
End of the conference era? - jonny_eh
https://marco.org/2018/01/17/end-of-conference-era
======
SyneRyder
I think Marco missed the point. He's taken a decline in _Apple & iOS_ specific
conferences, then assumed that means all conferences in general are over.

But web development conferences are still going fine. PyCon & DjangoCon &
JSConf & Laracon all seem to be doing okay, and even have regional
conferences. Indie developer conferences like FemtoConf are selling out.
Business Of Software is still going strong. Even niche conferences like the
Xojo programming language are holding annual conferences on multiple
continents. There's still plenty of conferences for digital nomads & travel
bloggers & Etsy makers & songwriters & authors out there.

It's Apple-specific conferences that are disappearing. (I tweeted that last
October [1] and I'm now kicking myself for not blogging about it instead.)
Some of the Apple conferences pivoted to include Android and web-dev - for
example, iOSDevCamp became Developer Camp and was hosted at Google premises.

Maybe this is just part of a cycle, Apple-related conferences have disappeared
before (like Wolf Rentzch's C4 conference did in 2010, [2] [3]). Or perhaps
it's an early indicator that developers are moving on from Apple to other
platforms.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/919474979086798848](https://twitter.com/syneryder/statuses/919474979086798848)

[2]
[https://www.macworld.com/article/1151210/c4_end.html](https://www.macworld.com/article/1151210/c4_end.html)

[3]
[http://rentzsch.tumblr.com/post/592949476/c4-release](http://rentzsch.tumblr.com/post/592949476/c4-release)

~~~
shanev
I was one of the earliest successful indie iOS developers. I've had my apps
featured on Apple TV ads and billboards, and they've had tens of millions of
downloads. The days of being able to do that are long gone. You'll have a few
breakout hits every once in a while like HQ and Houseparty, but the amount of
marketing needed to get there often outweighs development costs. There's a few
big players and there's not much benefit to the long tail anymore unless you
have an expensive niche app. I've recently switched to being a blockchain /
Ethereum developer and there's a ton of conferences and 2-3 events a week in
New York. Marco should title this "The end of indie iOS conferences".

Swift has kind of taken a life of its own outside of just iOS. There's a few
big Swift conferences each year, even ones specific to functional programming.
I'm also excited for its prospects on the server.

~~~
bsaul
i was really enthousiastic about swift as well, but the slow pace at which it
is moving on big features such as concurrency (swift still has no native mutex
or lock primitives, and nothing related to multithreading), makes me really
feel this project isn't backed as much as it should by apple, especially
compared to the ambition of the language ( world domination).

This plus the fact that Apple still keep messing up its OS releases, while
adding nothing interesting to the end-user...

One thing is clear, my next project will be developped in a cross-platform
environment.

------
hjnilsson
Problem with online methods of learning, is it's much harder to take a day off
your day job to watch YouTube, or listen to podcasts. Conferences are like a
vacation from regular work, where you can focus on learning.

Also, the ability to see people in person, and discuss ideas with them
directly is a very different experience from watching a YouTube channel. On a
conference, you can meet new people, get job offers, meet new clients etc.
directly. Conferences are far from only about educating the audience (author
is entirely correct in the if all you care about is learning a new tech, it's
more efficient to look up a tutorial on YouTube).

~~~
overcast
In my experience, conferences are like a vacation where company expenses are
wasted on food, and booze. If there is some learning in there, it's minimal.
If you really want to hold a conference where people learn, how about we stop
having them in Vegas, or some other warm weather, party destination.

~~~
GVIrish
> If there is some learning in there, it's minimal. If you really want to hold
> a conference where people learn, how about we stop having them in Vegas, or
> some other warm weather, party destination.

That seems to me to be problems with individuals and not the conference. I've
seen people go to conferences and basically skip out on half (or more) of the
sessions to go drink and party, and I've seen other people stay locked in
through the whole conference learning, taking notes, and participating.

For a company it may be hard to discern who is who, but I'd argue that somehow
who squanders an opportunity and misuses company resources is not the person
you want on your team.

~~~
arstin
On the whole, I've probably learned more at conferences from talking shop over
drinks than from the talks. Many talks are hastily put together and poorly
presented. And many are simply above or below whatever my skill level for that
thing might then be (which isn't too say they don't have value, but compared
to actual conversations with new and knowledgable individuals...). Maybe
"industry" conferences are different from academic ones though.

But don't worry, I've never actually went to a tech conference, exactly
because of the huge cost combined with not usually wanting to go to most
talks. So I'm not going to be that guy on your team! :)

------
coldtea
> _Or maybe we’ve already solved these problems with social networks, Slack
> groups, podcasts, and YouTube, and we just haven’t fully realized it yet._

All of those things are irrelevant, as the allure of conferences was something
else, including getting to know like-minded people, networking, time off work,
meeting with some of the major people working in your platform/language face
to face/having a coffee/drink after the sessions, etc, etc.

We had YouTube and social networks and podcasts for more than a decade now
when conferences were still doing fine.

It's more about the money than anything else.

------
mattferderer
Conference talks are 90% worthless to me. Many popular conference speakers
argue that the job of a talk is to introduce you to a subject. I agree with
the author, that I would rather watch that online than pay to attend a
conference. Being a really good speaker, is also a rare talent that most
speakers (even a lot of the popular ones) don't have. Way to often, talks are
created as annoying sales pitches as well.

A popular trend that is much more valuable, are the "Open Sessions" where a
large room has a bunch of chairs in circles. Anyone can create a "talk" that
others can join. Everyone gets in a circle & discusses ideas around a topic.
I've found these much more valuable.

The "Open Sessions", random discussions in the hallways or during events, &
having lunch with a bunch of strangers talking about anything & everything are
the most valuable activities in my opinion.

------
jakozaur
I would love some online version of informal conference-like conversations.

Conference are a big commitments, most of ideas in talks are online anyway.
I'm not coming for lecture style experience, but for interactions with other
attendants. Exchange of ideas and experience, meet new
people/clients/vendors...

Maybe some online version of speed dating/chatrulett would just do fine? E.g.
Gather critical mass of some sort (e.g. 50 engineers interested Serverless
functions) have 5 minute lightning talk, follow by 1-5m talks with each other.
Than with an hour you can meet 5-30 new ppl.

~~~
Swizec
Semi private chatrooms is where it’s at right now. The kind where somebody
assembles a group of a few hundred individuals to hang out on Slack or
Telegram around a particular loosely-ish defined interest. Invite only of
course.

I’m in a couple and it’s honestly amazing. Small enough to feel safe and cozy,
big enough to have lots of activity and a range of ideas and personalities.

It’s like putting the community conference hallway track online and making it
last for months and years on end, not just a day or two.

~~~
christophilus
How do you find them? I work remotely, and would love to join some good tech
discussion groups every once in a while.

~~~
djhworld
This is what saddens me about these invite only Slack channels.

Yes the owners are free to make them invite only, but also if they're not
easily discovered how are people supposed to find them?

At least with IRC or Discord or whatever you can browse channel lists, instead
of trying to hammer Slack into a niche it's not even designed to fill.

~~~
wyclif
Yes, but as an ancient user of IRC I can tell you that the problem he's
addressing is that anyone can join an IRC, and often they do. Have you ever
joined a large tech-oriented channel? Low signal-to-noise ratio, with lots of
noobish questions or off-topic chat.

------
yawgmoth
I've attended two styles of conferences: large conferences organized by the
single company featured in all discussions (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Apple,
Amazon - all hosted in a large city), and smaller polyglot conferences in the
Midwest.

CodeMash in Sandusky, OH is a relatively small, relatively inexpensive
conference. It mostly attracts people from Columbus, Chicago, Detroit, and
Cleveland metros, but further into the midwest (St Louis, Omaha, KC). During a
talk, there is large variation in participation, but there's generally 4-5
things per time slot a person would like to attend and it is
acceptable/encouraged to leave a talk if it turned out it isn't right for you.

There are (optional) social activities baked in. There are soft-skills and
unrelated activities (lazer pong, sessions on things like creative writing,
mindfulness). One of the last contributing factors is that there are ALWAYS
places to sit in group fashion and meals are generally at a shared table
(round tables of 8 or something).

The result is conversations with strangers who come from varying backgrounds.
The result of the non-pretentiousness is conversations during a talk (it's
much less intimidating to ask questions of the lead engineers from Kroger in a
room of 150 than the lead engineers of Microsoft in a room of 1000 - Kroger
has a very impressive technical presence, mind).

DevOpsDays actually has a period after the keynote where people come up and
suggest topics for breakout groups, resulting in wildly contrasting sizes and
specificities of discussions.

Seems clear that there are plenty of ways to have a fantastic conference as
long as you're not attending to get the coolest big ticket swag gift via
attendance.

~~~
rospaya
> DevOpsDays

I love DevOpsDays. It's a great concept, it's community organized and the one
I attended in Amsterdam has been better than any other similar event I
attended.

There were workshops, open spaces, round tables and talks, most of which were
at the same time laid back and concentrated on the subject, meaning that you
saw real life challenges and how actual people react to them. I came out of
there evigorated, smarter and more experienced.

Also, it was cheap, fun and great for socializing.

------
jcadam
In my 10+ year career I've been to exactly one conference: JavaOne in 2016.
That's one of the biggest tech conferences (put on by Oracle) I'm aware of and
it covered such a broad array of topics at only a surface level that I really
didn't get much out of the lectures (my favorite sessions were the small-group
lectures on niche topics (alternative JVM languages, etc.) - Java in general
is extremely uninteresting to me).

Now, it was the one time I've actually been to San Francisco, so I was able to
do some sight-seeing, and the concert Oracle put on was nice - only time I've
seen Sting live.

Personally, I think I'd much prefer smaller, more focused conferences. Problem
is, employers in my industry (Defense) almost never send employees to
conferences (I once asked an employer if I could attend a small local
conference on a topic directly relevant to the project we were working on - it
would have been something like $150 plus two days of overhead for my time.
Nope). The only reason I went to JavaOne is someone managed to sneak a
'conference budget' into a contract, so the customer paid for it (Weird things
happen when you actually involve engineers in the contracting process).

------
zelos
_sitting there listening to blocks of talks for long stretches while you’re
trying to stay awake after lunch is a pretty inefficient way to hear ideas._

Pretty much this. I'm constantly pushed to use my training budget to go to
conferences, but the information density is generally so low.

~~~
djKianoosh
the general/all purpose conferences are certainly like this with the exception
of a few that arent taken over by marketers. the single language/platform ones
are better in that they are usually shorter and more focused. ymmv

------
ghaff
As someone who attends a huge number of events as a speaker, an attendee, and
as media, a few comments:

1\. In terms of attending sessions, IF a conference does a good job of
recording video of all sessions (which costs a LOT of money), physically
attending the conference still serves as something of a forcing function.
Virtually attending events and watching sessions on YouTube etc. definitely
still play a role but it's often hard just to set the time aside.

2\. The hallway track is huge. This is probably the main reason I attend
events. Discussions about ideas, meeting people (including those at my own
company who I otherwise never see).

3\. Beyond informal hallway tracks, bigger conferences are just a good
opportunity to schedule a lot of F2F meetings when a lot of people are in one
place.

4\. Yes, they're something of a perk (for most people).

------
dankohn1
My organization runs KubeCon + CloudNativeCon [0] and we have events in 2018
in Copenhagen (May), Shanghai (November) and Seattle (December). Our Austin
event last month grew 300% from the year before to 4,200 people.

I believe that conferences are extraordinarily valuable for open source
communities. They give an opportunity for new people to get involved and
connect with the existing leaders. A common concern is which talk to attend
when there's overlap. I always advise to choose the one where you want to talk
the speaker or other attendees afterwards. Since all of the sessions are
posted to YouTube [1], you can see the other talks later (and can watch them
at 125% of normal speed, if you want [2]).

>But all of that media can’t really replace the socializing, networking, and
simply fun that happened as part of (or sometimes despite) the conference
formula.

The real reason to attend a conference is the hallway track.

(Disclosure: I am executive director of the Cloud Native Computing
Foundation.)

[0] [http://kubecon.io](http://kubecon.io) [1]
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj6h78yzYM2P-3-xqvmWa...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj6h78yzYM2P-3-xqvmWaZbbI1sW-
ulZb) [2] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-
contro...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed-
controller/nffaoalbilbmmfgbnbgppjihopabppdk?hl=en)

~~~
rospaya
Love your organization. I was just recommending the Copenhagen conference to
my colleagues yesterday, although it's a bit out of our budget.

> The real reason to attend a conference is the hallway track.

Exactly. Asking a question during a session acts like a mating call once
you're out of the room, people with interests in what you've asked form a
certain discussion group around you.

That would be great to formalize in some way.

~~~
dankohn1
We schedule 35 minute sessions with 10 minute breaks in between to try to
increase the time available for the hallway track.

Please check out our diversity scholarships [0]. We awarded $250 K worth in
Austin [1].

[0] [https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-
cloudnativ...](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/kubecon-
cloudnativecon-europe-2018/attend/scholarship-opportunities/) [1]
[https://www.cncf.io/blog/2018/01/17/look-back-kubecon-
cloudn...](https://www.cncf.io/blog/2018/01/17/look-back-kubecon-
cloudnativecon-north-america-2017-part-2/)

~~~
rospaya
Thanks, but I'm really out of any diversity scope. My company simply doesn't
provide enough educational budget, even though we use a lot of your tools at
work.

I'll try to show up to the next European event.

------
lgleason
Unfortunately the quality of many tech conferences has gone down to the point
of them not being useful. At one point tech conferences focused on speakers
that actually had tech chops and talked about tech. Now many have become
pajama parties with un-qualified speakers (little to no tech experience)
talking about non-tech or tech lite topics. I've seen this even affect some of
the really large prestigious events.

------
therealmarv
Most unproductive time are conferences. It's like a work-holiday but you never
get really serious stuff done. It's fun though and I think it's good for
humans to do something like this from time to time. It's also important if you
are working in a area where networking is crucial and important. But when
looking at my day to day job as a web and backend developer I see all
conferences a waste of time (I've been to a lot in the past) and only see
really important topics in my pyjamas on weekends mainly on youtube. It really
depends what sort of job you have... for some people conferences are the best
thing ever and for other it's like "naaah, too much time and money wasted to
go there"

------
andrewstuart
>> Or maybe we’ve already solved these problems with social networks, Slack
groups, podcasts, and YouTube, and we just haven’t fully realized it yet.

Aren't the plethora of technical meetups a constant round of conference
presentations nearby and for free?

~~~
whafro
Assuming the presentations are equally high quality (in terms of communicating
ideas) and the presenters are equally expert (in terms of the ideas
themselves). That's certainly not always true.

But my sense is that the era of strong and plentiful tech meetups is a thing
of the past as well. While there are obviously still many of them, big company
employees seem to rely more on their employers to bring in top speakers. That
doesn't help small company folks, but it removes a chunk of the audience that
the meetups depend on to thrive. Even then, organizing community meetups can
be a major job – getting venue/food/drink sponsors, herding presenters, etc. –
and it's easy to lose steam.

Like Marco said – there's no single factor, but my sense is that both have
been affected over the last decade or so.

------
erikb
The headline should include the word Apple somewhere.

And it's also not a surprise that the era of conferences ends around an
environment of a single company. This is one of the things why some people go
through the troubles one has outside of walled gardens. All the funding in the
garden comes from one central source, at least indirectly.

I think the general purpose conference world is still growing though. It's a
better environment than the traditional fairs, at least for things that
include a lot of software.

------
jlebrech
"small conferences exclude people" this is a fallacy, the more small
conferences there are the less people are excluded.

------
CameronBanga
Doesn't seem like anyone is attributing this to the fact that while Apple
seems to be touting the record profits of the App Store, it seems like I know
less and less people who make a genuinely OK living by working on iOS apps.

Could it be that iOS conferences are going away because less iOS developers
have the money to spend on conferences?

------
angarg12
This article seems to be based on observations about Apple-centric
conferences, is it true for the broader industry, though?

I work in DevOps and, if anything, DevOps conferences seem to be popping
around like mushrooms. Maybe it's related more to the popularity of an
specific topic, than that of conferences themselves.

------
kgilpin
I’m hoping that, along the lines of the article, not only are conferences
fading in relevance and popularity but business travel itself will start to
become obsolete.

Business travel is incredibly expensive and inefficient, it’s polluting, and
it has a negative impact on people’s health, well-being, and family life.

~~~
ghaff
Overall, both conferences and business travel are very healthy. They're not
declining overall.

------
empthought
This idea is pretty old.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference)

------
ghaff
As a general statement, this post doesn't fit with what I personally observe.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I attend a lot of events and many of these are
growing between 20 and 100% year-over-year. Maybe iOS is down for some
specific reasons such as it's no longer the new thing.

I'd also say that there's been a big increase in Meetups generally. These
aren't conferences per se but I could see them cutting into conferences in
areas where there are a lot of them.

------
jmkd
Newsgeist.org has an incredibly productive approach to conferences.

1\. Invite-only. Any attendee can recommend a future attendee to be invited,
so this is not about elitism rather that attendees add to to a two-way
conversation, not simply sit and receive information.

2\. Unconference format. On the first night everyone sits down to dinner,
figures out the most important topics to discuss, and volunteers themselves to
lead or join workshops on the topic. The conference schedule only comes into
being on the first day.

3\. Suburban location. The venues are invariably 40-60 minutes outside a major
city, easy for international guests, yet harder for attendees to wander off
into the city during the day (or even at night).

4\. Free to attend. The events are sponsored by Google and The Knight
Foundation who do a pretty good job of hanging back, being supportive and not
imposing any agenda. Attendee costs are limited to travel and accommodation.

5\. Weekend timing. Starting on a Friday ending on a Sunday ensures an
informal approach and gets people out of their work and home comfort zones.

6\. Werewolf. Daytime discussions invariably merge into dinner and then on to
organised games of Werewolf to the late hours, hugely increasing camaraderie,
intensity, socialization, truth-telling (eventually) and so on.

~~~
phireal
Honestly, this sounds awful to me.

1\. Invite-only increases the likelihood of an echo chamber, in my mind. I go
to conferences to find out about things that arean't already on my radar.

2\. This approach means only topics championed by those loud enough to speak
up are discussed. There's no possibility for niche topics to get an airing if
noone else knows anything about them since there's less likely to be a
consensus to add them to the agenda.

3\. One of the best aspects of attending a conference in my mind is the
ability to combine it with a bit of tourism. I suppose that's a personal
preference.

4\. That's good for now, but when Google an The Knight Foundation stop
supporting it, who's going to pay?

5\. This is terrible. Work is for the week, weekends are my time and my work
does not get to encroach on that.

6\. Great, so at the end of the day, I can't even relax in the hotel room. So
the next day, I'm wiped before we even start.

~~~
jmkd
> 1\. Invite-only increases the likelihood of an echo chamber, in my mind.

They have a great approach to recommend inviting surprising and unexpected
people. I don't work in publishing or journalism and have been twice, for
example.

> 2\. This approach means only topics championed by those loud enough to speak
> up are discussed.

Same is surely true of topics presented on stages. The organisers of Newsgeist
make a serious effort to unearth unusual perspectives, partly through the
invite-list. Last year I debated themes with an Icelandic politician, an NYT
journalist and Jimmy Wales - there's no consensus from specialism occurring
there.

>4\. That's good for now, but when Google an The Knight Foundation stop
supporting it, who's going to pay?

Great question of course, this approach falls apart.

> 5\. This is terrible. Work is for the week, weekends are my time and my work
> does not get to encroach on that.

To attract a mix of industry leaders the mix of weekday / weekend days is a
pragmatic choice.

> 6\. Great, so at the end of the day, I can't even relax in the hotel room.
> So the next day, I'm wiped before we even start.

It's all voluntary of course! And fascinating to observe if not participating.
There are plenty of early birds who skip the late hours, or meet up for
jogging at 6am.

> Honestly, this sounds awful to me.

The events can be very intense and tiring in the short term. That's because
real things are happening, difficult issues are actually being resolved,
voices are listened to and progress gets made. Ultimately they are seriously
energising, and not for people who sit at the back or like to take time off
for sightseeing.

~~~
phireal
> They have a great approach to recommend inviting surprising and unexpected
> people. I don't work in publishing or journalism and have been twice, for
> example.

Fair enough.

> Same is surely true of topics presented on stages.

In my line of work (science) the topics are submitted ahead of the conference
and then relevant papers/talks are submitted to each of those. As such, anyone
is able to propose a topic so long as they can justify its inclusion.

> To attract a mix of industry leaders the mix of weekday / weekend days is a
> pragmatic choice.

I'm not sure I understand why industry leaders are more likely to attend if
it's at the weekend. Surely if it's their industry, it's part of their work
and so they can come during the work week.

> It's all voluntary of course!

In principle, at least. Of course, if a lot of important decisions are being
make the in voluntary evening activities, then those that choose not to or
can't go to the evening events are at a disadvantage. Point taken about early
birds.

All that said, I can definitely see the benefit of organised social
activities.

> That's because real things are happening, difficult issues are actually
> being resolved, voices are listened to and progress gets made.

This sounds awfully like the tag line for some startup.

> people who sit at the back or like to take time off for sightseeing

An interest in sightseeing or a quieter demeanor is not mutually exclusive of
valuable contributions.

------
Tepix
Well, I'm very much looking forward to FOSDEM two weeks from now. It doesn't
suffer from the high prices either - it's free.

------
teebot
I feel that I get much more connections and information out of small local
meetups than big conferences. In a small local meetup I'll occasionally pop my
laptop open and start geeking out on some new tech with another attendee. Big
conferences feel too corporate and impersonal to me.

The ticket price of the biggest conferences is reaching absurd levels too.

------
farnsworthy
I'm not sure about some of the reasoning in this article. Perhaps the author
is referring to a particular sort of conference, with which he is most
familiar?

Would an appropriate analogy be the era of stadium rock concerts, versus
smaller, more intimate venues (and the economics of one versus the other)?

------
drej
It's very expensive for me to go to a conference, because there are very few
in our region, so most of the cost is travel and forgone revenue due to time
off work. Luckily, we have a thriving meetup community, with different
companies hosting these every other week or so. Obviously, these are not
conference quality gatherings, but you still get all the networking and in-
person lectures, all at a cost of a bus fare.

For conference talks, I just watch YouTube recordings. The good thing there is
that you can skip irrelevant parts, rewatch interesting bits and, last but not
least, multitask. I watch most conference talks while working out.

------
megaman22
The whole point of conferences is to be a paid vacation junket, no? Sure,
there's usually some training and networking and marketting of products tied
in. But there's a reason they are often hosted in Las Vegas or Orlando.

~~~
djhworld
Vegas is probably the only place that has the capacity to host 30,000+
attendees of the big conferences, e.g. AWS Re:Invent

~~~
x0rg
But does it still make sense to have conferences so big? re:invent is so big
it is extremely hard to actually attend sessions and there are logistics
problems like sessions being in different far away locations. Small
conferences seems usually more useful to actually connect with people that
those kind of massive events.

~~~
ghaff
It makes sense for the companies involved. If someone is attending primarily
just to go to sessions, then no. (Although if you're just going for the
sessions, I'm not sure most conferences really make sense.)

------
moxious
Conferences also exist to concentrate people so that vendors can market and
sell. I don't think that will go out of style. Add person to person
networking, people's desire to get a break from work...

------
mcbits
Although I've never been to a developer conference in person, probably a
majority of my YouTube time is listening to conference talks that are the best
(or only) multimedia available about a topic. They do seem to give certain
people the motivation to put together presentations that they aren't finding
elsewhere. (Err, motivation that they aren't finding elsewhere.)

I hope that either conferences survive or the experience of self-producing
multimedia content can somehow evolve to fill the motivation void that would
be left behind.

------
ilamont
I worked for a company that (among other things) organized multiday tech
conferences aimed at IT managers at large companies. I was surprised to learn
how low the margins were. The top conferences were selling well, and had big-
name sponsors at different tiers, yet one year the P&L for the group showed a
profit in the low single digits.

I later learned that the cost structure was high, and some of the events
(particularly less established events or those with lots of competition)
struggled to get signups.

~~~
jasonjayr
Venues + supporting services, are obnoxiously expensive too. My company works
closely with conference organizers, and I've seen a quote that was in the
mid-5 figures, for 4 days of internet access (and related network services).
This was for data services to meeting rooms + conference wifi for about 5k-7k
attendees.

------
cf
There are ideas that only get expressed in person. Either because they are
still a work in progress or because they are not interesting enough to warrant
a video or a blog post. Conferences are really great for learning about that
sort of stuff.

Additionally, most online communication is intrinsically asynchronous. It's
hard to have a chat online that's anywhere as fluid as what happens in person.
Even the flurry of twitter replies doesn't quite compare.

------
reboog711
In my version of the world, podcasts and YouTube video tutorials were alive
and thriving 10 years ago; I'm not sure why they would suddenly kill
conferences.

------
jedanbik
Conferences can be a great way to meet world renowned experts in your field,
ask them questions, and network with them.

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Dowwie
I enjoy meeting people and learning about what kind of work they do. What I've
found is that some of the best opportunities to have a meaningful conversation
is during meals. Flights, too. It's a small world full of interesting people.

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maxsavin
> I don’t know how to fix conferences, but the first place I’d start on that
> whiteboard is by getting rid of all of the talks, then trying to find
> different ways to bring people together — and far more of them than before.

It’s called Burning Man

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_mrmnmly
I think that there will be more conferences about mixed technologies, such as
PolyConf (before: RuPy) - these days people want to broaden their knowledge
behind known technologies and see how others work.

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taikahessu
Open Space anyone?

[http://www.openspaceworld.org/files/tmnfiles/2pageos.htm](http://www.openspaceworld.org/files/tmnfiles/2pageos.htm)

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douglaswlance
Conferences will move to VR. There's no reason to invest so much time in
traveling when you will be able to get 90% of the benefit in VR within 5
years.

~~~
thijsvandien
I already get 90% of the benefits watching the talks on YouTube, so for me
that would be 90% of 10%.

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mar77i
how about developer camps: let's go outside in the wild and find a spot -
close enough to the next transformer station so people can charge their many
batteries. It would be like other festivals, except likely less alcohol,
procedurally generated music, hiking, socializing, hacking. I'd be so in on
this.

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fbunau
To me conferences are more like concerts.

After you know all the albums and songs, you go there just so see the artist
live

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juskrey
Sufficiently large conference can kill any discipline.

