I haven’t written about conferences for awhile and I don’t remember if John has, either, so I thought I’d make my usual pitch, which is: Get out there and go to a conference. Find a good one that meets your needs, get the budget, and just get to it.
Don’t just stop to look at the big conferences, either. Also look around your general area. Last night’s joint meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA between LRIG NE (Laboratory Robotics Interest Group – New England) and the Boston LIMS/Laboratory Informatics group had 152 registrants and had to close event pre-registration due to a limitation on the size of the room. That local event had more people that some of the conferences have had.
We could ponder that the reason for the success of such an event is that, by creating an event with a combination of talks on discovery informatics, ELNs, and other related topics, that that well fits that area of the country. It is probably a strong fit for the local interest.
That’s not to say that the larger events don’t have strong sessions, as well, and they will often have several days of talks, rather than a single evening as this particular local event had.
The trade-off tends to come with the time taken out of work. A large conference can be expensive not just from conference and workshop registration fees, but also from the travel costs, and from time off of work. However, it is worthwhile to consider that immersing oneself in a conference for a few days allows more time to learn and interact. The overall benefit is high, but the justification to do so can be more difficult.
As your own budget cycle comes up, this next year, keep in-mind that the cost of attending any of these events will almost certainly provide an easy payback when you go through the trouble to find an event that is well-suited to your own purposes. Make this next budget year the one where you set aside the money to attend one of these events.
