Tips for tackling large tech conferences
My clumsy Kubecon Chicago experience and the things I learned from it
Fumbling around my first large conference in Chicago
I have only recently transitioned from an engineering role into a developer relations (DevRel) position and I am still figuring things out. As a DevRel one of my duties is to engage with the community and going to conferences to see what others are working on and especially to meet people.
This is the first huge conference I’ve ever been to (I’ve been to medium and smaller conference in London, but nothing in the scope of Kubecon) and as a consequence my strategy was slightly off. Usually in small and medium conferences you can just waltz in with no expectations, chat your way through it and build a social circle rather quickly. You don’t need to plan as much because in two or three days you can pretty much cover all the highlights.
Auditing talks is also very easy, they are a short walk away from the exhibition floor and you can check out whether you want to stay in or not, unlike large conferences where you need to go to Mordor and back to attend a talk room from the exhibition floor.
In a very large conference is a different story because there are way too many people, too many talks, too many booths, too large a ground to cover so you can get exhausted by mid afternoon.
It is the irony of large conferences (you could say the same about large cities too) that the more options you have, the less you may end up doing, this is because everyone is on a frenzy trying not to miss out on things so they don’t take the time to build relationships nearly as much as they would at a smaller conference. If you have a hundred television channels, you flick the switch a lot more than if you have five.
So that’s why it is important to plan well ahead when attending large conferences and compartmentalise your experience, do less so you can take more out of it. Hence here are some takeaways from my experience at the conference:
Make a small list of talks you want to attend
I really mean small, no more than five. You can do the following:
Five must attend
Five nice to watch if time allows it
Five to watch if your legs get tired from walking around or need a rest from talking
I am serious here, it’s folly to try and attend them all, and they are going to be published online anyway, where they are easier and more comfortable to watch, skip and speed up.
Also, the most important part of attending a conference is not to watch talks, but to meet people and build your network! That’s the one thing you can’t easily do at home, so take full advantage of this.
Make a list of people you would love to meet
It could be the speakers, it could be someone who you follow on LinkedIn, or it could be anyone from the booths. Reach out to them beforehand too and say hi and that you would love to meet. Most people at conferences want to meet people so don’t be shy here.
Once you are there you can keep an eye out for these people while also speaking to others you didn’t plan to do so. I would recommend exploring content and other talks from speakers to have something to break the ice with, it’s just so much easier to start with “hey, I enjoyed this thing about your talk!” Most speakers would be honored toi hear this.
Don’t be shy to talk to complete strangers
I met people sharing an Uber, at a lunch table, standing around outside eating breakfast, standing on the escalator, or simply lounging on one of the sofas. You could even say hi to someone pacing the exhibition floor. Most people at conferences are very eager to meet others, and many are feeling isolated and lonely too, just like you may be, so don’t hesitate to say hi.
And just remember, even if you meet the odd rude person who doesn’t want to talk to you, you probably won’t see them again anyway, it’s better to focus on the good people and avoid the jerks of the world.
If you are too shy and need warm up I recommend talking to booths, they will never reject you and they will be super eager to talk to you, it’s a nice warm up to build your social skills a bit more. You can also sit at a table with other people for lunch and try and strike a conversation there, or sometimes they will talk to you!
Narrow down the focus of your booth surfing
Large conferences have a colossal amount of booths, it’s hard, if not impossible, to approach them all. I tried, but after ten booths I was exhausted and has to rest. This is especially the case at conferences like Kubecon because many of the tools require changing the way you think to understand how they work, and frankly some of the tools and consultancies don’t even know what they do themselves so your brain will hurt after a while.
That’s why it’s easier if you shortlist a few areas you want to learn about and then target those booths, let’s say for example secret management, service meshes, generative AI, internal developer portals etc.
In my case I had no definite plan on what booths to approach so I was all over the place, it was only towards the end that I decided to focus on the CNCF open source tooling so I got to meet the maintainers of some really cool open source tools, such as Knative, in-toto and others - I just wish I had started with that!
Do recognisance before attending, and at the conference
Before attending the conference do a bit of research of what will be there and how it will be organised and create a loose plan of attack. Once you get to the conference, walk around and get familiar with the exhibition floor and how everything is organized, such as the different booth areas, the job board, etc.
If you don’t do this you will waste a lot of time walking aimlessly and you will tire yourself out before noon (guilty).
Do your research on afterparties and events
There are always free events that grow like mushrooms around large conferences, some of these parties can be quite interesting and also have free food and drinks, so make the most out of your time while you are there.
Pace yourself
Really, take regular breaks from walking and talking, otherwise you will be burned out by midday and the days are long when at conferences. I recommend talks to rest :-)
Add everyone you meet on LinkedIn
You are there to make friends and expand your network, so make use of your networks to do so! The friendships you make there could lead you to have another client, another job or even better, another friend.
Use your calendar
Make sure to add all the talks and events you want to see there, schedule meeting with people. Really, don’t do what I did as I forgot things because I didn’t make use of my calendar!
Pace yourself with the Swag
I see some people carrying around bags of swag like they never owned a t-shirt in their life. You also can feel a bit of pressure accepting presents from booths not to be rude. Provided you have a lot of room in your luggage and like carrying around stuff with you, I would leave the swag until the end, also try and sign up for all the big lotteries you find, in some conferences your chances are quite high to win things like Nintendo Switches, iPads, etc. That’s one thing I don’t mind lugging around :-)
Don’t overplan
Really, your plan is a guidelines to give you something to aim, but don’t feel you have to follow it religiously, if you just met some interesting people and are having the chat of your life, it’s perfectly fine to miss a talk or two, and catch it later on YouTube.
Conclusion
I personally prefer medium sized conferences like Civo or DevOps Days to small and very large ones. Small conferences get boring very quickly and are my least favourite, especially if you didn’t meet anyone who you clicked with, large ones are better but you need to do more work to get the most out of them. The sweet spot for me so far are medium sized events as they are more intimate, less distracting, and easier to navigate. But I am still learning, perhaps my mind will change once I get to be a pro of large conferences.
How about you? Any tips from your conference visits? Anything I have missed? Do you want
Special Thanks
Special thanks to my employer OpsLevel for sponsoring my trip to Chicago to attend this conference and also for hanging out with me the first day at colocated event BackstageCon, aren’t they a lovely bunch?: