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How do YOU prepare for a conference?

September 18th, 2008 | highcallingblogs.com, writing

blogworld logoI don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know that it has been one heckuva week for me as I’m scrambling to get ready for BlogWord and Godblog.

I’ve got my schedule printed–including meetings with several members of HighCallingBlogs.com, people I’m looking to recruit as bloggers, people I’m looking to recruit as writers, and people I’m just hoping to meet so I can say hi–Darren Rouse, Guy Kawasaki, and Brian Clarke have all had a big influence on the way I understand social media.

And of course, there are the exhibitors that I plan to visit:

  • b5media and their ongoing poker game with Darren Rouse. That’s a conversation that I need to think through carefully. I have tremendous respect for Darren.
  • cocomment is something that I think will finally work for us (here’s my cocomment feed, sort of)
  • buzzlogic looks promising as an ad solution, but I’m still not sure where we stand on our desire for ads
  • crowd science may provide some good statistics, but I already get statistics from google. So they’ll have to explain that. Also, they have some blackhat jokes on their homepage that made me wonder about them.
  • disqus will need to tell me how they are different than cocomment. I need to install their plugin here before I go to blogworld.
  • International Blogging and New Media Association looks like something I could help with. I plan to attend their organizational meeting.
  • Fast Company is a brand I need to learn more about. For instance, why do we need one more LinkedIn type social network?
  • intense debate is another cocomment and disqus challenger.
  • Kithbridge is someone who looks like it thinks about RSS the way I do. I’d like to talk to them.
  • Lijit is another brand I have been hearing about that I plan to investigate. I want to understand what these people are doing exactly and how it could overlap with HighCallingBlogs.com.
  • MarketLeverage is a group that also presents to the Direct Marketing Association, so I’m interested to talk to them about how they see DM applying to social media in the future.
  • mindtouch looks like an interesting wiki approach to project management, but I don’t see how it is necessarily better than google apps–other than the wildly raving endorsements from technology bigwigs.
  • Outbrain looks like it has developed a social widget. Not sure how it applies to us, but I’m curious.
  • PRWeb is something I’ve long admired since I read an incredible case study about it in Scott Meerman’s book The New Rules of Marketing and PR. (GREAT book by the way.)
  • Technorati. Sigh. I haven’t been actively researching there in some time. But I need to go see what’s new. So much to do. So little time.
That’s it. When I’m on the floor at any rate. I love conferences and trade shows, but they stress me out a little bit. I never know how many contacts are enough. How many leads to I follow? How do I decide which tools and sites are worth researching and which are deadends? All sandwiched between two days of great talks and presentations.
Man, I love stuff like this!
I also love the fact that my Frau is going with me. So evenings will be full of lots of Vegas fun from Mystere to the Munchen Hofbrau. (I’m really excited to relive some memories of Germany there.)
Here’s my question for readers. (Both of you.)
Do YOU have any tips for preparing for conferences and/or tradeshows?
How do YOU measure whether a trip has been successful?

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