

How I pick conference talks to attend, more or less - the55
http://blog.actbluetech.com/2014/10/how-i-pick-conference-talks-more-or-less.html

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jasode
Years ago, I used to attend tech conferences (Microsoft, San Francisco, etc)
and also was a presenter (SAP, Oracle, Las Vegas, etc). With that said, I
believe attending a conference in person is not as necessary these days
because many of them will have recorded videos.

One can watch recorded videos at 2x or even 3x accelerated speed. One can also
fast-forward past the slow typing, the slow talkers etc.

If one wants to go because of in-person networking opportunities, or
physically touch some new gadgets (e.g. Microsoft Surface table, etc) that's
understandable. However, if one's primary takeaway from conferences is
quantity & density of tech information, the conference videos are much more
effective for that. For example, O'Reilly sells video packages for something
like $499 which is much less than the cost of the registration fee + travel
expenses. Microsoft makes their conference videos free on channel9. It's more
information for less money; a win-win.

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adrianhoward
_" If one wants to go because of in-person networking opportunities, or
physically touch some new gadgets (e.g. Microsoft Surface table, etc) that's
understandable."_

I'd go as far as saying _that_ is what you should optimise conference
attendance for.

I learn a _lot_ from attending conferences. But it's mostly from the
conversations I have with people, not from watching the sessions.

The opportunity to meet and spend time with really smart people is worth way
more to me than sitting and watching talks.

When I first started going to conferences I used to spend a lot of time
agonising over which session to go to at multi-track events.

These days I optimise my time for talking to smart folk I'd rarely get the
opportunity to spend time with otherwise. Both speakers and attendees. I'd
rather continue that hallway conversation and learn something new, than go
along to the talk that I can often catch up on later.

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bobbygoodlatte
Talks being presented by one person is key. Large panels almost always lack
narrative. Single person, or well rehearsed dual-speaker presentations usually
have key takeaways that make the talk memorable.

SXSW is particularly bad when it comes to panel discussions. Typically one
organizer has a few half-baked talking points while the other participants
haven't prepared whatsoever.

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the55
Yea, I am a fan of the dual-speaker "ideas person + implementation person"
format of talk. That often works well. As in:

"And now I'm going to hand off to my partner who can explain what's going on
under the hood..."

