The case for not spending your time in conferences

If you happen to follow me on Medium, you already know it: I’ve gone off social media with the exception of LinkedIn. However, I often think that I should quit that too as watching my feed creates negative feelings like sorrow and frustration.

Why is that? Simply because my LinkedIn feed seems to be full of posts from various conferences, expos and fora.

Having been there (a lot) and done that (a lot), I cannot refrain from saying that all this hyper activity not only won’t help your business at all, but will actually harm it in several different ways (lack of focus, less time to work, funds spent without return, aso).

I’ll never forget so many huge efforts by so many people which finally had either zero return or negative; from Athens (Comdex) to Hanover (CeBIT), from San Francisco (CloudBeat) to Barcelona (MWC), and from London (ICE) to Las Vegas (HR Tech), the story always looks the same: Charismatic speakers, impressive booths, disruptive products and unparalleled networking opportunities.

But at the end, despite the energy, resources, attention, effort and focus, the expected results simply won’t come. Going to such events is somewhat similar to working with PR agencies — The single thing they can guarantee is their invoice at the end of the month.

In short: Mind the gap between networking and not-working. And do give your time and money the respect they deserve.