Conference One: Last Day
Written by Gloria Metrick on . Published as written. It may not reflect how these systems work today.
This is the final day of the Laboratory Data Management USA 2010 conference I’m attending. I’ve seen some informative talks and had many useful discussions with conference members.
This particular conference is a smaller one. Or, as they say in the conference business, it’s “intimate.” But this does mean that it’s easy to get to know just about everyone, here. Here’s my point on this: it’s a personal preference whether you attend conferences that are smaller, like this one, or try to attend those that are large.
Some people see the large ones as the successful ones. After all, if lots of people attend it, some people would think that it must be a great conference. On the other hand, some of you like the smaller conferences because you can find out what everyone is doing, figure out who is doing something you’re interested in, and easily find them and talk to them about it.
There’s a difference between conferences that are starting to fail and losing attendees and with those that are purposely small. Here’s a tip: if the attendees are complaining and unhappy, talking about how the conference isn’t what it was, and it shrinks every year, that’s a bad sign. On the other hand, if they all seem pretty happy and satisfied, then it’s probably a conference intended to be small.
Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/