FREE ARTICLES
Conference Know How
How do you get rid of the bag full of materials from the last conference you attended?
Conference materials typically end up as a pile in your office because there are nuggets of useful information scattered throughout binders, brochures, business cards, lecture handouts and notes, attendee lists, and promotional gadgets. Even after that pile sits there for weeks on end you can’t discard them because you know that are things in that pile of information that you want to revisit.
Cure this with an initial purge before you leave the conference.
First ruthlessly trash everything that you absolutely know you have no use for. Even better, in some cases don’t accept the information at all. This is a useful technique in a Trade Show conference. Vendors hand out materials to EVERYONE passing by their booth. A polite “no thanks” saves you time and them money
Then with the remainder, ask yourself:
• Why am I keeping this?
• When will I use or need it
• Can I get it someplace else?
Next capture actionable items. Skim through your notes and handouts. Make a list on paper, in your PDA or on computer task list of:
• Who you want to contact after the conference?
• To whom did you promise to send information?
• What products do you want to purchase or investigate?
Lastly determine the end use of reference materials
• Separate by topic and label with a post-it for future filing
• Use a highlighter to identify just those individuals that you wish
to include in your contact management system
Return to your office with thoughtfully processed reference materials, well defined action items and a sense of relief that you can utilize all you have learned and not be burdened by what you brought home.
Learn more about this and other productivity techniques with Shawn Kershaw, Inc.
