What was your best experience at a conference? Worst? - dwgetjg
======
SyneRyder
I find my best conference experiences aren't the sessions themselves, but
happen in the hallways or at optional side-events. Two conferences I've been
to had skydiving as an optional activity, and I've found that's been a great
way to make new friends & long lasting connections. Probably something about
sharing a near-death experience together.

Most profitable experience was complaining in the hallway to another attendee
about the previous speaker. We bonded over our griping & they became a client
of mine a couple of years later (even though that wasn't an intention I'd had
at the time).

Worst experience was a conference whose topics changed after I bought the
tickets, flying halfway around the world for it, then struggling to stay awake
for the final sessions of the day. I actually skipped the next conference day,
but the attendees were great people & became good friends, so I still got my
money's worth.

[Gratuitous plug: I maintain a list of conferences for indie developers,
digital nomads and other bootstrapper/DIY types at
[http://indieconference.com/](http://indieconference.com/) I mainly use it as
a list of justifiable excuses for travel.]

~~~
dwgetjg
Great list! Thanks!

------
zhte415
Worst: Smalltalk/networking. I'm pretty social (perhaps now), but it took a
lot (attending conferences, 2 years+, once per month) to feel comfortable
approaching and talking to strangers - and the crazy thing was I was in a buy-
side position, not sell-side, so I was waiting for others to strike a
conversation. Now, 10 years later after getting over the hump, it is much
easier. The biggest thing for me was getting comfortable talking to a couple
of really genuine sales people. And genuine meant getting to know them very
gradually over these 2+ years.

1\. If a conference organiser, it's really useful to not just put people in a
room with canapes and drinks for a 'networking session' but to actually plan
something that can connect people. An event where people can create meaningful
conversation, not have flippant conversation.

2\. If a participant, read-up by listening to some excellent podcasts by
manager-tools.com - they cover tips in a far better way than I could do in a
quick HN post (it's free, with a vast range of content, not just for
managers).

~~~
dwgetjg
So you'd say that conferences could be great if people have numerous
meaningful conversations, but that doesn't happen as often as you'd like?

------
Raed667
The best conferences I had are the ones I barely attended any talks in them.
Mostly because I met some very interesting people outside and the
discussions/debates were more interesting, I've made some great friendships
there.

My worst was actually a Droidcon, where most the talks were a word-by-word
repeated versions I already saw on Youtube.

~~~
dwgetjg
How did you go about finding people to talk to?

~~~
Raed667
The first time was quite scary, but it was a challenge I set for myself.

There was this group that were louder and generally "more alive" than the
rest. So I approached them, and lurked for a while, after a few minutes I said
hi and introduced myself, and that's it!

After that I threw myself out of my comfort zone at every event. My goal was
to meet as many interesting people as I could, and I did.

I was young back then, probably one of the youngest at those kind of events
(that probably helped).

------
solipsism
Best: Dr. Anita Sengupta from NASA JPL, keynote speaker at GOTO Chicago,
speaking inspirationally about her work on Mars entry systems, and also about
women in engineering. If I didn't have a family, I'd be very tempted to learn
whatever I had to learn (and take the paycut I'd have to take) to work at NASA
and be a part of something big.

~~~
ghuntley
Agreed, saw her at YOW last year. Here's the presentation:
[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YvMQfqLdeWw](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YvMQfqLdeWw)

