Five Tips For Making the Most of Any Large Conference

Every year the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) holds an incredible conference. Speakers and attendees come from all over the world to discuss the latest industry trends, governmental regulations, and to share ideas and insights.

I was at AASHE in October in Baltimore. I really needed to make my visit count as I was flying in from the UK. So I planned ahead and took notes on what worked and what did not work. I present a few of my conclusions here.

If you are planning on attending the next AASHE conference, and you should, you need to plan ahead if you want to get the most out of the experience. Here are five tips that will help make your next AASHE conference experience the best.

1. Set Up Meetings Beforehand

Conferences are a great way to catch up with colleagues, prospects, and future employers. However, you can’t just attend the conference hoping to run into the people you want to see. When I attended the AASHE conference in October I set up lunch and coffee appointments through email and LinkedIn. This way I made sure I got to talk with the people I wanted to meet in a relaxed setting- and respected their time.

2. Learn From Other Attendees

The speakers and presenters that AASHE brings in are all top notch. You practically get a PhD level education just going to the different sessions. However, I found that I learned even more just by talking with some of the other conference attendees. I had incredible conversations at the bar in the evenings after the day’s sessions. I also learned a lot just chatting with people during the day in between sessions.

Networking is intimidating for a lot of people. Read my tips here. But, if you go in looking to learn something and share your learning, instead of trying to make sure you get to give out business cards, you will make better contacts and will enjoy the conference more.

3. Treat yourself right

I don’t know about you, but I find it is easy to sometimes go a little overboard with the food and drink in the evenings at the conference- I get carried away with the Craic. It’s okay to relax a little, but if you want to get the most out of the sessions you need to be alert. If you focus on eating healthy and just moderate Craic you will feel better and will learn more at the conference.

I made an interesting observation at the event. North Americans have more stamina! I found the event so draining (each conversation requires energy!), I was flagging after lunch. So a great life skill I learned after Fatherhood is the Siesta! Find a quiet place to shut your eyes for 10 mins. You might just nod off and get some quality Siesta time! Great for an afternoon boost!

4. Working in Transit

Sometimes you have to get some work done on the way to the conference. While there are many places with free Wi-Fi and charging stations, those places are often crowded, noisy and you compete for the Wi-Fi. On the way to the conference I needed to give a webinar for a client. I was worried about the noise at the airport so I paid to access the airport lounge. For not very much money I got a quiet place to do the webinar. Afterwards, I still had time left so I caught up on some work. I could not believe how much I got done in the short time I was in the lounge. Much more than I would have achieved in the terminal and worth the investment. If you have to work in transit you will be more productive if you leave the crowds and spend an hour or two in a quiet place- which you might have to pay for.

5. Use Evernote

Evernote is one of them most useful apps I have ever come across. I have used it regularly for the past four years. Evernote takes all of those thoughts, memories, conversations, ideas and files them neatly in one place.

It's like I can now fill the part of my brain where the clutter used to live- with much more meaningful things.

Evernote does a lot of great things which save me hours a week- however for events there are some specific features which help.

I found it especially helpful at the AASHE conference. I was able to take notes in it while I attended sessions and as I networked. In Evernote when you snap someone's business card it saves the contact AND automatically sends them a LinkedIn connection request AND sends them your details.

A couple times I got into some really interesting conversations. With permission, I recorded a few of these conversations using the Evernote recorder. In the next few weeks I will be turning these interviews into case studies and other types of content.

If there is a workshop you can snap everyone's whiteboard / flip chart notes to file with the event session. You can also take pics of any hardcopy so you do not need to carry all that blumpf! And that content is actually searchable in the app- so you can find it easy later.

When new notes are created they adopt the calendar entry as a title and the geo tag!! Which makes it great for recalling where the note came from. Saves you having to type out the note title also!

Evernote is very good for searches also..

After I got back from the conference I was trying to find a particular note, but all I could remember was the first name of the person I was talking with. I simply searched for the man’s name and all my notes popped right up related to that name.

I also took pictures of the people I met with and interviewed, and even wrote some notes on some of my screen captures to show my clients later.

Evernote is my secret weapon when I go to conferences.

I could go on but those are my top 5 tips to maximise your visit to AASHE!

Are you going next year? Would you like to meet for coffee?