Mike Johnson

Sounds like an incident response plan.

The audience is way smarter than you are.

The audience is doing much better than we are.

I think these two examples are really the right way to think about the conference itself.

Some conferences it's around the talks, the content.

B-Sides is great for that.

You're getting these community driven conversations that the attendees have the opportunity to learn from versus the vendor driven events.

Like maybe your goal is to go speed run the vendors and understand what all is in that space.

The important part is to have the plan going in.

What is it that you want to accomplish?

Why is it that you're going to invest your time in whatever you're going to and then lean in on that?

Maybe it is hallway con.

Maybe it is the networking events.

And so that's really what you should focus on.

So that's what I tell my team.

Have the plan going in.

But I also tell them, I want you to bring something back to the rest of the team.

If we're paying for your airfare or your ticket or your hotels or something like that.

Or it doesn't have to be exclusive.

So it could be all of them.