Views on Conferences

Have you attended any technical conferences? Last month my company had its user conference Informatica World 2006 in San Francisco. It was a good opportunity to interact with customers.

I have not attended many conferences, but feel I should attend more conferences. Conferences are great opportunities to network with people in field. I attended and gave a presentation almost 7 years back. This was conference arranged by QAI India in Bangalore. My presentation on automated testing went on very well and had a chance to make friends. I am still in touch with a few people who liked my presentation.

When one attends a conference there is always a focus on getting best out of the conference.

• What's New: What is coming up in the product or technology
• How can I Apply this: Next step will be how can I be more productive from the learning at the conference.
• What am I missing: Lot of times we don't have opportunities to go beyond our current project and conferences give a chance to interact and learn from others. It can be either what succeeded as well as what failed.
• Best Practices: Are there best practices that others are able to implement that I can take away.
  

Most conferences also offer tutorial sessions that can be an added advantage.

Another thing is it also gives a chance to people to get away from crazy work schedules. Another conference I remember attending is Microsoft's TechEd session. It was a one day conference but it was useful to understand new technology coming from Microsoft.

Informatica World 2006

My paper presented at conference held by QAI India