Simple rules for effective participation in events

Whatever your area of expertise, you should regularly hone and improve your own skills - this is a must for remaining a competitive employee. You can acquire skills through training, practice, mentoring and reading required literature. And you should not overlook the industry-specific events, of course, for they often combine practice, training and networking with colleagues and experts in your field of work.

It's time to attend a conference! And we will tell you how to do it efficiently.

It is at conferences, meetings with experts, master classes, workshops and other similar events that useful contacts are established, which are imperative for your success. Yes, it is essential to have practical skills, but personal contacts continue to play a huge role in one's professional growth and career enhancement. If you want to be noticed, you need to catch the eyes of decision makers and make them remember you in your professional capacity. The more experts you are familiar with in your field, the more doors will open for you with time.

The industry-specific events are the best place to get to know people professionally.

First of all, because there will be no chance people there (or their percentage will be extremely small). Only market experts will attend a market experts' conference, for jewelry designers will not be interested in it, and vice versa. Secondly, going to a conference, people intend to network and they expect to be approached by other conference participants willing to get acquainted, communicate and establish contacts. If you couldn't figure out how to approach the person important for your career and what subject to pick for the move, the conference will be the right time and place to finally make this step.

And even if you don't dare to approach your "idol in the profession" the first time, you won't leave the event empty-handed, anyway - think about all the expertise that you will learn from your senior colleagues, speakers and invited guests. But, as in any other situation, you can gain the maximum benefit only if you approach the matter in a responsible way and get well prepared for the events.

What is behind this mysterious "to be prepared" and how to participate effectively in events, so that the time and money spent on them are commensurate with the result you get?

Looking for an event

Your journey to an event starts with finding one. You can search for events in several areas:

• Special groups on social media which has long been more than just a way to stay in touch with your mother and friends. There are hundreds of professional groups and communities of varying sizes on Facebook alone. It's a good idea to just search for and choose the ones you're interested in. As a rule, community members regularly publish information on various interesting group events. When choosing a professional group on a social network, pay attention to how active it is (when the latest post was uploaded), which region it covers as well as its membership.

• Social media events - the event calendar that features the city's most exciting parties scheduled for the coming weekend. Although most of the events will actually be in the "movies, clubs and theater" category, you can also find professional events there, if you configure your search the right way. High-profile conferences always create their own pages and events on social networks.

• Another point about social networks: opinion leaders' personal pages. Find the pages of recognized experts, well-known in your industry, and subscribe to them. Most likely, they make regular contributions to their pages to maintain their personal brand, - they are likely to occasionally share information about some useful events in your specific industry. In addition, their support is a kind of guarantee of the event's quality.

• Online calendars and event catalogues such as TimePad - there are now many aggregators of business and training events, both general and specialised ones for particular professions. For example, the Tegline catalogue conveniently aggregates and screens events for the digital market.

• Finally, word-of-mouth advertising - just listen to your colleagues. Most likely, one of them has long been a regular of professional events, and you company will make them even more enjoyable for him or her.

We make a choice

Let's assume that you have identified some events, but the list of those you are interested in, is much longer than expected. The events overlap and it is impossible anyway to visit them all for a one reason or another. So, there is a new challenge: how can you narrow down your search and choose the event that will be of the utmost benefit for you?

The answer is simple: you have to identify your key need, and think carefully of what you expect from the event.

• Would you like to attend a lecture by a particular person, to hear his/her thoughts about a certain situation or an interesting case from his practice? Follow the social networks of the person you're interested in - the person is likely, sooner or later, to announce his plans to speak at a particular conference, and this will make your choice of the right event much easier.
• Or, your goal is, for example, to improve a certain skill in one of your professional competences. Choose something more specialized, a themed event or a workshop, for example.
• If you want to join the community as a whole and learn more about its internal trends and tendencies, you may want to opt for more informal meetings and events, focused on communication and experience sharing.

От своих целей и того, что именно вы хотите получить на мероприятии, нужно отталкиваться в первую очередь, но ни в коем случае не стоит забывать и о других факторах. При выборе ивента обращайте внимание на спикеров, организаторов, прошлых и будущих участников, на общую репутацию мероприятия и, конечно, на его формат и стоимость. Если хоть какой-то из этих моментов вызывает у вас сомнения или беспокойство, лучше пренебречь этим мероприятием и сделать выбор в пользу другого.

We need to talk

Any event is first of all about people, and they are the ones you should focus on. It is impossible to build a quality career if you are a stranger in your own professional community. To promote your career you need to establish your industry-specific contacts, and in this sense, events are the very hours that can and should be spent on successful networking.

If you want to make as many contacts as possible, do not miss a single opportunity. It's true, that even the most interesting conferences can be really boring, but it is up to you to make them useful for you.

1. If the event runs for a few days, be there every day, as well as the after-party (if planned). It is best to spend an entire day at the event - people tend to come and go, someone is active before lunch; someone comes after the second coffee break. If you spend only a part of the day at an event, you are unlikely to be in the right place at the right time and meet someone important to you.
2. Don't be afraid to communicate. If you are not a communication guru yet, approaching someone and starting a conversation may be a challenge. The only thing you can do is to gradually train yourself to make contacts. If you don't risk talking to someone at the first event, don't blame yourself - but be sure to try again next time. And remember that conference attendees expect to be approached, so in general they will be positively disposed to you.
3. Don't miss opportunities to talk to people in different ways, this is why you need to go to after parties and coffee breaks. You can meet the right person in an official setting at the conference, and the after-party will give you a chance to foster the effect and acquaintance in an informal setting.
4. Foster the contact immediately. Have you made somebody's acquaintance? Ask right away if you can add him or her to your Facebook account - it is easier nowadays to maintain professional contacts through social networks. You can also put down his/her phone number or exchange business cards, but this is less efficient today. If you put down the person's phone number, and you have never talked to him after that, you are unlikely to remember at the right moment, that three years ago, you entered John Johnson into your telephone book and he can help you. 80% of business cards end up in the garbage the day after the event.
5. Read Keith Ferrazzi's book "Never Eat Alone and Other Networking Rules". It will be very helpful!

Excellent! You can take your seat.

Nothing can be worse than going to events just to tick it off. Yes, it can be fun to save your name tags from different events and hang them above your desk. But this is unlikely to take your career to a new high, and your precious time and money will have been wasted.

Every single event should leave a mark on your. It would be good if you made it a habit to evaluate the results of the events you visit and the time you spend on them. For illustration purposes, you can make calculations in soft or hard copy.

Write down your goals and expectations before the event and put down the results actually achieved afterwards. To do this, for example, you can create your own scale to assess the value of the knowledge you gained, you can also count the number of new contacts in the social network or collect notes of the speakers' presentations (by the way, make sure that you occasionally revise them).

Whatever way you choose to evaluate the result, attending events is primarily a story about new contacts and your training, and only secondly, it is a pleasant time spent in the company of like-minded people milling around a table with snacks. If after the event you do not feel that you have gained some new and useful knowledge, but just wasted your time, it is also a kind of result. In the long run, a negative experience will help you to put aside the options that turned out to be useless and focus only on what is really important and effective.