We asked the egghead community on Twitter for their best tips on how to make sure you get the most of out meetups and conferences. We wanted to share those answers with the DEV community!
egghead.io@eggheadio
What do you do to make sure you get the most out of conferences and meetups?22:50 PM - 04 Mar 2020
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1) Get out of your comfort zone.
Domitrius@domitriusclark@eggheadio Try your best to get out of your comfort zone. It's scary, but necessary to talk to people you don't know and get involved in the conversation.
Speakers are a great place to start for conversation as you'll find people with similar conversation and questions around them.23:49 PM - 04 Mar 2020
2) Try to connect with people before the event.
@eggheadio Join a slack or discord prior to attending. Connect with someone in leadership that's cool before going. Say hello and introduce yourself.
At the event don't talk over people, truly listen and find one or a handful of friends.
Share Twitter handles and ❤ their cool tweets.23:31 PM - 04 Mar 2020
3) Network for knowledge transfer.
@eggheadio Network with those I’m around. An extremely underrated benefit of attending and truly what separates them from other forms of knowledge transfer.22:52 PM - 04 Mar 2020
4) Focus meeting people over the talks.
Nino Stephen@_ninostephen_@eggheadio Don't listen to talks. They will be on YouTube anyway. Go around and meet people and get some swags 😁02:41 AM - 05 Mar 2020
5) Bring a friend to make you more comfortable.
Adam Griffiths@ardliath@eggheadio Try to go with people I know. Despite what many people who work with me may think I’m a massive introvert. And I’m better if I take my friends with me instead of having to make new ones in a strange place23:25 PM - 04 Mar 2020
6) Congratulate the speakers.
@eggheadio I take notes.
Networking is definitely a main goal in such events.
I usually go to congratulate the speakers even if I don't have anything super smart to ask them. Sometimes it springs interesting conversation. If not, at least I get to show my (genuine) appreciation.04:52 AM - 05 Mar 2020
7) Don't be in a rush.
@eggheadio Don’t rush to network. Eventually get connected to two three people. Usually such connections come out to be more fruitful.05:22 AM - 05 Mar 2020
8) Takes note then share them later.
Anton Kazakov@antonkazakov@eggheadio I take notes of the most useful talks and then shortly re-tell the talk internally for the tech department or my team. This way they also learn new stuff and I remember the important content way better.05:49 AM - 05 Mar 2020
9) Make sketch notes
Chris Spalton@chrisspalton@eggheadio Make #sketchnotes, retain more, learn more, share more, connect more. All the good stuff :)22:57 PM - 04 Mar 2020
10) Focus on what's being presented
Helmut Granda@helmutgranda@eggheadio Put the laptop away and focus on what is being shared, unless it is a workshop in which it is required to use a computer otherwise too many people I have seen are just browsing while the presenter is sharing, some of these presenters have been presenting for months!23:04 PM - 04 Mar 2020
Hope these tips are helpful for you! Our twitter community is very helpful. Give us a follow to get tips in real-time!
Discussion (5)
Great advice! Getting out of the comfort zone is a big one for many of us, myself included. Don't get too shy or nervous that you forget to smile, too! That one little thing makes it a lot easier to find new friends and connections.
Thanks Clifton! You’re the small things can make a big difference
I usually before meetups write down the most important subjects and things that are important to be talked.
Then prioritize them so as to get the most of it, if the time is limited.
By the way, thank you for sharing.
Having #4 combined with #8 and #10 doesn't increase the level of coherence :D
That’s the beauty of being human. We have all our favorite ways of doing things. 😎