The Executive Brief
Requests to attend conferences. They start as soon as you become a manager and continue for the rest of your career. They’re inevitable. Like the tide or elevator music.
As a CTO, I would often get questions from my CEO or CFO about why I was sending people to tech conferences. Their attitudes towards the conferences ranged from skeptical to borderline hostile. From their descriptions, tech conferences are equal parts Comicon and frat house party.
I’ve often wondered what in their experience led them to this conclusion but thought it best not to ask.
The job of a CTO is twofold when it comes to conferences. First, determine the value of any proposed conference. There will be some requests that you should say no to. For those that are approved, they need to be able to articulate the value to their boss.
Below are my thoughts on the best way to do that.
Btw, before you dive into it, here are the most interesting bits in technology from the last week.
AI regulation is happening in the US, but at the state level. Sixteen states have enacted legislation while another 400 bills are pending.
If you are using AI or building it into your products, this will affect you. This is similar to what is happening in the data privacy world the lack of a federal regulations has led to a patchwork of state laws. The only difference is that the AI laws are moving significantly faster.
Meta has announced that Llama 3 will be released next month. There are reports that Meta plans to launch two small Llama 3 versions prior to releasing the flagship version.
A more robust version of Llama will go over well with those looking to develop LLM applications and features without the expense of those offered by OpenAI, Microsoft and Google.
Poll of the Week
Let us know how we are doing! We’re always looking to improve our content, so your voice is important. Take a moment to respond to the poll or leave us a comment.
Are Tech Conferences Worth It?
I’ve noticed a lot of CPTOs (and CEOs) wonder about whether tech conferences are worth it for their teams.
I’m not the biggest tech conference enthusiast myself, but I do think they can have a lot of value. But only when it’s the right kind of conference paired with the right kind of team. And not excessively or just because everyone else is doing it.
I like to think of Tech Conferences both as experiences where teams can grow their technical skills (so, a form of training) and as a reward or recognition where teams can get away from the office and do something fun, but still benefit themselves and the company.
Writing a Report
Years ago, an old boss had asked me for a written report after attending a tech conference and I’ve really liked that idea ever since.
If you’re able to articulate your learnings in writing then you probably got something concrete out of the conference. If you can’t then maybe it wasn’t the right conference for you, or you didn’t use your time well.
I always ensure that any of my teams that attend conferences do write-ups right when they get back. If they wait too long they might forget some of the learnings. If you can then build the team a standard report format. I will use one that I can share in a future article.
(Of course, to write the report well means the team probably need to be taking good notes throughout the event so encourage them to do so.)
Who Attends
If the team is somewhat large, say 100 plus developers and a reasonable training budget I still like to have a relatively small-sized group (< 15) take part in tech conferences because I think these events should be treated as a privilege and somewhat exclusive.
The group is typically made up of roughly 60% individual contributors, 30% middle management and 10% leadership. Of the 60% individual contributors more than half should be junior staff. I find that often junior staff who are the "beginners" of the group benefit the most from attending tech conferences.
I typically don’t have under-performers attend. You have to be doing reasonably well at your job to leave it for a few days, potentially travel to another city, and focus on other topics.
But it’s not just A-players who should take part in tech conferences either. I’ve seen plenty of B players turn into A-players after attending the right conferences. This may be because they learned something new that they got passionate about, or they simply experienced a change of scenery and collaboration that reinvigorated them in their job.
Overall, anyone on the team who is a reasonably good performer is qualified to attend, not just leaders or managers.
And make sure to rotate through teams in a balanced manner. You don’t want the same people attending over and over.
How Many Conferences Per Year
I like the model of having teams attend about 4 conferences a year: 1 large, general conference and 3 small, more specific conferences.
Of course, much depends on the available budget. But in this setup different members of the team have a learning experience to look forward to about once a quarter.
With that said, I will punt on conferences if we have a key product or technology deliverable coming up or a major business initiative with time sensitivity to it that overlaps.
Therefore, as a CPTO you have to encourage people to not assume conference attendance is a given. The priority is always the business.
Useless Tech Conferences
I avoid are the over-hyped conferences that have become pure marketing channels. If the team does attend a conference like this, it should be for a limited period of time and heavily focused on a small number of topics they need / want to learn. Meaning, you’re in and out. No lingering to waste a few days on hearing marketing fluff.
Unless the tech conference is designed and run by tech people for tech people it may be best to avoid it. The speakers have to be product and technology for the most part to get value out of it. A few speakers who are non-tech are fine and good to hear from, but the whole conference can’t be non-tech people speaking or it won’t resonate with your staff.
Some tech conferences are known as parties more than actual learning opportunities. They might take place in some exotic locale. They may have some celebrity speakers. They might have some events that clearly have no connection to technology work. I’m personally not the biggest fan of these kinds of conferences.
Great Tech Conferences
So, what makes a great tech conference that you should have your team attend?
Technically competent speakers who are also good at communicating
Deep diving into technologies and not just staying at the surface
Give you plenty of time to ask questions, not just 10 mins at the end
Have sub-events that create collaboration with other attendees
Their talks are really connected to the real world & not all theory
It’s well-organized with minimal wasted time on logistics
The inevitable selling and marketing are kept to a minimum
You can get some face time / interact with the speakers casually
You’re not having to worry about where to get good food or drink
The location is pleasant
Closing Thoughts
Lastly, is your team the kind of team that will make the most of a tech conference?
A lot depends on the type of people in your organization and whether they have the interest and ability to properly leverage the learnings from a tech conference.
Not all teams are in a state where a tech conference will be helpful to them.
Will they attend, engage and then return to integrate their learnings into their work and the rest of the team?
It’s wise to consider this factor before deciding your approach.