This article is taken from my book on how to get the most out of education conferences. Just 99p or equivalent for the Kindle version.
Conference hall lecture, by Terry Freedman
All of the reasons to attend that I’ve suggested in 21 reasons to attend conferences are valid, but they are personal, in a sense. That is to say, it is not obvious from looking at the list how your school will benefit from your attendance at the conference. So here are 9 suggested arguments that may appeal to your senior leadership team.
Best value
If you are considering major new purchases, such as tablets or managed services, you really ought to look at all the product options available if the conference has a large exhibition area.
Find the suppliers
A conference exhibition isn’t really the kind of place you can talk business if you’re meeting a supplier for the first time, but it can be a good place to start if you want to find out who the suppliers of a particular product or service are, with a view to meeting with them later or, say, inviting them to submit a tender for work.
Meet the suppliers
If you already know the supplier you may be able to arrange to meet with them at the conference in order to discuss a particular concern you have, or simply to reinforce the personal contact by having a chat combined with a perhaps more in-depth look at new products or features than would normally be offered to visitors to their stand. The benefits of this sort of personal contact may be difficult to quantify on a balance sheet, but they tend to manifest themselves in ways like enjoying a faster response time to queries or, if there’s a problem, having a named contact who actually knows you, and who perhaps can cut through the red tape on your behalf.
Conference prices
Exhibitors at conferences often have special conference prices, which are lower than their usual rates. It may be worth attending just to take advantage of such discounts.
Professional development
By attending seminars and talking to people on the exhibition stands, you will find out ways of improving what you do, which can only benefit your school.
To keep up to date with your subject
Finding out about the latest thinking and research in your subject, and possibly the latest relevant technology, will put you in a prime position to advise the school in a hot-off-the-press way.
To obtain help
If your school has invested heavily in a new idea or technology, and it hasn't worked very well, a conference may afford the opportunity for you to talk to someone who can suggest what to do next.
Networking
Meeting other people doing a similar job is always a good idea in my experience. It’s useful for picking up fresh ideas and learning of people, organisations or resources you may not have come across before.
Check out the hype
We mentioned this in the section called 21 Reasons to attend conferences, and it's worth reading that (again). School leaders may like shiny new ideas, but only if they work. Nobody likes to be featured in the local or national press for having apparently wasted a lot of money on an idea that didn't work. Using a conference for researching the reality behind the hype can be a very good investment indeed.
Click the cover to see this on Amazon.