’s not going to get better. Go to the next session in that time slot that interested you. Repeat the same thought process. Worst case, you can always return to one of the other sessions. The result is that you maximize your time spent in sessions you will actually enjoy, and minimize your time spent bored, hoping things will get better. During sessions is a good time to introduce yourself to the various people manning the different booths. I’ve had some of my best conference experiences in conversations that started this way.
After hours socializing
Most conferences have scheduled social events or dinners on one of the nights of the conference. I find these events are often nice, but are in places and environments where it’s really hard to meet new people. Often, people spend most of their time at these events with people they already know, or the people they came to the conference with. If you are attending the conference alone, these events can feel very cliquish and elitist. I don’t think anyone intends for this to be so, but often nothing is set up to minimize or inhibit this social tendency.
If you can manage it, you would want to try and meet enough people in the workshops and other sessions on the previous day, so that you can wander around and socialize with people at the dinner party. If you make some decent connections, you’ll be able to jump in on some conversations and meet more people. If you have a few drinks, and can get into the right mindset, you can have a lot of fun bouncing around between different groups.
Take advantage of the trip
If you travel to another city or country to attend the conference, take advantage of the opportunity. Most organizing committees will allow you an extra day or two, especially if you’re willing to cover those extra expenses (tell the hotel this, when you check in, so you can get separate receipts). Part of what can make a conference effective is it’s ability to give you new perspectives and ideas, and a great way to facilitate that is to take advantage of what’s unique about the venue you are in.
Don’t be too serious!
I’ve seen many people (students in particular) take conferences way too seriously. I find that I learn much better if I’m having fun, and enjoying the people I’m with. I can’t do that if I’m fixated on getting to every session on time, or not staying out too late, or trying to achieve any specific objective.
I’m not saying conferences should be converted into vacations. Instead, I think everyone should be thinking about what the real opportunities to learn are, and that they tend not to happen if you’re fixated on cramming in as much knowledge or sessions in as short a time as possible.
Random Tips
Some random tips which you should consider:
- Don’t use the conference bag, or lug around all the crap they give you where ever you go
- Don’t wear your badge outside the conference. Try to drop your proceedings and stuff back in you office as soon as you get them
- Sit near the back row if your not planning on staying.
Two Key Points to Remember:
Ask lots of questions. Learning is a contact sport. If you don’t make your experiences engaging for yourself, you are guaranteed to be bored. Talk to speakers, paper authors, booth people, the folks sitting next to you, whoever. Ask for recommendations for books, websites or other conferences. If you don’t become an active participant in your own learning, don’t be surprised if not much of what you experience is relevant to you. You feel shy about asking questions? Then remember this chinese proverb - “He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.”
Give People Something to Remember You By. Generally people share their visiting cards at such events, but being students most of us don’t have visiting cards. Though we think visiting cards are also of no use, they get stuffed into the pockets and forgotten about. We suggest you to give some small gifts to the speakers and guests, like may be a pen or a nice note pad. Or you may also take some nice pictures if you are good in photography and send them over email later. This way you can build a connection with the person and he will remember you always whenever he will use that pen or look at that picture.
Remember you need to be outgoing, friendly, and full of energy. Talk to people, tell them about yourself and always take visiting cards, email ids of people you interact with. Not only that, drop them an email very next day with your inputs on the event etc.
Your mileage may vary on all of the above. Everyone has different travel and learning preferences. So, we don’t recommend following this essay very closely. Instead, we hope it helps to raise some questions and thoughts about what you might want in a conference, and how you might go about getting the most of the time you spend there. Share your thoughts below and let us know what more you would do to take the best out of a conference.
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