7 thoughts on Surviving #BigCONFERENCE

Last week, I spent three days at the 23rd FIT World Congress in Geneva. It was a genuine pleasure to attend and speak at the event. There were also lots of opportunities to interact and network with other participants from around the world – usually my contacts are at national or European level. As a multi-stream conference, there was a lot of programme flexibility.

I know that I have a conference persona. However, attending a large multi-day conference requires me to leave my comfort zone and engage with far more people than on a typical day in the office. It’s probably part of my need to “come to the party” as well as my mantra to “always be curious“. However, it remains draining in cognitive and sensory terms.

1. Cognitive and sensory overload. Under my ongoing tinnitus management plan, I have to carefully manage the situation. I find exposure to unexpected noise very demanding. Top class sound technology does mean fewer acoustic feedback issues (shrill shrieks, short crackles, or mobile phone signal interference). However, post-pandemic, I’ve attended numerous “boutique” conferences (small, specialist, chic!) so Geneva was the first one of its scale with a very high sensory load.
   I’m no longer afraid to skip the odd session or to pick the sessions I attend. If I attend with friends or colleagues, we tend to split up and I often attend smaller sessions. I catch up on looking up takeaways from sessions in breaks in a quiet corner. I also have Loop and Flare earplugs with me – and use them to filter out some sound.
2. Arrive early and recce: I arrive at the venue early for the security check and check out the various rooms. Even though I had a map in the event app, I still familiarised myself with the respective rooms. I take the opportunity to work out where to sit (e.g. not next to/under a speaker). At work, I also man the console for hybrid meetings – to ensure that the overall volume of the meeting is not to loud. Sometimes I will also retreat to my desk and log in hybrid, even if I am physically in the office.
3. Take five minutes outside at the start or end of networking breaks. While others storm coffee/tea breaks, I take five minutes outside to reduce noise exposure. On a couple of occasions, I stayed in the auditoria after the end of sessions, as they were quieter. With staggered lunch times, sometimes going in later is a bonus, as you can have a quieter lunch.

1. Have some me time too: When I registered back in April, I actively chose not to attend the conference dinner, because of the sensory overload. Instead I opted to go for private drinks and dinner in town. Me time becomes more necessary when I reach my sound limit. I also went out just after sunrise on the Saturday for a walk along the lake and found some geocaches. And I took a closer look at the lighthouse. I got back for breakfast and packing before heading back to the conference for the opening session. I often stay away from conference hotels, to allow me a quieter breakfast or to avoid the temptation of late nights chatting in the hotel bar. There are also days where I really enjoy a quiet breakfast on my own.
2. Arrange to chat with a fixed person at a fixed time. The overload of small talk can get too much, so instead of queueing to speak to someone, I often arrange to catch up with them over lunch or break between sessions. I did make a concerted effort to catch with some people at specific times. I also took the opportunity to catch up with a locally-based translator one evening away from the conference. I find that it is good to have some anchor points in what is otherwise a less structured day than usual.
3. Question and connect: I often ask questions in sessions and use the question to connect with speakers via LinkedIn afterwards. I try to have a question for every session, and write them down. If I don’t ask the question in the session, I follow-up via LinkedIn or at a break. I hand out a lot of business cards, and naturally also make a lot of connection requests. I also take sticky notes and paper notebooks for note-taking – even though I do also travel with a laptop and a tablet. I have also become quite fond of filing cards: they are great for asking questions – which I try to keep as short as possible.
4. Make your slides legible. I used to have quite colourful slides, but now tend to opt for a very simple slidedeck – ditching animations and reducing the number of graphics. I also have tried to make them less text-dense – to talk more freely and not reading my slides. Another thing I have been doing for a year or so has been to have a password-protected section on my website for downloading my slides as well as to include notes, links and extra resources for participants. I was very impressed with one presenter’s linking to resources with QR codes, which could be a further idea for the future.

I am looking forward to two more conferences this month – one as a panellist and another one I am helping to organise. They will smaller affairs – and then next month I have a couple of webinar presentations. I’m already looking forward to presenting at further conferences next year.