Going to a new conference is a bit like signing a rookie to his first NHL contract. He’s not going to pay many immediate dividends, but may prove very productive in the long term. To get the most out of your rookie, you have to keep him under contract. To get the most out of a conference, you have to keep going back.
Conferences, by their very nature, attract a particular group of people. Because they enjoy each other, a core group tends to attend year after year. It usually takes several years to meet and build relationships with everybody at the conference.
This has been my exact experience going to Gnomedex. I’ve been three times. The first Gnomedex, I hardly knew anybody and only knew of a few people. I was a bit of a wallflower, tried to get the lay of the land, and only met a few people. The next year, however, those people I’d met the previous year helped me expand my Gnomedex network.
It’s one of those ‘and she told two friends’ things. The more people you know at a conference, they more people you’ll meet. Your concentric orbit grows larger:
I figure this tops out at some point, because you get the know the majority of attendees fairly well. After a certain point (year 3 in the above diagram), you only meet a few new people each year.
At Web of Change, my year 1 set is probably bigger than other conferences because:
- It’s a pretty long conference
- It’s pretty socially intense
Being a noob to the conference and the sector, I did my best to keep my mouth shut in sessions, meet as many people as I could, and tried not to embarass myself. My results, I’m sure, were mixed.
If you like, you can see all 66 of my Web of Change photos. My favourite might be this macro shot of a starfish.
Tag, tag, mo, mag: woc2006 webofchange
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