I went to Stack Overflow Dev Days – Austin event last week and it was great. It was a one day event, a number of speakers giving different talks on various development technologies, and of those, none were directly applicable to my career. Well, maybe I'll try Python for some work, but for the most part, the topics aren't something I'll use every day.
Why was it worth it? That's an easy one, and it's the same reason I went to the Business of Software conference last year, and why I'd recommend it for other people. It's why I go to the MVP Summit, and why I usually try to attend keynote speeches.
Being around smart people is exciting
It’s actually more than exciting; it’s inspiring to me. Coming away from an event like this I’m sure I’ll be excited again about my job, and I’ll have ideas that I can apply to my job. Or I’ll be thinking about how I might try something new in my job. I took some notes, and got ideas for 5 editorials and 3 or 4 blog posts. That's not counting the blog I posted about the event.
Not everyone will come away from an event inspired to write something down, but I think many of those that attend come back inspired. They come back with ideas, and with the desire to build better software, or tune SQL queries, or maybe find ways to get along better with people outside of IT. The PASS Summit is coming up soon, as is SQL Connections. If you can attend, I'd recommend it. Use this argument if it helps.
"I prefer conferences to other types of training. Attending one recharges me, excites me, and makes me enjoy my job more."
Steve Jones
The Voice of the DBA Podcasts
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