A guide to using kindness to elevate your conference experience.

Get your sticker collections, backup batteries and ironic nerd mashup
t-shirts ready, because it’s tech conference season!

We’re gearing up for one of our favorite conferences of the year, and
we’ve been spending a lot of time discussing what it means to have an
amazing conference experience. We’re incredibly stoked to see
our favorite thought leaders, community gurus and internet celebs BLOW
OUR MINDS with the new hotness and poignant epiphanies, but to
properly set expectations, that is not what this article is about.

If you’ve got your ticket secured, you or your company
has invested in the opportunity to
create shared experiences with strangers from all over the world who
happen to be passionate about the same things you are. You’ve pressed
pause on your life and traveled far from home to connect, grow and
recharge your techie batteries. You are here to be inspired to
innovate and to uncover new opportunities for yourself or for your company.

Conferences are about community and community is all about
participation. If you are attending a conference strictly for the
speaker line up, you will likely have a better experience streaming
the conference from home. You’ll definitely get a better seat. But, if you
want to fly home feeling like you just had the best three days of your
life, after a whirlwind of fascinating interactions with people you
once called strangers and now call friends, you have the conference
spirit and it’s time to supercharge your experience.

Let’s back up a bit.

In a past life, before my development career, I was a sales rep for a
large tech company. Once or twice a year, the company’s 700 or so
sales and vendor reps from all over the country would converge on
Austin for a three day Carnaval of hyper-charged networking events
that included extravagant parties, loud showboating at awards shows,
loads of vendor swag, and lots and lots of people who lived life at
a completely different pace than I did.

I spent a good amount of time at these events hiding in the restroom,
recharging my introvert batteries so that I could put my extrovert
mask back on. I’d then wade back into the crowd with a crazed smile painted
on my face, feeling both overstimulated and exhausted at the same
time. Sometimes I just stayed in my hotel room instead of going
to the evening events.

It was only after several of these conferences that I finally figured
out where my limits were, what my goals for the conference were, and
how I could be empowered to avoid the things that exhausted me, so I could
focus on the parts that were incredibly fun, inspiring and
rewarding. I learned that I needed to be much more intentional with my
time and energy.

Participation Over Observation

What worked for me was the decision to be a participant, not just an
observer. When I was intentional about participating, I felt in
control and was able to keep my energy up and my interactions
positive. Each positive interaction fed into the next, inoculating me
against the occasional not so awesome interaction. I left those events
feeling like I was on top of the world. I learned there was a formula
I could follow to dramatically enhance my experience and improve the
opportunities I came away with after the conference.

I’ve followed this formula at tech meet-ups and conferences for
the past three years. It’s required very little tweaking. What
was once a survival mechanism for me and has now evolved into an
empowerment tool I use to forge strong connections with people who
might be my next client, hire or boss. It’s required very little
tweaking because it’s based on something pretty constant – sales. And
sales is based on humans.

You are a sales rep.

Face it, when you attend a conference, you are selling. This truth is
scary for a lot of people in our industry. Sales sounds
like something reserved for the
pathologically extroverted among us. Luckily, it’s a myth that you
have to be incredibly outgoing to be a successful salesperson. It may
help you get started, but it is not how you close a deal. You can’t
get someone to buy something by tricking them or by intimidating
them into cracking open a checkbook. You’ve probably hung up on that
sales person. They probably get hung up on a lot. And that’s because
sales is an exercise in investigation. It’s the art of uncovering the
intersection between someone else’s needs and something you can
offer. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to watch a skilled
salesperson work their magic, you may have discovered that they do
significantly less talking than you might expect. Most of their words
are likely leaving their mouth in the form of questions.

While you may not be pushing products at a conference, you are
peddling memorable experiences and positive impressions. Impressions
that may lead to your next hire, your next client, or your next job
opportunity. You’re selling the idea that you are someone others would
like to work with. You’re selling the idea that you would be great to
sit next to all day and someone who would be fun to collaborate with.

If this is not your first conference rodeo, you probably remember
that guy that seemed like he knew and was adored by everyone at
the conference. He was invited to do everything and was everywhere
you went. While it may be true that this person naturally has some
genetic defect that makes them fearless or has been sprinkled with
some kind of unicorn magic, it is far more likely that they have just
figured out the formula. It’s a formula that will likely keep them
gainfully employed for the rest of their working life, regardless of
their objective level of technical skill, and it’s surprisingly
straightforward.

Focus your energy on making someone else’s day better. Do that with every* person you meet.

This sounds fluffy, and it is. I’ve distilled it down into a mantra
that I can repeat to myself when I walk into a big room filled with
strangers. It’s just a rephrasing of exactly what sales is:
Uncover what someone else needs and figure out what you have to
meet that need. The implementation of this mantra is what I
call The Formula. Sometimes I use all of these tools and sometimes I
just choose pieces for a specific setting. It took me a while to
work up to using the entire list. I recommend trying out
one or two that feel most comfortable at first and see how your
experience changes. Then, try a few more.

The Formula

Part 1 - Setting the Stage

1. Wave hello.

The conference you are attending almost certainly has some social
media channels associated with it. A couple days before a conference,
start to make your presence known on social media by sending a message
about how excited you are to be going to the conference. Thank the
organizers or share helpful tips for getting to the venue or finding
parking. Share a good place to eat that you discovered. Mention people
you are excited to meet up with. Establish yourself as a friendly and
welcoming person and people will be significantly more likely to reach
out to you or be brave enough to walk up to you. Something that often
gets overlooked is that your social media picture should be an
actual recent picture of yourself. It’s
how people find you in person or friend you after a positive
interaction.

2. Make an itinerary.

Come up with a list of things you want to do or see while you’re at
the conference. Pick out the talks you want to be sure to see, and
pick some times to break off into the “Hallway Track.” Some of the
best interactions you can have at a conference take place in the
quieter lulls when most people are watching talks. The Hallway Track
offers a smaller pool of people to converse with. Find several
restaurants, bars, after hours events, and recreation spots you’d like
to visit. When people are huddled together after talks trying to
decide on a place to go, offer an assertive choice. You’ll get to do
what you wanted to do, and people will appreciate that they didn’t
have to play the “I don’t know, what do you want to do” game. It also
gives you an easy way to invite the people you’ve had good
interactions with to share specialized experiences with you.

3. Wear a costume.

This is an old sales trick. The Formula is about pushing past your
comfort zone. Being outside your comfort zone can be incredibly
exhausting. It’s actually incredibly difficult for most humans not to
dwell on what people think of you. You are intentionally putting
yourself in a vulnerable position. I’ve had a lot of success with
costumes. This doesn’t mean you should parade about in a feather boa
or a mask. It just has to be something that lets you be a little bit
of someone else while you’re trying to overcome being more of
yourself. Sometimes, this is just a different hairstyle for me, or a new
pair of shoes, or wearing something that reminds me of someone I
love. It helps me get into my extrovert character, when my comfort
zone would be to quietly sit in the back row.

Part 2 - Finding Positive Interactions

1. Ask, don’t tell.

Small talk is the single hardest and most exhausting part of meeting
new people. The trick to making it through this uncomfortable part of
an interaction is to power through it with questions. Remind yourself
that your goal is to figure out who this person is, what their goals
are and what stands between them and achieving those goals. Your goal
is not to impress them. You actually have very little control over
that part. What you do have control over is your level of engagement
with this new person. People are interested in people who are
interested in them. People like people who like them. Asking someone
about what’s important to them is the best and fastest way to have a
positive interaction. In a good interaction, that person will
reciprocate and ask you about what’s important to you.

Not everyone is going to be open to interacting with you, and that is
totally okay. Your goal is to give them the opportunity to engage with
you. If they don’t reciprocate or you don’t feel like it is going to
be a positive interaction, it is perfectly okay to move on to speaking
with someone else. Try not to take it personally. It’s pretty
difficult to tease out why someone might not want to talk to you. The
best part about conferences is that there are a whole lot of
people. The next person you speak to is probably going to be open to a
conversation.

2. Be the includer.

This is my favorite tool. It’s easier for some than others, and that’s
okay. Give it a try and see how it goes. If you’ve been in a
particular industry for a while, it can be very tempting to spend most
of your time at a conference with people you already know. You should
definitely spend some time hanging out with the people you know and
like, but you should also be actively figuring out how to connect
those people with others you know – or better yet, with nice people
you just met. Sit down at a table with people you don’t know. Invite
someone that is sitting alone to sit with you. Invite people to go do
something fun via social media. The more people you connect, the more
those people will connect you with others. The best part is that if
those people were nice, it’s likely that the people they introduce you
to will also be nice.

Satistically, any time you are at an event with a lot of people,
some minor subset of those people are not nice people. If someone
engages you and you do not feel safe or they make you feel inferior
or ashamed, quickly break that engagement and find someone else to
talk to. If you see someone else having a bad interaction, offer
them a safe escape and invite them to join you.

3. Play the yes game.

You’ve just a couple of days to soak up as many opportunities and
experiences as possible. If you’re lucky enough to be offered an
invitation and you don’t have an incredibly compelling reason to turn
it down (unmovable conflict, you feel unsafe or you do not trust the
person inviting you), say yes. It helps to think of this as a game. It
will encourage you to try something you might otherwise bow out
of. I’m a little scared of hack sessions. I play the yes game and I
make myself go at conferences. It has always ended up being super
fun. Bring a buddy if you are feeling timid! It’s a perfect
opportunity to be an includer. These invitations are almost always
where the greatest opportunities are hiding.

Part 3 - Reinforcing Positive Interactions

1. Reward bravery.

Remind yourself that everyone you meet at a conference is being
brave. If someone is brave enough to come talk to you, engage them! If
you are lucky enough to get to talk to one of the speakers or
organizers, thank them for the time and effort they poured into
sharing something they care about with you. Publicly praising the
brave people you’ve talked to on social media is a great way to
reinforce the confidence needed to take risks and be brave.

2. Follow up.

Conferences are a whirlwind tour. Everyone you meet has met hundreds
of people in a matter of days. If you uncovered an opportunity, don’t
wait to follow up. Before you go to sleep each night, queue up emails
or social media touches to follow up with the people you met. Say
thank you to the people that helped make your experience great. If
someone offered you advice or encouraged you to try something new,
reach back out to them to let them know you followed their advice and
what the outcome was.

Community is about participation.

Conferences are about community, and community is all about
participation. Participation happens on a spectrum. If you are attending your
first conference or you’re just working up to making the jump from
spectator to participant, assess your limits. Don’t go gangbusters on
your first try. Pick a few strategies that sound like they might be in
your wheelhouse and make that your first step. If those work well for
you, try something you’re a little more uncomfortable with. If all you
can manage is to be kind to the people that talk to you, you’ve done
your part to help build a positive community. If you can help one or
two or twenty people have a wonderful conference experience, you’ll
walk away with some fantastic new contacts, some inspiring new ideas,
enhanced confidence and perhaps a solid professional opportunity or
two.

I’m Lydia Guarino (@lydiaguarino on twitter), and I build UI for a living at The Frontside. If you enjoyed this, I’d love to hear from you.

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