Tech conferences are a great way to learn and be inspired. The following describes a few tips to know beforehand.<\/span><\/p>\n First, identify what you are looking to get out of a conference, which languages or frameworks you\u2019re interested in, if you want to travel or not, and date availability. Not sure where to find potential conferences? You have several options:<\/span><\/p>\n Second, consider your professional training budget – will your employer pay for it? If so, understand what will be required of you in terms of accommodations, budget, and receipts. \u00a0<\/span>Here at uShip<\/span><\/a>, developers are encouraged to attend conferences, with a generous budget provided by management. \u00a0Stipulations include booking travel and accommodations through a specific site, and digitizing receipts afterwards, but it\u2019s well worth it.<\/span><\/p>\n Finally, act quickly when you decide you want to go! Good conferences are just like good concerts or music festivals – if you wait until the last minute to buy tickets to Austin City Limits you’re going to miss out. I\u2019ve made the mistake of waiting to buy a ticket for CSS Conf in New Orleans, and it sold out the next day when I attempted to finally buy a ticket.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Laptop – sounds obvious, but at the same time, I\u2019d suggest only using your laptop in between talks or during lunch; more on that later. A backpack comes in handy here, especially for any swag.<\/span><\/p>\n Bring a paper notebook – there have been [studies] about better retention when writing something compared to typing or nothing at all.<\/span><\/p>\n A convenient tech conference virtual machine based on Ubuntu is <\/span>Juicebox<\/span><\/a>, which comes preloaded with commonly-used and talked about technologies like git, Python, Node, Ruby, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n Often times the schedule is not available at time of ticket purchase, but once the schedule is released, you should start thinking about which talks you\u2019d like to attend. Some conferences do not offer a choice, which makes planning easier. Typically in your welcome packet you\u2019ll receive a paper schedule or the schedule on the website will be accessible from your phone. Another parallel to music festivals here – you might have to make some tough scheduling decisions!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Be wary of falling into the boring classroom lecture trap – these aren\u2019t required English composition college classes, so make an effort to get your time and money\u2019s worth by paying attention*<\/span>.<\/span><\/i> I find my laptop, phone, and smartwatch to be distractions during talks – try to keep them put away during presentation. You hated the guy in class who was constantly asking questions, but again, try and make each talk as worthwhile to you as possible – and that means asking questions when you don\u2019t understand or if you\u2019re interested in learning more about a particular concept. Typically questions are welcomed at the end, time permitting, but is not always guaranteed unfortunately. Worst case, if you\u2019d like more questions answered try to get the speaker\u2019s contact information.<\/span><\/p>\n If during a talk you hear or see something really interesting, post about it on Twitter! Make sure to tag it with the conference name and\/or relevant technologies (ex. #txjs #reactjs). You\u2019ll help your personal brand in the tech world, and it\u2019s another way to connect with other conference goers. The note will also be there for future reference if needed (your tweet might be a potential blog post).<\/span><\/p>\n * <\/span>Some special tech conferences have a format that directly contradicts this, where they actively encourage attendees to leave talks as soon as they realize it\u2019s not something they\u2019re interested in. Check out what <\/span>OpenSpace Conferences<\/span><\/a> calls the \u2018Law of Two Feet\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just because the conference is officially over doesn\u2019t mean you have to immediately forget everything. Type up any notes you have and publish them to your team. Even better, write a blog post to share with the world. Right after the conference is over is also a good time to checkout any new technologies or frameworks you were exposed to. If the conference organizer solicits feedback via survey, fill it out to help make that conference even better next year!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I\u2019ve been to two tech conferences, and they differed quite a bit. Key points:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n They were both fantastic experiences, but all things considered, I preferred TXJS. The venue was awesome, and the presenters were top notch, which in the end matters most.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is a collection of some of my favorite conference talks:<\/span><\/p>\n Browsers vs. Native Apps <\/b>(<\/span>Andrew Dunkman<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n Highlighted<\/a>\u00a0futuristic new browser features like ambient light sensing, webworkers, notifications, and geolocation.<\/span><\/p>\n Inline Styles <\/b>(<\/span>Jed Schmidt<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s two things I don\u2019t like about CSS – the cascading and the stylesheets.\u201d Presented<\/a> an entertaining, unique, contrarian viewpoint on the often-condemned practice of adding inline styles.<\/span><\/p>\n Progressive Enhancement <\/b>(<\/span>Jake Archibald<\/span><\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n Hilarious presenter, coined the term \u201clie-fi\u201d to describe misleading Wifi signal on a phone, and showed<\/a> the potential for much better offline experiences for websites and web apps.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Happy conferencing!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Originally posted on\u00a0my personal blog.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Introduction Tech conferences are a great way to learn and be inspired. The following describes a few tips to know beforehand. Finding and Booking Conferences First, identify what you are looking to get out of a conference, which languages or frameworks you\u2019re interested in, if you want to travel or not, and date availability. Not… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips"],"acf":{"blog_post_content":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ushipblogsubd.wpengine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Finding and Booking Conferences<\/h2>\n
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Pre-Conference Planning\/Checklist<\/h2>\n
During the Conference<\/h2>\n
Post-Conference<\/h2>\n
My Experiences<\/h2>\n
Nodevember<\/b><\/h3>\n
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TXJS<\/b><\/h3>\n
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Example Talks<\/b><\/h2>\n