Why haven't you gone to a development conference?

If you haven't gone to a development conference before, why?

Comments

[Dustin King]

I've only gone to a couple. Reasons not to go:

• All the talks will be up on YouTube in a couple days, if the information isn't already available in another form
• As an introvert, I probably won't get much out of the networking aspect (usually touted as the the #1 reason to go)
• If I don't know anyone who's going, I'll just end up sitting by myself or awkwardly trying to break into conversations
• [edit: I forgot this one until I saw others' comments] They are expensive. How many conferences a year do employers typically pay for? And if I'm going on my employer's dime, I'd feel obligated to attend sessions that would specifically benefit them.

The main reasons I would consider going would be to talk with people I already knew (possibly who I'd only met on the Internet), or if I was speaking.

This may be a defeatist attitude toward networking, but it's where I'm at right now.

[Tineyi Takawira]

Oh man... I totally agree. There is really no point going if you're an introvert. Well, except for the stickers!!

[Dustin King]

I know strategies exist for getting more out of networking at conferences for introverts. Tracy Osborn has talked about this in some of her talks (which I watched on YouTube, not live, for what it's worth). But it would take some effort to work on that, that I haven't been willing to put in.

[Ben Sinclair]

I went to my first conference this month, and it was great. Partly because it wasn't in my area of expertise, though I had a lot of general, "domainy" knowledge. I'd do it again.

I haven't been before because they're waaaay expensive and I'd need to take time off work. Get work to pay for it, you say? Well companies tend to only pay for me to go to a conference in my area of expertise, and since most of these will consist of people giving entry-level talks or completely off-topic stuff like "how to feel good in your office" I've always seen them as a bit of a waste of everybody's time.

There's no point in going if I'm taking up the space of someone who really wants to be there and might learn something that helps them out in their career.

I also have a deep-seated distaste for "swag" culture. Charging people extra to let them in so you can give them "free" goodies is nonsense.

Socialising with people? Probably not for me.

That sort of thing.

[Deepak Singh]

I had a few bad experiences, most of the talks were more like tutorials and how-tos.
Now I have switched to youtube, most talks are available without having devote a specific time, and I am easily able to focus on the talks that seem useful and weed out the tutorials.

[Frank Carr]

Money. I would have to pay for it all out of pocket. That would come out to about $2500, probably more.

Secondly, I don't think that most of them provide a good ROI. They are mostly cleverly disguised sales pitches for products and services the sponsors and speakers are selling.

[Deef]

Conferences I go to have talks by industry experts. I wouldn't just dismiss their expertise. Listen and so what you can apply to your work. There's always room for learning and improvement. Sure, some talks won't be new, but even then they may be confirming you're on the 'right' path.

[Adnan Rahić]

If someone has yet to go to a serious dev conference based in Europe, I'd suggest WeAreDevelopers. I've attended both this (as a speaker) and last year, and both were amazing!

[Raymond Camden]

So to be clear - you are talking about a company hosting a conference for their developers. As example of that would be MS Build or Adobe MAX. There is nothing nefarious or surprising about this. You can clearly see the schedule before attending. This is completely different from community run conferences that would have people from many different companies talking about many different things.

I don't think there is anything wrong with events like MAX or Build and if you are a heavy Adobe or MS user, it is a great place to find out more about their products and what is coming soon. But again - it isn't like the focus is hidden from. You don't spend $$ on your admission and travel and suddenly find yourself shocked at the content.

As an aside, those 'industry experts' at MS are typically really great people who participate in numerous non-MS events and open source communities.

[Dian Fay]

I didn't go to any until I started speaking and could get in for free :)

[Shannon Crabill]

I've been to several development conferences at this point, but what made me not go before was cost. Or rather, cost plus paid time off.

For a fair chunk of my development career, I was a contractor. I did not have sick days, paid time off other than a few holidays, and my staffing agency didn't want to pay for much. I had to practically beg for them to cover the 20 dollar costs (seriously?) for a web design workshop downtown. I got them to pay part of the cost of an $800 dollar conference ticket that was specific to the work I was doing, but that took a lot of back and forth.

Most conferences since then, I've either been selected as a speaker (travel, hotel, costs covered by the conference). Or, I've had my now employer pay for it (which is still an uphill battle).

I have paid out of pocket to go to smaller, local conferences (Wordcamps, ELAconf, etc) but I realize I have the luxury of some disposable income and paid time off work. Both of those conferences posts the videos online sometime after, but I know me and realistically I'm not going to sit through a weekend's worth of conference videos. I'll pay into a conference if I know I'll get more out of it by attending in person (and that's paid off so far).

[Michael Lee 🍕]

Should I have used a different term? Maybe development to describe a dev/software conference is confusing? I just figured the equivalence to a design conference for designers but for developers would be development conference.