Attending events is an opportunity to learn and connect with other professionals.
An event is an opportunity to open your mind to new ways of seeing the world.
Events also allow us to interact, deepen our learning, and expand our network of contacts.
An event can also be seen as an opportunity to connect with people who have similar challenges to ours, and to use that space to open ourselves up to solutions we never would have imagined on our own.
After a few years of attending various events, I think I’ve learned that it’s good to go with an idea of which talks I’d like to attend, what knowledge I hope to acquire, and with whom I’d like to interact before, during, and after the event.
In this post, I’ll share some reasons why I think it’s important to attend events and also a personal “checklist” that I created and review before going.
Why It’s Important to Attend Events
My experience is that daily life is really draining, and my main focus is on getting work done, and covering all my other obligations outside work.
That’s why I think events are so important.
- An event allows you to step back from your daily routine and open up to meeting other points of view and ways of working in a relaxed and casual manner.
- An event allows you to hear firsthand from people who are facing these challenges and understand what solutions they are finding to those challenges.
- An event also allows you to connect with other professionals who share your interests and understand the realities of their daily lives, which in turn allows you to open a door to their industries and the challenges they face.
In summary, events allow us to learn, connect, and have the space to reflect on different topics and ways of working.
How to Prepare for an Event
For many years, I didn’t do any “preparation” for events, and on the day of the event, I would chose the talks to attend without much thought.
Recently, I’ve created a “checklist” that might also help you make the most of the day to learn, connect, and reflect.
I share it in case you find it useful
- Review the event’s talks and choose which ones to attend:
- At large conferences, there are many speakers, and in some cases, many talks happening simultaneously.
- What I usually do before the event is review the talks that will take place and select the ones that interest me the most, considering which ones can contribute the most to me professionally.
- Once I’ve reviewed the possible talks, I mark the ones I’d like to attend and what I hope to learn, to later evaluate if the talk was worth it (or not).
- Bring something to take notes:
- On more than one ocasion, I’ve found myself taking notes on my phone’s notepad, which is quite uncomfortable.
- Bringing a notebook to take notes always helps, and it’s not like going to university to take notes.
- I usually also take photos of some of the slides that catch my attention.
- Connect with people:
- Some of the people on my list for this edition of LPC are Simón Muñoz, Álvaro Pérez Bello, or Antonio Aparicio Herrero.
- I’ve interacted with all of them digitally and am very eager to finally meet them in person
- Face my shyness:
- I say this consciously because I generally consider myself a shy person.
- At events, it’s time to face my shyness and approach the person I’d like to talk to and introduce myself.
- Do my best to enjoy the day:
- Being able to take the day to learn, connect, and chat with new people is always exciting.
- Although my shyness makes for some stressful moments, I do my best to let the shyness be there and push myself to connect with new people, enjoy the moment, and often reconnect with people I haven’t seen in a while.
- Do my best to keep the relationship alive:
- If I’ve met someone interesting at the conference, I do my best to keep in touch and build a relationship to contribute to that person and also be able to ask for help on my side in the future and thus learn from this new contact.
- If I’ve met someone interesting at the conference, I do my best to keep in touch and build a relationship to contribute to that person and also be able to ask for help on my side in the future and thus learn from this new contact.
- Write down the lessons learned:
- I have a space within my personal Notion where I write down my “product learnings,” as well as books and courses I could take, and people I want to follow.
- I take the weekend after the event to reflect on what I’ve learned and in which specific areas I could delve deeper.
- Often, I’m quite explicit in asking for help or advice on how to expand my knowledge, and many times the responses I’ve received have been extremely useful.
- If there’s a lesson I think can be applied at work, I usually find time to talk about these learnings with my manager.
- Set myself homework:
- Once I’ve taken note of the learnings, I ask myself the following question: “With all that you’ve learned, what steps do you need to take to continue learning?”
- Generally, the answer comes in the form of a book I need to read, a course I need to take, or a person I want to meet for coffee.
- This last point is important to me because sometimes the problem with conferences is that they end up being “a relaxed day out of the office,” and that’s it.
- I don’t cut off what I’m studying either, but I put it on the learning list, which often gets reordered based on what I learned at the conference.
Conclusions
Breaking out of routine and making the economic and time effort is often worth it.
Events allow us to understand other points of view on how to work, sometimes even giving us a glimpse into the future, connect with other professionals, and create new connections that may open opportunities for collaboration in the future.
Although it might be challenging, I encourage you not to stay home and sign up for events to learn and connect with other professionals.