At some point, you may find yourself in a position where you are able to attend an industry conference. When this happens, with enough planning, you can leverage this conference to help advance your career.
At any conference, there will be panels, talks, and sessions by industry experts. These can help you understand upcoming changes to any regulations that apply to your industry. They can also offer new techniques and solutions to problems that you may have been facing. Often, the speakers also represent the companies that create the software commonly used in the industry and you can learn about new features that are coming to the tools that you use.
Before you travel to the conference, review the schedule of talks and identify the ones most relevant to your projects. Also talk with your leader and teammates to see if any of the presentations will cover topics that will benefit them. There will often be overlapping events, so identifying the most important sessions will let you plan your daily schedule. It will also let you identify alternative sessions so that if your primary session is full or underwhelming, you can attend a different presentation that will still provide some value.
During each presentation, make every effort to remove any distractions. Turn off the alerts from your phone. Position yourself where you can see anything projected on the screens as well as the presenter. Be sure to take notes of the most important points. Over the course of the conference, you will be hearing a lot of new information and it may be difficult to remember it all without good notes.
Beyond the opportunities for education, the other major activity at a conference is to network and socialize. Try to get to the conference city a day early so that you can attend any kick-off social events. Include time during your day to gather in the common areas and talk to attendees. Make a note of the speakers that had the most insightful talks and look for opportunities to connect with them outside of the meeting rooms; unless they are a major keynote speaker, they are usually excited to talk with conference attendees.
If this is not the first time you've attended this industry conference, reach out to everyone that you have met during previous years and arrange to meet with them again this year. This will strengthen these connections and allow you to compare notes on how others are progressing in your industry. Have them introduce you to others attending in order to grow your network faster.
If you are introverted, networking may not come easy to you. Take advantage of the quieter times in the conference when you can mingle in smaller groups. Leverage the fact that those attending the conference work in a similar field as you so there is a common topic for starting conversations. And when in doubt, stand next to someone who is outgoing and wait for them to bring you into their conversation.
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