Best Practices at Conferences

SydneyPLUS staff librarians attend many conferences throughout the year, including conferences that serve museums and archives. At every conference, there may be a session, workshop, or practice that really stands out. We want to share with you some experiences.

Here are some of the best practices for conferences that we have recently seen, which we hope every conference will consider adopting:

SCIP 2010 “Vendor Workshop”

While restricted to vendors, you may find it interesting to know that this workshop allows vendors to practice delivering pitches to our competitors - our peers - while the moderator provides feedback. The conference organizers also review basic interview techniques and measuring our ROI. Many conferences brief us on the most recent survey of the marketplace and demographics. The purpose of these types of workshops is to make your experience, the participants' experience, more productive when you visit our booths. Perhaps a conference will consider offering a similar workshop for the participants? It could be called “Tradeshow Bootcamp” and cover interview techniques, planning your path through the tradeshow floor, best times for private demonstrations, a list of new vendors this year, etc.

Museums and the Web 2010 - Crit Room

Imagine volunteering your portal (e.g. OPAC) up for critical review in front of a room full of your peers. (Your vendor sitting silently at the back of the room will beam with pride). You are only given a few minutes to provide an orientation to the web site, but the volunteers that are going to be asked to perform some tasks on it are waiting outside the room to put the site to its test. After you sit down, these volunteers ranging from end users to experts, attempt to use your portal while describing their experience. Yes, it is intimidating. Can it show you insight into the usability of your portal? Absolutely. We wish every conference offered this session.

Museums and the Web 2010 - Demonstrations

Vendors are always looking for ways to engage participants in the exhibit hall. At some conferences, SydneyPLUS sponsors a client to deliver a presentation. Museums and the Web conference had participants “take over” the exhibit hall floor for part of the day to offer presentations to other participants. While vendors could offer the presentations themselves, it was an opportunity for the vendor to invite one of their clients to occupy the booth. Instead of talking with the vendor, you had the chance to speak to the client using their product. The focus did not need to be on the product, but what the client had achieved with it. As a vendor, these demonstrations succeed in the desired “word of mouth” aspect of marketing products.

SLA “Hot Topic” Sessions

Among many sessions offered at SLA, the value of having sessions that bring you up to speed on developments in your industry is invaluable. Along with the “Ideas” bulletin boards, which allow you to share innovation with other participants, there are many efforts to foster discussion. With the growth in virtual participation among attendees updating blogs, wikis, Twitter, etc., the speed at which a good idea can spread among participants at a conference is astounding.

The Future of Conferences

Whether you are a museum, library, or archive, there is value in attending a conference in a related field. As a vendor, we have the privilege of experiencing the “best of the best.”

We have noticed some trends among recent conferences:

- rise in panels as participants want more perspectives in a shorter amount of time

- part of every conference is being left open for spontaneity (e.g. Museums and the Web offered an “Unconference Session” where the participants propose their own topics for discussion)

- use of portable technology is outpacing the infrastructure at many conference sites (e.g. ranging from saturating the Wi-Fi to not finding an available outlet for charing your device)

- memorizing the Flickr, Twitter, etc. tags is essential to participate online while at the conference, but many participates will participate after the conference

- organizers increasingly have to brand their Flickr, Twitter, etc. tags in their banners and prominently display them everywhere (e.g. web site, program, pre and post e-mail, etc.)

- vendors are increasingly offering more services and products in more disciplines, which is making it more challenging for participants to make comparisons on the tradeshow floor