Do's and Don'ts for Conference/Sessions

Blog

I’ve been to a few techinical sessions lately (P&P Summit, User Group meetings, and the Launch Event for VSDBPro) and wanted to share some of the things that bugged me, or I liked, about the sessions in regards to the attendees and the presentations.

For Presenters:

  • *Don’t ask if the font is large enough to read.  If you have to ask, it isn’t large enough.  Bump this up ahead of time.  Scott Hanselman has some recommendations on this.
  • Long URLs for resource slides are impossible to read and capture in any resonable amount of  time, which leaves people waiting to get a copy of the slide later.  Presenters should use tools like Shrinkster or TinyUrl to compact those resource pointers into things people can jot on their hands/napkins/notepads.
  • ALWAYS repeat a question.  If someone asks you a question from the audience, and the audience has more than two people seated right next to each other, you should restate the question so that A) everyone knows the question and can then understand your answer and B) you can restate the question so that you make sure you understand the question before you answer it.
  • Look at your audience from time to time to ensure someone doesn’t have their hand up for a question, as well as to make sure you don’t have a room of people staring at you with the deer in the headlights look.

For an Attendee

  • Turn your cell phone/beeper/whatever to vibrate or OFF!  This is not only rude to the speaker it is bothersome to everyone else in the room.  If you do turn it to silent or vibrate and it happens to go off, then you have two choices.  Let it go and call the person back later or LEAVE the room.  Do NOT answer it and then talk to the person no matter how quickly you think you can end the conversation.  Hiding your head under the table to talk also is not acceptable.  I’ve actually heard someone answer the phone during a session just to say “I’m in a presentation, I’ll call you back”!
  • Turn off all sound making devices.  This is related to the phone issue above, but goes for laptops (just mute them), pocket PCs, etc.  Anything that will beep and make sound will be annoying.
  • If you think you will need to leave the session for any reason (i.e., you are call for support back at the office, you have a babysitter watching your kid, you have a small bladder) then be prepared to run.  This means sit somewhere where you can easily get up and leave without stepping over tons of people.  Also, keep your belongings ready to go so that a quick grab of stuff and get you up and out and people aren’t sitting around trying to hear the speaker over the sounds of zippers, Windows shutdown tunes, etc.
  • Don’t eat loud food during the session.  Open your coke can prior to the session starting or while the speaker pauses to load a demo.  Apples tended to be the really annoying snack of choice at the Summit.  Very healthy, but very load to eat.
  • If you are using your laptop to take notes during the meeting then realize that typing can be loud as well (depends on your keyboard and how hard you hit the keys).  I found that my tablet was much quieter than the other people who were typing on their laptops.  A note pad was even quieter, but I didn’t use one. :) 
  • Pay attention to those around you, if they keep looking at you, either you are being annoying somehow, they find you attractive or you have something between your teeth.
  • If you get annoyed easily by other attendees who happen to NOT be following the rules above, then sit in the front. :)

For Event Organizers

  • Don’t have lunch sessions.  This was really annoying at the P&P summit.  People needed a break from the sessions and a chance to get up and move around, do some networking etc.  The lunch sessions always seemed like they got cut short, were not really detailed, or were just not well listened to.  Not to mention many people were eating the apples. :)

I’m sure there are tons of others.  These are just things that caught my attention recently.