Value of a Conference

With all the kids back in school you may be getting nostalgic about classes as well. One way to cure your back to school blues is to attend a conference that relates to something you are involved or interested in. As you start searching these out you find that everyone is an expert and has a conference for you to attend. Trust me, there is nothing worse than attending a seminar or conference that you paid for only to find out that you understand more about the topic than the person presenting. There are many ways for you to choose which conference to attend, the key is to find one that gives you the most of what you are looking to learn. Werner Vogel gives an interesting approach to how he chooses a conference and has a way to give each conference a numeric value to help you decide between them.

There are several conferences, both large and small, for those involved in the digital media field. Here are a few of the larger ones that I find interesting; Autodesk University, Siggraph, Photoshop World and Gnomedex to name a few of the bigger ones. Most people/companies cannot afford to go to several conferences each year and some can only attend every few years due to the financial burdens of conference fees, travel, loss of company time and various other factors. The key to selecting the right conference(s) to attend is research.

Why did I mention conferences? Because I just made my final trip plans for Autodesk University 2003 (AU). For me this has several learning benefits in attending which all lead to better job performance. If you are an Autodesk product user there is no better opportunity to get insight and understanding of the products(s) of your choice and not to mention the networking you get to have with other cad users. For me this was a great part of attending last year as I had the opportunity to meet and talk with numerous AutoCAD/ADT/VIZ/MAX/(insert your Autodesk product here) users and Autodesk employees. If you use any Autodesk software then you may wish to consider attending this event as there is no better place that gathers the best of those in the industry to teach custom learning sessions on various products and topics that related to Autodesk and their end users.

Happy Rendering...