Making conferences work

2014-11-26

The past two years I’ve had this rule to not attend conferences where I’m not speaking. I decided to try it for a year, found that it worked for me, and now I’m sticking to it, more or less.

Conferences are fundamentally broken. The sessions are almost always too long, the speakers are almost always poorly chosen, and the diversity is almost always nonexistent. This makes for long days where you come out tired and worn, instead of energized and enlightened. Whatever great talk or insight that were hiding in there, it’ll probably drown in the noise.

I propose the following guidelines for making conferences work.

The notion that we can stay interested and sharp for a full day is ridiculous. Better to have shorter events, and leave room for talking and processing as a group, in a natural environment such as a restaurant or lounge bar.

I’d gladly participate in such a conference.