Stefan Wolpers's List: Conferences

I’ve been asking around on email and on the social networks what makes a conference memorable, special, or amazing.  This topic has my special interest, not only because I attend between 20-25 conferences per year, but also because I’m trying to help make the DARE 2013 conference in Antwerp, Belgium a great experience.

B2B Blogger’s Guide To Turning Tweets Into Rockstar Conference Coverage

If you’re anything like me, you have a giant stack of business cards you’ve accumulated at conferences and events somewhere in your office. I’ve got two such stacks, and I never contacted the majority of the people in them, nor do I remember anything about who they were or why (even if!) they were interesting.

When you’re deciding whether to attend a conference, and you’re checking out the website, what do you consider? Most likely, you’ll look at the program, searching for names you know and session titles that describe compelling topics.

I spend 80% of my time now writing books and giving speeches. As you can imagine, I get a lot of speaking requests. Usually, the prep and the people I work with in organizations are great. But every once in a while -- ok, actually more often than that -- I'm surprised or disappointed in some of the actions of the people who want to hire me. It's little things. Much like asking for help in an email, asking somebody to give a speech is far more likely to succeed if you understand how speakers work and what they're looking for.

The web conference circuit is increasingly crowded and covers a wide range of topics. Unless you're Robert Scoble, you probably don't get to attend all of the events that you'd like. Even with the events you do attend, you likely won't see all of the sessions you'd planned to (cough, SXSW!). Fortunately, there are a number of web services and sites which give you access to much of the content of a conference, whether you attend or not.