Tuesday 25 October 2011

My SC11 diary 4

Another good day with the SC11 schedule today - a good increase in the proportion of nailed down meetings.

Something that comes up during the process of arranging meeting at SC is the different logistics. There seems to be quite a variety of opinion as to the best way to attend SC week.



Some people will try to compress it - arrive in Seattle Monday afternoon, and leave Wednesday evening. Basically cutting it down to two days of intensive meetings. This works in a way, but misses out on the many events and workshops arranged around the core days, and misses out on the many social and networking opportunities - which are arguably one of the most important parts of the week.

Others will take the opposite extreme - arrive in Seattle Thursday before the SC11 week, and stay right through the week until the weekend after the show. That is a long time to be at one event, but it allows the maximum attendance of the various workshops arranged before and after the main event.

I know of some people (especially from outside the USA) who arrange other meetings in the USA the week before or after SC. This makes for a long time away from home - maybe a fortnight but at least it cuts down the travel, as the two meetings share the same long haul flight.

In fact I even know someone who does the opposite - a European who arranges meetings in Asia the week adjacent to SC, making one Round-the-World trip out of it all. There has to be some frequent flier miles aspect to that :-)

For myself, I try to find a balance between as short a time away from home as possible and attending an optimum amount of meetings, networking events and conference activities.

What's your habit? Maybe tell us in the comments section of this post?

1 comment:

Deepak said...

There are some conferences to compress. There is way too much happening at SC to try and compress. Of course, I don't have to cross an ocean