Ask Slashdot: Why Do You Care About Tech Conferences? 197
An anonymous user is "just starting a programming career," and has several questions for Slashdot's readers:
What exactly is the role of tech conferences? I always assumed they were mostly for exhibitors to pitch me things, but then what's in it for me? Am I just going there to network, or am I learning new cutting-edge techniques and getting enlightened by awesome training sessions? Or is it just a fun way to get a free trip to Las Vegas?
And then what's in it for my employer, who's paying to send me there? If my boss has to approve the cost of attending a conference, what's going to make him say yes? I mean, do employers really get enough value from that extra conference-only information to justify sending off their employees for several days of non-productivity? (Don't they know all that networking could lead me to job offers from other companies?)
It's always been a little intimidating the way people talk about conferences, like everyone already knows all about them, and drop the conference's name into the conversations like you should already know what it is. I always assumed people just attended only conferences for their current programming language or platform -- but is there more to it than that? What exactly is the big deal?
I'm struggling to even find the right metaphor for this -- is it a live interactive infomercial or a grand gathering of geeky good will? So leave your best answers in the comments. Why do you care about tech conferences?
And then what's in it for my employer, who's paying to send me there? If my boss has to approve the cost of attending a conference, what's going to make him say yes? I mean, do employers really get enough value from that extra conference-only information to justify sending off their employees for several days of non-productivity? (Don't they know all that networking could lead me to job offers from other companies?)
It's always been a little intimidating the way people talk about conferences, like everyone already knows all about them, and drop the conference's name into the conversations like you should already know what it is. I always assumed people just attended only conferences for their current programming language or platform -- but is there more to it than that? What exactly is the big deal?
I'm struggling to even find the right metaphor for this -- is it a live interactive infomercial or a grand gathering of geeky good will? So leave your best answers in the comments. Why do you care about tech conferences?
obvious (Score:1)
Time away from the desk? maybe a new city to check out?
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I think it's just an opportinity for the middle management to get drunk with their buddies. You can literally get all the product information, customer experience stories and analyses from the Internet. Hell, often even before the conferences. In my opinion there are very few cases where such trips are useful and justified anymore.
Ignore all the conference bs and just be fucking awesome in your own area of expertise.
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P.S. I wont come back to read an answer, so you can continue to write nonsense.
Ouch, a hit-and-run comment! I can only assume my comment hit your soft spot. You must be among the middle management I mentioned. You can try to fool yourself, but you can't fool me.
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am sorry to disappoint you, but not everybody goes there for the drinks, or to meet "buddies". Some people apparently have work ethics...
First, the drinks are literally the only thing you can't do online, and second, yay for useless religious shibboleths!
P.S. I wont come back to read an answer, so you can continue to write nonsense.
Well, you've already written yours, right? ;)
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How about actually sitting in a room with a couple people, face-to-face, and actually having a high-context conversation about: life, careers, technology, interesting work challenges, hell, even about that one time you got blitzed in Montreal, forgot your jacket at the coat check, and then couldn't remember where your hotel was in subzero weather.
You've basically just rephrased what I said.
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You're dismissing the value of those face to face bonding moments
No, I'm not. We just tend to do that outside of "tech conferences" where I live.
because you are an autist
No, I'm not. I had that officially confirmed, actually. Thank you, Mr. Pop Psychiatrist.
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F2F is an overrated waste of time.
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Friendship and feelings are not things that add to the bottom line.
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Did you read the second link you posted? The second link, #1 and #4 go quite out of the way to point out that instrumentality inserted into friendship HURTS your bottom line.
Re:obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
In your office it is very easy to get stuck with your own way of doing things and your companies approved products. You could be suffering at your job and you don't know it. Going to these conferences even just visiting the sales booths you get to see what else is out there and how to approach a problem differently. Realizing you may need a new class of products to stay competitive. That is companies pay for people to go to these. Also it gives your company exposure too. Sometimes those vendors may not sell anything to you but can become a partner were you can both expand the customer base.
Go to the conference (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's on your employer's dime.
For you: fun, broadening, exposure to more of what the industry segment is about, chance to make connections which could prove valuable to your career, opportunities to attend technical seminars or paper presentations which will clue you in to what academia or standards groups are up to.
For your employer: a way of rewarding selected employees with a nice perk, boosting their morale, gflying the company flag to keep up name recognition with others in the industry, giving them a chance to get a clue about what academia or standards groups are up to.
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And return to no work being done so now you are a week behind because you work for a bunch of inept fucktards who let tasks sit instead of doing any of them.
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A really moronic assertion. One can work while travelling and address any hot items. The idea that they should not make the trip even if it's needed is inane
I've attended conferences - CES, ESD and JEDEC. In the case of JEDEC, I had to go w/ my company's proposal and present it to the committee. The agreements are usually made in teleconferences in advance, so the conference is just a way of formally endorsing things that have already been voted on. This was in Toronto, so I did a bunch of
Re:Go to the conference (Score:4, Interesting)
chance to make connections which could prove valuable to your career,
Absolutely this bit. Don't underestimate the networking opportunities at these kinds of events. If you go for no other reason than just networking then it's still invaluable.
If you're not good at networking, then practice and learn before you go.
Re:Go to the conference (Score:4, Insightful)
> How exactly do you "practice networking" if you never talk to people because you're an introvert and, you know, an actual nerd.
Not by assuming it's impossible because "nerd".
Ask a co-worker to coffee. Find out about an interesting project in a different area and ping them about finding out more.
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While at it, ask them for the root password to their environment.
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While at it, ask them for the root password to their environment.
It is part of pinning them down for coffee. Use real pins, if you have to. And/or the $5 wrench.
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'Insightful' for dragging the president into a topic that has nothing remotely to do w/ him. That's how /. moderation works these days
If you are at such a conference and are a nerd, a good way to start is to talk to someone at a booth about their product/company, then about your product/company, and then let the conversation escalate to other related topics, so that they get to know you. In the event they see an opening where your experience matches the req, that person gets to recommend you.
Re: Go to the conference (Score:4, Interesting)
Some like Web Summit, are just over hyped bullshit.
Others, are pretty interesting.
In the IT field, for instance vmworld, some security and Linux/FreeBSD conferences expose you to a variety of sessions and labs with all the new trends, and booths were you can pretty much talk with much of the hot vendors, with actual technicians and/or experienced old timers from pre-sales to talk with.
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"with much of the hot vendors"- Just remember a vendor that hires hot people to work in the booth, probably has horrid tech that they want to hide behind the sexy.
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There may be a deeper value to a company on top of these: Networking. It is important for managers and sales people to have a good network, and looking to the world of science, it is perhaps even more important there; but scientists are less under the yoke of business demands, so can go to some serious nerd fests. The problem, I find, is that because engineering, and especially SW engineering, lies somewhere between business and science, the conferences that you will be allowed to take part in, will too oft
I don't (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm old enough to remember a time where tech conferences were actually useful, when actual techies were present that actually knew about the tech.
Of course, there were already salespeople there, as well. But both categories knew their stuff:
One could actually learn something, get good information from insiders, pose and get immediate answers to relevant questions, access that was hard to get otherwise, in those days.
But it has been decades since that state of things. I have stopped going to tech conferences when they started getting populated by junior sales folks and booth babes only. All you seem to get now is some bored young person handing you a flyer before losing eye contact and returning to whatever is more interesting on that smartphone screen. I'm making it a caricature, but that's what it feels like to someone like me..
I can get that flyer as a PDF without leaving the office.. and a lot more information, online.. So why bother going to a conference?
Cheers,
Anonymous Old Grumpy
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Tell me more about these "booth babes", good sir.
Re:I don't (Score:5, Informative)
One could actually learn something, get good information from insiders, pose and get immediate answers to relevant questions, access that was hard to get otherwise, in those days.
Yes, that's the big difference. Going back maybe 15-20 years, if you wanted to learn a programming language, you bought a book or read the manual or help text that came with your compiler. We did have online programming communities to some extent, but they kept in touch through forums like bulletin boards or electronic mailing lists or Usenet groups. Discussions would take place over days or even weeks instead of the minutes or hours they often last nowadays. Those discussions were usually more civilised than a lot of online forums are today, but there were no YouTube videos of presentations by the key people who actually designed the languages and tools you were using, we had manually curated FAQs instead of the huge Q&A sites like Stack Overflow today, and so on.
In that context, going to a conference meant an opportunity to meet the experts at the top of a given ecosystem, watch presentations on the next big things they were working on, and even pick up a copy of the new version of your favourite compiler to take back.
Of course, today, we do have much better online channels. We can watch presentations on YouTube whenever we're ready. We can pose questions in forums and have a fair chance that more experienced programmers will answer them within minutes, and we can collaborate with other leaders in close to real time if we're in that expert position for some particular subject ourselves. We can share code snippets for peer review, download the latest tools, or upload our contributions to community projects. And we can do all of these things from the comfort of our own homes/offices, without worrying about where we're going to stay overnight, or who's going to look after the kids, or the frustration and abuse that is common with long distance travel in the 21st century.
In short, most of the key advantages conferences used to have don't really matter any more, and business travel isn't what it used to be either. Some people argue that they're still worthwhile for "networking", whatever that means. I'm pretty sure I have far more opportunities to connect with other people who share my interests online today than any conference ever offered, though.
Re:I don't (Score:5, Interesting)
I knew that reply was going to be here, but I feel like you mostly wasted your thoughtful reply on an invisible AC.
I would say the same thing, but perhaps too briefly as "Improvements in network communications have largely addressed the communications problems that technical conferences used to help with." You didn't mention bandwidth, but I think conferences have also become relatively slow mechanisms when it comes to information exchange. The logistical problems are the same as they ever were and require the same amounts of preparation and lead times. Only the marketing has gotten slicker (but shallower).
Going meta again, but I think the question would have been more useful with some background about trends in attendance. Maybe they're bigger and better than ever and it's just me who's gotten jaded?
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It's an English word, used with its normal English meaning. If you read more into it than that, maybe I'm not the one with bandwagon issues?
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>I'm old enough to remember a time where tech conferences were actually useful, when actual techies were present that actually knew about the tech.
We still have them. You just have to be one of the techies. Once the marketdroids take over, it's expensive and dead. Tech conferences run by techies for techies are cheap and fantastically productive. Crypto conferences provide a pretty rich vein and in the US, the IEEE puts on a lots of events with particular focus. If you can get on the academic retreats an
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A few of the booth babes are arrogant and resentful of the fact that men find them physically attractive.
s/men/nerds/g
They like it when men find them attractive. They resent attention from nerds, who are beneath them.
The ones who let it show are how you identify the actual employees of the company who bought the booth. The contractors are professional enough not to let it show (and were hired solely because of their attractiveness, often local hires just for the duration).
Most people don't care (Score:1)
Tech conferences are mainly a PR stunt that generates little to no business to a company. For the most part they are just (unsuccessful) advertisement which is the reason why they are losing popularity and most companies are only attending one a year (if any).
Depends on the conference (Score:3, Interesting)
System level programmers (OS, codec, driver, browser, compiler, etc...) don't benefit much from conferences. But people closer to the IT level do. For example, I am a former system level developer and now am writing IT automation systems. Without conferences, I would lack access to resources of information from companies like Microsoft and Cisco regarding automation tools and APIs.
A great example would be Powershell DSC which is like Puppet, Chef or Ansible but likely to be supported for the next 20 years. Powershell DSC has tons of documentation, but there is no training or structured books on the topic which are relevant to current versions.
I can spend 1000 hours figuring it out or I can go to Microsoft Build or Ignite and corner a developer from the team and get it spelled out to me in 10 minutes.
While I'm at the show, I can learn that 125,000 lines of code and 6 months of work I have planned for the year which I'll have to support already exists but isn't obvious where it could be found.
So, for $10,000 for plane tickets, hotel, food, show entrance, etc... I can probably save my company $100,000.
Oh, and of course while I'm there, I can build my social network and find like minded individuals.
You don't think compiler people benefit?? (Score:1)
Tell me this [llvm.org] does not look useful to someone working on modern compiler issues!
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The conferences also give you a heads-up in the direction and new features products go. I have attended talks about things that makes me understand better WHY a product was designed the way it was, the sort of thing you would not get from a manual
Re:Depends on the conference (Score:4, Informative)
I'm a kernel developer and things like X.Org Developer's Conference and Embedded Linux Conference are pretty useful for me to go to, and for the same reasons you cited. Also, we get to meet other vendors and get contacts to start things like plugfests.
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It's primarily my fault, the thousands of developers on LKML bear no responsibility.
Knowledge (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Knowledge (Score:5, Interesting)
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Let's face it, now one is going to give out trade secrets in those things.
Not trade secrets, but non-public information is possible. Apple's WWDC is famous for working like that. Most of the sessions are under NDA, and it's when they present all the new technologies that will be coming in future OS updates. If you want to find out about those technologies in advance, going to the conference is really useful.
Conferences fucking suck (Score:1)
Though I've only been to one. Basically the headliner(s) masturbate on stage while the audience crowds around and oohs and ahhs.
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That sounds better than the conferences i've been to, what one was it? I must attend next time...
I've been to that one. It's called Internext (Score:3)
I've been to an industry conference which included Ron Jeremy shooting a porno at one of the after parties. It's called Internext (formerly IA2000). It's the online porn convention. The booth babes aren't random models hired for the show, they are the porn stars who actually work for (and occasionally own) the companies at the booths. Everybody who was anybody in porn was there. (This was several years ago, I don't know what attendance is like now.)
One year, they had us split between two conference rooms a
A step back to see the big picture (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the days of going to tech conferences just to see vendors are long gone. Most I've been to have either a handful or no vendors.
The reason I like going to tech conferences, is actually to take a step back from day to day work in the industry and think about larger trends. Where is your field going? What is the leading edge of things being done? Do you agree with the common assessment about ways to approach solving problems?
Basically, to think and inspire new ideas...
Also of course there are the people. You can't really know until you get to any given conference what the people that attend are like, but to to as many people as you can. The parties (if they are parties) are nice, but more spectacle and harder to talk to people at - find people between sessions and talk to them, just say hi and ask them what they are working on and why they are there.
When I say talk to as many as you can, listen to Clint Eastwoon and "know your limitations". For a lot of us social interaction is draining so if you've maxed yours out, don't feel bad not chatting for a while. Do what you can.
These days more and more content is online or streamed so there may not be as much reason to go. But it's still good to just have that break from work and routine, otherwise the videos may be there but you will not watch them or really pay attention they way you do if you are there.
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That is a great point (Score:2)
A few things about culture can be OK, hard to have a modern conference without them - but you want a conference that at the core has some technically impressive material. You can usually tell either from the schedule for the conference, or the schedule from past conferences f there's not one up yet.
Back in the day it was a vacation (Score:4, Informative)
In the 80's I wanted to go to a Usenix conference in Mission Valley. Boss said "why would I send you there". Me: "because for the past 3 years you've sent me to a week long conference in Vegas that I didn't want to go to and couldn't contribute". Boss: "But your good at what you do (telemetry), and I thought you liked those trips. Me: I don't gamble, I don't deal with customers well, I hate crowds. Boss: No.
Ended up paying the entrance fee myself and taking vacation days.
Did I mention Mission Valley was 10 miles from my condo? No airfare, no hotel, no food chits? Something like $60 and a couple days off, and I learned more at that damned USENIX than I did in 8 years of that stupid show in Vegas.
Best show? Got an all expense paid show to New Orleans, before Katrina. What sucked? Took the wife. I'd do the show, get to the hotel, and say "Ya know, I'd like to see foo" . Her response? "I saw foo yesterday, what else do you wanna see?".
Of course, back then companies would reserve 3-5 airplane seats 6 months in advance, then a couple days before the show decide who got to go. That all ended well before 9/11 when airlines decided they could charge fees for changes.
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Here are the criteria I use to tell if I care (Score:5, Informative)
I've gone to quite a few different events (both as an attendee and as a speaker), including free events, pricey events, events where I went for my own reasons, events where I went for an employer or a client, etc.
Here are the criteria I have found that help me judge whether I should really care about the specific conference:
For me, this mostly means that I end up attending events that resemble meetups, Linuxfest-type, coding workshops, hackathons, etc. While some of them do have vendors, the type of events which I favor make it pretty easy to stick to the "interesting" parts and avoid the vendors altogether.
Of course, if you want to just go and socialize, just about any event will end up with groups of people that skip all the sessions and do nothing but talk.
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I like this list a lot, I disagree with one point though: I don't find he weekend thing matters at all, plenty of devoted people will also go during the week as well. They may be taking vacation to do so which is even more impressive than taking a weekend... I think all of my favorite conferences have been mostly during the week.
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Depends on the community (Score:3)
In my 29 years in the industry, I've attended many, many conferences. They all have their peak years and peak value, until they don't. Some communities just grow too large and become too broad. Networld+InterOp was one of my favorites to attend back in the 90s, but they grew too much and became too dominated by vendors. Sadly, the same has been going on with the OpenStack community in recent years, with the additional annoyance of petty fights about direction.
The folks at the Cloud Foundry Foundation [cloudfoundry.org] keep their conferences deliberately small and targeted to the core audience, which makes them much more enjoyable, although it becomes harder to get talks accepted.
And let's face it, some conferences (particularly vendor conferences) are not very valuable, but they throw great parties, with lots of swag, free booze and just plain fun with single-serving friends. Those also have their niche, and there is nothing wrong with that either.
Just be clear what do you (or your employer) want to get out of the conference and go from there.
All of those things and more (Score:4, Insightful)
> Am I just going there to network, or am I learning new cutting-edge techniques and getting enlightened by awesome training sessions? Or is it just a fun way to get a free trip to Las Vegas?
Yes. You're going there to network - not just with companies who might hire you away, but with potential future colleagues you might help to recruit. You're going to talk to other attendees about what they're doing, compare notes on what works and what doesn't, and meet subject-matter experts who you can tweet if you get stuck. You're going to get invited to the local tech community Slack, where you can do all of the above (and more) even after the conference is over.
You might well be enlightened by the sessions - you'll probably run into at least a few things you didn't know about before. You're unlikely to learn all the details, but you'll at least find out that the thing exists, and probably enough information to decide whether it's worth investigating further at work (or away from work). Speaking of away from work, it's likely to pique your interest about things which aren't relevant at work (yet), possibly enough that you'll investigate them on your own time.
The free trip to Vegas (/ wherever) shouldn't be ignored. Having a good time, and associating that good time with work having paid for it, shouldn't be under-valued - it's likely to be reflected in your productivity and loyalty.
Many of these things are great for your employer as well as for you. What manager doesn't want a team filled with well-connected, loyal, enthusiastic developers who are interested in the latest developments in tech and may well do some learning on their own time as well?
My Personal Value (Score:2)
For me, I've been able to have booths to demo software systems that my team and I work on. Having them at shows is similar to running focus group tests. We let people try out the software with limited or no instruction whatsoever to observe how each person uniquely uses the software, we see what is confusing for users, and what we can do to improve their overall experience. For us, it is all about user experience when it comes to shows, it is an invaluable resource to see people interacting naturally, inste
Time (Score:2)
For some reason, I simply don't make the time to really dive into certain subjects. With a conference, I often come to the US and leave the family in Europe. So there's nothing else that draws away the focus. Lots of times with iOS conferences, you can book a day with an intensive workshop before the talks start, and that's really nice as well.
Unconferences and informal conferences (Score:2)
However, I often find nowadays that the informal ones, self-organised unconferences, open-source meetups are a great deal better. We talk about things that concern and are useful to us as equals rather than being sold products and being lectured to by 'thought leaders', 'evangelists' and 'horizon scanners' (whatever they are, I'm joking, before anyone tells me). Immed
Most are shit (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a HUGE industry for putting on conferences. I work for a guy who does this as an additional job 3 months out of the year and pulls in $100k for about 50 hours of work organizing it.
The vast majority of conferences are built on this:
1. someone wants to make bank by charging companies 300-1000$ per visit (which is chump change), so they put out a call for "experts";
2. "experts" send in proposals (often paying 3000-7000$ for prime speaking slots), but the funny part is, you don't HAVE to be expert. Th
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For instance, they would not caught me dead in websummit, even less by the kind of money they are asking
There are also other conferences where definitively it is not like that.
What conferences have speakers pay? (Score:2)
I don't know which conferences have speakers pay - that seems crazy. I've spoken at a number of conferences and never paid - I always at least got lodging, sometimes airfare, sometimes some small payment in addition.
Conferences are an investment in your employees (Score:2)
Some conferences are great for sharing ideas, meeting people in the field and learning some really awesome stuff. Most of these make recordings of the talks available but being there and being able to chat to a speaker over breakfast or a talking with someone over a beer who is tackling the same problems you are can be invaluable. You learn about new techniques, new approaches, the latest trick from field Y which may be applicable to your field X and just have a really good time.
Some conferences are shit
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And if that's what you hire, that's what you get.
I know, there is this story floating that companies only hire the cheapest idiots for the jobs, and yes, those companies exist. And as usual, you get what you pay for. Just like when you buy the cheapest, crookedest hardware, what you get is an insecure mess that may or may not work for more than the warranty period requires.
I hire quality, I pay for quality and I get quality. I expect a lot and I offer a lot. So far I haven't met a developer or security pers
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We do actually have juniors, but we don't send them to our customers. There's plenty of internal work to do and a lot of research necessary, and that way they get that "where do I find information?" skill honed that gets more and more important.
When I send a consultant to a customer, I want him to be exactly the right person for the job. We have various specialists depending on what you're looking for and I think if I ask more money per day from you than your average worker makes a month, I would say that y
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Access to speakers (Score:2)
Two Words... (Score:2)
A cheap way to give employees a "hug" (Score:2)
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Plus nowadays there is something called "the Internet"...in the last vmworld, at the lunch interval I connected myself to the office, and did a 1h emergency intervention.
I know, it boggles the mind...
P.S. Would not cross your mind, the "essential" personnel is the one that deserves it, and needs to upgrade their knowledge to keep on top of things?
before google, and the internet, they were amazing (Score:2)
Seriously, the tides have shifted.
A conference is mostly a place for marketing folks to get an idea of what people are peddling. It's a bazaar.
this can be valuable to you and your employer in 2 obvious ways.
1) you will come across products that you would otherwise not search for.
2) your employer will learn about how your product(s) suit the current market.
If neither of these things are something you or your employer care about, then they are useless.
When I send people I ask for 2 things:
1) find one gem of t
Too vendor focused... (Score:2)
I used to like to attend conferences because they were user focused. Meaning the end-users would deliver the majority of the presentations on what they did with X and lessons learned, pitfalls avoided etc etc...
Now most of the sessions are a vendor pitching some product and feature set.
I've seen way better content with local Meetups than the larger conferences.
IEEE (Score:2)
It depends on the confrence (Score:2)
If its something like CES then its one giant infomercial, if its something like DefCon or CCC then its well worth it.
Simple (Score:3)
Easy credits to keep my certifications.
You see, to retain security certifications, you either have to show some training, or some publication, or you have to go to security conferences.
Take a wild guess what's the easy way out.
ONE WORD: (Score:2)
Because I get to meet other people of my field ..? (Score:2)
Captain Obvious strikes again!
My take (Score:3)
What exactly is the role of tech conferences?
To establish new business connections. To discover new trends/solutions/ideas which you might have missed due to being busy. To talk to your purveyors and discuss the things in person which are difficult to discuss over the phone/e-mail.
And then what's in it for my employer, who's paying to send me there?
Likewise.
Benefits (Score:2)
Training for the more experienced (Score:2)
A bigger problem is "bean-counteritis", an endemic loss of vision and courage in management position-holders. Entrepreneurialism and indeed all capitalism is based on taking selected risks. If you only bet on documented sure things, poor returns are guaranteed.
Any particular type of conference? (Score:2)
Conferences like GDC can teach you a lot about various aspects of your trade you didn't even know mattered. Other conferences are researchers telling what they're doing. Other conferences are for companies to sell you on their latest tech and dev tools. While benefits such as networking and taking time off work are true to all of them, each of these types are different in other value they provide and highly depends on what you do in your work and what you're interested in.
Two words (Score:3)
Booth Babes.
All about learning what I've done wrong (Score:2)
The number one thing I always get from conferences (programming) is I learn about everything I've been doing wrong for the past year, and how I should be doing them in the future.
When you work primarily as an individual, it's easy to lose track of the modern way of doing things. Conferences really help redirect you to doing things the right way.
The Win-Win-Win Tax Free Income (Score:2)
If you want a bonus of $1'000 from your employer, and your employer pays you $1'000, the first thing that happens is your employer then gets to pay another ~25% of employer taxes on salaries. The second thing that happens is you get to pay another ~40% of income tax.
So, that $1'000 costs your employer $1'250, and you only get to keep $600.
On the other hand, if you employer spends that $1'000 to send you to vegas, your employer gets to write it all off as an expense, so it's tax free to him. You don't pay
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Either use a comma (U.S.) or full stop (Europe) to separate the hundreds place in numbers, not an apostrophe. I have never seen anyone do this before.
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You have seen this before. If you speak (and read) english. My numerals were not numbers, they were spoken words. In the english language, an apostrophe stands for unspoken words.
One million, three-hundred thousand, fifteen dollars, is written as $1'300'015 because the first apostrophe stands for the word "million" and the second stands for the word "thousand".
To be clear, the apostrophe can stand for individual letters (e.g. the "o" that is not in "don't") or even for multiple words, (e.g. "n the" remov
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Me neither, Nor can I find anyone else using it or anything that defines it, despite working with international companies for decades.
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Heh, I guess I mean a first-class seat on a commercial flight. Although, there used to be a business-class seat, though I haven't seen one in a while.
Alternatively: if you have to ask, you can't afford it.
Yeah (Score:2)
CPE hours and partying? (Score:2)
Sure, there are nebulous opportunities for "networking" and some real learning that goes on, but the prime motivator for many is those two items. The rest of it is just the official stuff you have to do in order to get those items.
I don't. Not anymore. (Score:2)
Every tech conference I've gone to has been worthless. I'm not one of these extroverted assholes that talks to strangers and enjoys "networking." I want to go for the talks, but rarely have these talks ever been at or beyond my level, meaning they are boring and redundant for me. I don't claim to be a tech genius or anything, but I find the talks are typically aimed at an extremely novice level.
Honestly, I feel like the whole thing is a racket, designed to get a free trip out of employers, from the prese
I'm not a fan of them in general, but .... (Score:2)
I recently attended a Cisco conference and it was helpful. In my case, it was only 20 minutes away from my office, so it didn't cost anything to go. 90% of it was just like people on Slashdot complain about with these conferences ... a lot of bored-looking people manning booths where they just hand you a business card and some pamphlet for hardware you don't need a "contact person" to shop for. (EG. Plantronics was there. Wireless telephone headsets and bluetooth headsets are pretty much commodities these
The virtues are many (Score:2)
You get out of town, you get to expense a bunch of meals, you get to hump women from other companies which is way less problematic than humping people at your own workplace, you can get really drunk and not have to face anyone you know who saw it...really the benefits are tremendous.
Meetups (Score:2)
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Dude... I don't know how to break this to you but... you sure it was chicks? Freaks, I agree, but ... I've had my share of tech conferences, the the freaks have way more land mass below than above the equator, if you catch my drift.
Re:If you have to ask... (Score:5, Informative)
While sending guys early in his career does not seem beneficial, believe me it is. He helped me achieve a certain place, and in exchange, I also helped the firm secure several businesses in a market abroad.
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Being present lets you participate in any question and answer segments after a talk, rather than just watching.
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lesbo butchy faggets sucking cocks
I think you've really misunderstood the meaning of some or most of these words.
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That is why any person who doesn't want to spend his life suffering the horrors of unearned guilt rejects Christianity from the outset. "Proud" and "free" belong together; stand on your own outside the prison of religion.