Attending Conferences From Your Armchair

There’s a conference going on this week that I’ve been eyeing for a few months.  It’s at a fantastic location, knowledgeable speakers are lined up, and killer content is being delivered that would absolutely help my business.   So knowing all of this, why am I still at home?  I have the same excuse that I am sure many people have: not enough time and not enough money.  Assuming I could overcome those two things, I can’t forget the fact that I was just in this fantastic location two weeks ago (my husband surely won't).  In any case, I’m sitting at home while the event gets underway.

But I’m not that upset about it.  Yes, I’m missing out on the face to face stuff and that is incredibly important, but I’ve got a way to still reap some conference benefits and participate, and it’s kind of nice that I don't have to leave my house.  And since I know that lots of people don’t get to attned every conference they want too either, I thought I’d share.

What’s your purpose?  Why this one?

This isn't an existential question, but why were you thinking about attending this conference to begin with?  Information?  Networking? Promotion?  Fun?   Probably a bit of all of the above, but if you were considering an investment of your time, money and energy, more than likely you were hoping to walk away with ideas and strategies that you can leverage in some aspect of your life/business.  It's helpful to parse that purpose down to be as specific as possible.  Maybe you wanted to learn some social media strategies or network with some people that you only get to interact with virtually.  Whatever it is, it helps to articulate it.

Then there’s homework

You’ve probably done a lot of this anyway in your research when you were making the decision if you were going to attend the conference or not, but it’s time to go revisit the conference website and do some more digging.  Take some notes and then make a list around:

• Speakers you wanted to see
• Sessions you wanted to attend (these should specifically link back to the purpose you identified)

Then you go visit every speaker’s website, find and follow them on Twitter, check out their LinkedIn profiles, and see where else they are appearing in social media channels.  Find out what good content they are already giving away for free.  Do this for the speakers of the sessions you wanted to attend as well, going deep on those you've never heard of before.  What are they talking about?  Do they have eBooks, videos, or webinars available on their site? 

If they were asked to speak at the conference, it is going to be on a topic that they are known for, so there is a good chance you can find out a lot about them and what they think about the topic on their website.  Don't forget to do a little Goolge- you may find guest posts, articles, and interviews from the speakers too.

You should be able to glean several actionable items related to your purpose from this research, and you have hopefully made some new contacts.

The conference begins

This is where things get fun.  Every conference I’m seeing these days has a Twitter hashtag associated that is tracking conversation about it.  Most of the people doing the talking are the people at the conference.  Remember all those people you started following?   You want to be actively monitoring Twitter during conference days because the chatter alone should offer up useful nuggets, and you get to see how other people are reacting to the information being presented. 

You may also get lucky and see links to live sessions.  (extra super bonus)  Pay special attention during the times that the sessions are going on that you were interested in so you can see if anyone is tweeting from in those sessions.  It’ll be dizzying, but fun at the same time because you have a chance to interact with the attendees and ask questions (which will give you the feel of participating, albeit virtually).

After the conference is over

Don’t be afraid to send a note to the conference organizers and see if there is a way to get access to the presentations or the subset of presentations that you were interested in.  Most will probably limit access to conference attendees, but there may be a paid subscription option that allows you access as well.  If you don't ask, you'll never know.

So I'll be glued to Twitter this week following the going-ons at the conference I can't attend, and I've already bought my virtual ticket for access to all of the conference presentations (being distributed online post-conference).  I feel good that I'm going to pull a lot of good nuggest of information out that I can use, and this is going to help me decide if I should be saving my funds to attend in person next year. (a win-win for sure!)

What do you think of armchair conference attending?  Do you have any tips for boosting value/participation?

(photo credit by derekGavey)

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