Some time ago I had a brief discussion with my friend about going to conferences in groups. Why company should send three, four or five people to a single event. They’ll find all the same things there. It’s a waste of money spent on conference fees, travel costs and accommodation, isn’t it?
I argued with that. Many examples came to my mind – all very similar. Several people coming out from a presentation chattering about what they’ve just heard. Lots and lots of brainstorming done there. Different concepts flying around, begging to exploit them. Sure, many of them quite stupid, but all fresh. Anyway, even not-so-clever concepts combined wisely with some other ideas can work. Lots of talking during evening pub race, sometimes even more fruitful than chats during conference brakes. All those things support creativity. All those things happen in groups. All those things request some fertilizer to grow and conferences are perfect fertilizer.
There is one more very important thing. You need time for all of that and time is something you usually lack. You have your everyday load of unplanned issues to resolve. You have a set of meetings you should attend. You have a list of urgent, but not especially important tasks to do. When you’re far away, on the conference, with a limited access to an inbox you’re suddenly freed from doing most of those things. You actually have time for brainstorming, discussions and being creative. If the event is longer than a day you have even more time because you don’t go home either. That’s not the coolest thing (although I know some who’d say it is), but it’s also a part of conferencing.
It was my point of view not so long ago. However, I had to do a little revision to it. It’s nice idea, but like everything in our professional life it’s all about people. Send a couple of visionaries to a boring conference and they’ll come back with a bunch of ideas. Send some craftsmen to Telecosm and they’ll treat it like a vacation in California. If you expect a magic of creativity will happen gather those who stand in the circle and chant spells. Don’t look here on roles people fulfill everyday – a plain developer can suit well in the process while a marketer can be useless. It’s all about people not roles.
If you’re able to gather some of your creative staff and send them to a conference (of course connected with the projects you work on) it shouldn’t be a waste of money, as far as the event isn’t exceptionally poor. For those who don’t know how to fish the conference is like getting a fish. You can get some information there, but you can get it in the internet also. On the other hand for those, who know how to fish the event is like fishing-rod – you never know what they’ll catch. Maybe nothing. Maybe something really stunning. Worth a try?
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