Oh how I would love to to go to a conference. It was interesting to me at least, because I’ve been thinking about this for several weeks now. If I’m going to pay that much money, you’ll be damn sure I’m going to see as many presentations as I can. The real gem however, is networking with highly intelligent people and not so highly intelligent, but highly talented people.
How many motivated, talented PHP and other programmers exist that don’t have a blog, but still chill out at conferences? My point exactly. I think it would be fascinating to walk and talk candidly with far more skilled developers and programmers than myself. It is just really awesome to talk with someone and they actually understand what you are saying but also can coherently reply. While conservations won’t teach you much, it will open up the path to further research.
No telling how many times I said something only to stop myself when I remembered that the statement was false or the other person’s statement was false. Not everyone can produce a seamless flow of dialogue and remember every tiny detail of resources that support with evidence the statements. I do think every conversation I’ve had was enjoyable, if only for the simple fact that I was able to express knowledge that I don’t normally have a chance to.
The next person you talk to might just work with you or might just hire you. Who knows, that person you exchanged numbers with, might just call you to give you a heads up on a job opening. Might serve as a reference or might become a long time Internet and/or person friend.
Every opportunity to pimp yourself as a professional should be engaged and harnessed to its full potential. If I learned anything within the past few months is to jump on to any opening, even if you don’t think you’ll get it.
Of course, I’ve been wanting to go to a developers conference since 2002 and I think it would be far more entertaining and a rewarding educational experience to go to a game developer conference. Still any conference would be both rewarding and entertaining given the diverse population of people exhibited there.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Bullet: E-Book Library Management and Content Server
- Using ZendFramework 2 beta1 For Directory Project
- The Way of Kings and Cosmere Theory
- “In Time” Movie Premise Flawed
- Completing HTTP Library For PHP
Monday is the day. See you then.