3 tips: How to attend a conference
The 2017 conference season officially kicked off a couple of weeks ago at the CUNA Governmental Affairs Conference (GAC) in Washington, D.C. From now through next November, the calendar is filled with events large and small, all competing for your conference budget dollars. Regardless of size or topic, any worthwhile conference must provide an opportunity for you to learn, network and explore. So it stands to reason that you’ll only get your money’s worth if you do all three in equal measure.
- Learn
Simply put, go to the sessions. At larger conferences, you have the luxury of choosing from different breakout sessions depending on your personal and professional interests. However, even at small conferences where everyone attends the same sessions, conference sessions are designed to educate you and provide you with actionable information. If you find the sessions at a particular conference offer little in the way of educational benefits or actionable information, you should probably consider scratching that conference from next year’s budget – even if it is in the Bahamas when there are three feet of snow in your driveway.
- Network
One of the great and unusual aspects of the credit union industry is the willingness by most credit unions to openly share ideas with each other. If you only have lunch with people you know, if you only go out to dinner with your own staff and board members, and if you don’t hang out at the hotel bar for at least a little while, you’re missing a huge opportunity to gain valuable insight about our industry. Even when you talk with people whose ideas don’t align with yours, there’s still value in the conversation. After all, the best ideas are formed by a critical analysis of both similar and opposing views.
- Explore
Many conference attendees see the exhibit hall as the gauntlet one must run to reach the food tables or the portable bar. If you see exhibitors as nothing more than a necessary evil, you’re making a big mistake. Even if you’re not in the market for anything specific, you owe it to your members to stay on top of what’s happening with the latest products and services. What’s the worst that can happen? You come away with some new ideas to implement using the products your credit union already owns. You can be the hero without spending a dime on new products. That ain’t so bad, is it?
Learn, network and explore. If you do those three things, every conference you attend will be a success.
