Meetings That Stick |
How to get the most out of the conferences you attend – both at the event and afterwards
by Colleen Seto
It’s happened to the best of us. You attend a conference, learn new skills and get motivated to put them into action. But back at the office, things are hectic and it’s all you can do to just play catch-up. When you finally come up for air, the exact details of the new ideas you wanted to implement escape you.
Now you’re back at square one. Worst of all, you can’t show your boss that it was the right decision to send you to the conference. What’s a working stiff to do?
The challenge in retaining what’s learned at professional development (PD) events is in devising a plan to apply your new knowledge, especially when you can’t put ideas into practice right away. Read on for advice to make sure that what goes in one ear doesn’t go out the other.
First off, it’s wise to prepare before attending an event. According to Dan MacDonald with Business Improvement Solutions, an Edmonton-based management training and development company, attendees should read up on the speakers they’ll be hearing from. “Understanding their background and qualifications will help you extract more insight from each presentation and it will offer you more of an information platform to build your new insights on.”
This is advice that frequent conference-goer Rida Abboud heeds. “I come equipped with some sense of the people who are speaking – where they work, what their backgrounds are in terms of work and knowledge. This helps me situate their contribution in the midst of a broader context.” Abboud also tries to attend sessions that are relevant to her current work rather than those she is merely interested in. That way, it’s easier for her to find direct applications on the job.
This means organizers must provide comprehensive conference programs in print and/or online for attendees to review and adequately decide which courses to take. Abboud uses event programs to help her focus her attention and organize the information she’s after. “Usually I follow a theme, which helps me in the long run because then I can pull together overarching learning themes. This is better for me than going to workshops that have disparate content because when I come back to work and think about what I learned, it’s harder to synthesize.”
On the day of the event, get ready to take clear and comprehensive notes. While this may seem obvious, many people do not take notes effectively, or at all. Relying solely on presentations being made available afterwards isn’t the best idea either. It’s important to record the thoughts and ideas that come to mind during the presentation. “PD events can provide great information in a short period of time,” MacDonald says. “It has been said to be similar to drinking from a fire hose. What usually happens is people listen intently but don’t take notes, and due to the large volume of information, their retention is extremely low.”
“I suggest buying a new notebook for each conference,” agrees Gail Evans, president of the Wynford Group, a Calgary-based management consulting company, who takes copious notes during sessions. She also advises that if a presenter doesn’t deliver on what they promised, then it’s better to leave the session. “Use the time to go over the notes from other pertinent sessions, and highlight and make plans around their potential application.”
Making actionable plans to incorporate your new knowledge is a surefire way to ensure that what’s learned stays with you. This could be as easy as creating a list of one-step tasks that speakers recommend or it could be a longer-term, comprehensive plan that requires several steps. The point is you must create a strategy using the relevant information in order to have any hope of execution. Having thorough notes to refer to in this process is immensely helpful. At Wynford Group conferences, time is actually built in for attendees to prepare such plans. The organizers also send follow-up materials and reminders to attendees to review their action plans and determine their progress.
“During an event, I always take notes and always drink coffee,” says Abboud. Afterwards, fuelled by caffeine, she goes over her notes and thinks about where she’ll be presenting the information. “This helps me pull out the main themes I want to present.”
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