What happens when I go to a conference

I’m spending a few days this week in Boston attending the Red Hat Summit in Boston, a large and very professionally done conference about their Linux, virtualization, and middleware offerings. Earlier today, IBM’s Jean Staten Healy and I gave a talk called “Linux as a catalyst for a smarter planet.” I also attended a talk about Fedora, which was unusual.

Fedora, of course, is not unusual, it was that I found the time to go to a talk at a conference. While I usually do manage to get to some of the keynotes, the individual sessions are sometimes hard to get to because I spend my days in meetings with folks. It could be the host of the conference, in this case Red Hat, or partners, or customers. Conferences provide a great way to get people together and, well, talk.

In some cases these are people to whom I speak on a regular on a regular basis, but in others it’s much more of a “hey, you should chat with these guys” and then you do. So between the scheduled meetings, the talks that I give, the impromptu meetings and the hallway discussions, there isn’t much time to attend the sessions.

That’s ok, because the intensity of the days together with my industry colleagues is really invigorating. It’s an opportunity to update each other on our strategies, make business plans, and find out what friends are up to.

I’m about to head down to the exhibit area and although it’s a happy hour, I don’t plan to drink. I have a business dinner later this evening. I may nosh a bit if I can find some suitably low carb and relatively healthy food, though conference food usually plays havoc with my diet (though it’s not the only culprit).

Speaking of exhibits, now that my children are older I make less of an effort collecting giveaways at the booths. Note that I am still a sucker for cool looking pens and squeezable penguins, but if I’m really not going to do business with you or use your software, I’ll let you save your logoed items for people who might. There are exceptions, of course, but I don’t want to waste your time or money.