I have gone to quite a few conferences and conventions since the late 1990s, on a range of topics from academic conferences (ranging from 500 to 10,000+ attendees) to smaller tech and media conventions (a few thousand people) to massive monster-sized tech and media conventions. Oh, and then there are the media festivals I have also gone to...
My number one reason for going is exposure to a breadth of ideas in an environment where I am 100% devoted to taking in ideas and where ideas are everywhere, on full display.
Often I am also speaker or a presenter or involved in running one or more panels, so that would be my secondary reason for going.
Occasionally I am also going with the tertiary hope of making immediate professional connections that will lead to Things That Make Money Appear, although this tends to be very targeted so I don't think of it as networking in the sense you mention. Instead, I am doing a demo of X, which automatically attracts people interested in X. Etc.
Networking not a reason I go to conferences, conventions, and/or festivals. Once upon a time I thought that long-term professional and/or social networking was the main reason to go but ... nope. I am there to shop ideas and market or display my own wares/ideas. There are certain familiar people I meet with for lunch or dinner when at conferences, conventions, or festivals, but almost all of them are people whom I know, however vaguely, through other people who are part of my circle. I can only name two or three people I keep touch with over the years whom I met entirely *because* of a conf/con/fest rather than because they know someone I know and we all did lunch together.
...
But none of that touches on how I feel and why I have done about it, if anything.
Not sure how I feel. Acceptance?
I have been far more likely to stay in touch with people who run multi-day workshop intensives or on-going workshop-style classes that happen completely outside of the conf/con/fest world. This is especially true when a person's workshop curriculum provides the perfect spark for whatever project I am working on. If we hit it off, we stay in touch, and they are curious to know how my stuff is going (and they sometimes promote it :). Same goes for many of my students. A little less so for me staying in touch with co-attendees / workshop mates ... not sure why.
I have memories of being disappointed *many* years back that conferences, conventions, and festivals never seemed to add to my network but eventually that disappointment was replaced by me seeing what I got from these events: Lots of Ideas.
It really seems that the only way I have reliably added to my network is by meeting people who are working on the same kind of projects as me (almost always meeting through a workshop or intensive), which means that I need to have something I am working on that I bring in or I am the "expert" who is running the workshop/intensive. My long term connections have all been with people who very strongly resonate with whatever it is that I am working on and/or pursuing and/or interested in.
Generic thoughts on conventions and conferences
My number one reason for going is exposure to a breadth of ideas in an environment where I am 100% devoted to taking in ideas and where ideas are everywhere, on full display.
Often I am also speaker or a presenter or involved in running one or more panels, so that would be my secondary reason for going.
Occasionally I am also going with the tertiary hope of making immediate professional connections that will lead to Things That Make Money Appear, although this tends to be very targeted so I don't think of it as networking in the sense you mention. Instead, I am doing a demo of X, which automatically attracts people interested in X. Etc.
Networking not a reason I go to conferences, conventions, and/or festivals. Once upon a time I thought that long-term professional and/or social networking was the main reason to go but ... nope. I am there to shop ideas and market or display my own wares/ideas. There are certain familiar people I meet with for lunch or dinner when at conferences, conventions, or festivals, but almost all of them are people whom I know, however vaguely, through other people who are part of my circle. I can only name two or three people I keep touch with over the years whom I met entirely *because* of a conf/con/fest rather than because they know someone I know and we all did lunch together.
...
But none of that touches on how I feel and why I have done about it, if anything.
Not sure how I feel. Acceptance?
I have been far more likely to stay in touch with people who run multi-day workshop intensives or on-going workshop-style classes that happen completely outside of the conf/con/fest world. This is especially true when a person's workshop curriculum provides the perfect spark for whatever project I am working on. If we hit it off, we stay in touch, and they are curious to know how my stuff is going (and they sometimes promote it :). Same goes for many of my students. A little less so for me staying in touch with co-attendees / workshop mates ... not sure why.
I have memories of being disappointed *many* years back that conferences, conventions, and festivals never seemed to add to my network but eventually that disappointment was replaced by me seeing what I got from these events: Lots of Ideas.
It really seems that the only way I have reliably added to my network is by meeting people who are working on the same kind of projects as me (almost always meeting through a workshop or intensive), which means that I need to have something I am working on that I bring in or I am the "expert" who is running the workshop/intensive. My long term connections have all been with people who very strongly resonate with whatever it is that I am working on and/or pursuing and/or interested in.