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A few more thoughts on FogCon 5
I feel derelict in my duties for not having written up more of my FogCon experience, but maybe it's okay that I just experienced it this year, rather than feeling the need to write it down. I did get involved in an interesting conversation about cultural appropriation and assimilation tropes at the last panel I attended. We were a small group in a large room and would probably have been better off sitting in a circle, but it worked out. I got to recommend "The Goblin Emperor" and a Kate Elliott essay, so my work was done. (I also rec'd Goblin Emperor in a conversation in the con suite, and I rec it to everyone reading this post as well. It is just That Good.)
One sort of recurring theme for me at FogCon is that I'm not very good at making lasting connections. I make contributions to discussions in the structured context of a panel, and I'll force myself out of my shell to make conversation during unstructured time, but it's very rare for such an interaction to end even with the exchange of contact information. So I have no way to continue the connection beyond the con, and when I come back the next year, I feel as though I'm starting all over again, even after five years of seeing many of the same people around.
This year, I actually opened up to a few people on my feelings about this, and I discovered other folks who feel much the same way. So I'm glad it's not just me. At the post-mortem session, I thought about saying something, but my thoughts aren't well-formed enough on this point to say anything coherent, and I'm not sure there's much the con culture could do about it anyway -- I have similar feelings about the professional librarian conferences I've attended, after all, so it is at least partly on me! For one thing, I do intend to seek out more folks on social media and see if I can be at least a bit more engaged. So if you're reading this post because I've recently added you on some platform or another, and you're trying to figure out why, now you know. :) Also I renew my semi-regular pledge to attempt to engage on Twitter more, since that's where so much of the sf/f fandom action is these days.
Will it make a difference in future years? Maybe. It certainly can't hurt, and having more cool people in my online social circles is always a good thing. I have hope for it, anyway.
Do others of you who go to cons feel this way? If so, what if anything have you done about it? I'd be interested to hear about other people's experiences.
One sort of recurring theme for me at FogCon is that I'm not very good at making lasting connections. I make contributions to discussions in the structured context of a panel, and I'll force myself out of my shell to make conversation during unstructured time, but it's very rare for such an interaction to end even with the exchange of contact information. So I have no way to continue the connection beyond the con, and when I come back the next year, I feel as though I'm starting all over again, even after five years of seeing many of the same people around.
This year, I actually opened up to a few people on my feelings about this, and I discovered other folks who feel much the same way. So I'm glad it's not just me. At the post-mortem session, I thought about saying something, but my thoughts aren't well-formed enough on this point to say anything coherent, and I'm not sure there's much the con culture could do about it anyway -- I have similar feelings about the professional librarian conferences I've attended, after all, so it is at least partly on me! For one thing, I do intend to seek out more folks on social media and see if I can be at least a bit more engaged. So if you're reading this post because I've recently added you on some platform or another, and you're trying to figure out why, now you know. :) Also I renew my semi-regular pledge to attempt to engage on Twitter more, since that's where so much of the sf/f fandom action is these days.
Will it make a difference in future years? Maybe. It certainly can't hurt, and having more cool people in my online social circles is always a good thing. I have hope for it, anyway.
Do others of you who go to cons feel this way? If so, what if anything have you done about it? I'd be interested to hear about other people's experiences.
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.
Re: Generic thoughts on conventions and conferences
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Other than that I've found a great way to get to know people and be remembered positively is to volunteer, especially at things like panels and manning the front desk. I also write up my panel notes and then link them on the dreamwidth community/mailing list etc. It's a passive way of putting my online contact details out there :) (That's not my main motivation, but it has that positive side effect)
I really need to read The Goblin Emporer, I keep hearing such good things. But the ebook is $11 so I end up reading something cheaper. Maybe I need to stop being such a skinflint and buy the damn thing.
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(I found this post while browsing the FOGcon hashtag on twitter to see if there were more tweets about panels I didn't get a chance to go to.)
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On the concom, we are discussing how/whether we can provide some good unprogramming space that could be planned/signed-up for at the con and beforehand that would provide some structural support for this kind of endeavor. I hope we can pull something like that off.
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