Unknown Speaker 0:00 Oh Joshua Warren 0:06 yeah, actually one of the best connections I've ever made at a conference was an evening event was kind of the big social event of the conference. And I had my list of you know, I need to talk to these people and do these things and go to grab a beer at the bar and guy sitting there kind of makes a comment about my beer selection. We started talking and really just over beers and a little bit of technical talk started a working relationship and partnership that has gone on for almost 10 years now. Darin Newbold 0:37 Fluoride and welcome once again to Commerce today. My name is Darren Newbold, and I'm excited to be here with you and as always have my fun loving host co host here with this Josh Warren. Josh, how you doing today? Joshua Warren 0:48 Doing pretty good. How about you, Dara? Darin Newbold 0:50 I am doing all right. It was a little crazy and getting things ready for for this podcast. But you know what? We will persevere. What do we have on our list for today? So basically, if I understand this, right, you're talking or wanting to talk about conferences? Yes. All right. So but there's a there's a kick to this conferences from the perspective of a merchant, not for those that are necessarily there to have their booth and show and all that kind of groovy stuff. Joshua Warren 1:19 Right? Exactly. Yeah. Looking at more from the perspective of the merchant? Darin Newbold 1:23 Well, let's start at the very beginning, we finally sign up, we paid the whatever awesome amount of money that we had to pay to be there. What What should we do be doing to kind of plan pre conference wise? Yeah. Joshua Warren 1:35 And I'm really gonna try to keep this as conference agnostic as possible. There's a lot of different conferences out there, they all work a little different. But I think we can give some good advice today for all of them. And, and yeah, it really starts, you buy your tickets, or sometimes even before you buy your tickets, when you're asking your boss for the budget, that's always a fun conversation. And I say that you really got to start with defining your goals. And I look at it, especially for an employee to a merchant, I would say define your personal goals and define your employer's goals. And those, hopefully, they're not contradictory, but they might be different. Darin Newbold 2:12 So walk me through maybe an example of what that could look like. And I'm, I'm not saying hey, you're every merchant here, but just kind of what what might that look like? Josh? Well, I Joshua Warren 2:21 mean, the first thing that comes to mind, is if you're looking for another job, if you're looking to kind of move up maybe into your position, then your goal is going to be a little different than your employer's goals. Yeah, and you can, you can definitely accomplish both, I think you can, as long as you're intentional about it, and kind of are aware of it. I think typically, though, it might be a combination of some skill development that you want to undertake just for your own career progression, even if you're not looking for a job. Versus like, if if your brand is thinking about purchasing a new ecommerce platform or replatforming, well, then obviously, the one of the goals for for your boss might be for you to learn about some different platforms or, or make some key connections around that platform. Darin Newbold 3:02 So the key things I'm hearing here from the goals are kind of really getting a lot get either alignment or understanding around your personal as well as the professional kind of work related goals, what those look like and then start, then what would you do after that, because I'm guessing that you're gonna get a hopefully there's like a show book or an agenda that you can then work from, or look at and say, These are the things I might want to participate in? Yeah, definitely. Joshua Warren 3:27 Yeah, you'll get that agenda that schedule and start kind of thinking about, okay, based on these goals, which sessions is it make makes sense to attend. And I would also say, don't schedule yourself, you know, all sessions all the time. There's a thing that is big, especially in, in some of the specific conferences I've been to, called the hallway track, which is basically just those, those informal conversations that happen between sessions and, and probably some of the most interesting things I've learned at conferences have been where, you know, maybe one front end experts walking down the hall, another front end expert happens to be walking by and they get into a conversation or sometimes even a debate. And it's always interesting. I don't know, I'm imagining almost like schoolyard fights, but but the nerdy developer version, Darin Newbold 4:17 right? Oh, my bids, bod particles are bigger than your bid BOD particle. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, okay. Still in that pre conference mode, thinking, would you also look at her? Or how much influence might there be based on the speakers present? Or the speakers that are planning to be there? And how would that Joshua Warren 4:38 look? Yeah, I would definitely say, you know, if there's speakers that you want to connect with, or that you're especially interested in attending their sessions to, to connect with them in advance and to kind of seek them out and connect with them on social media and look at it from that perspective. And on the lines of social media. I've found that each conference So each community kind of has a specific social media platform that they engage with. I know for instance, for years for Magento conferences, it would be Twitter, you would really see a lot of activity on Twitter. So I would kind of dig around, try to figure out, okay, which platform is this conference going to be on, and start engaging with the speakers and other people that might be attending on that platform. And that'll really come in handy once you arrive at the show. Darin Newbold 5:24 And so you would focus more on the platform that is integral to that event, versus what I've done in the past is using LinkedIn and really started connecting with people on LinkedIn or advertising in those matters. Correct. Joshua Warren 5:38 I would say it never hurts to be on LinkedIn. But in a lot of cases, I've seen I've seen kind of the lonely people that are out on a different platform, say they're on LinkedIn, everyone else is on Twitter, and they're like, Hey, I'm posting about this conference, but it's, it's kind of fallen on deaf ears. So I would I would look at LinkedIn always been a good supplement. But I would still like if it's a conference that engages heavily on Twitter or on Facebook, or even now on Instagram, Tik Tok, places like that. Make sure you're you're getting active there as well. Darin Newbold 6:12 Okay. All right, is there I think we've identified everything pre conference. So all right plane has landed, theoretically, we found our hotel, we're in a great shape, we've probably had our beverage or two and we're ready to hit the conference. That's what what does that look like? And what do you see happening there? Well, this Joshua Warren 6:31 is where I've really, I can not only see a difference, but feel a difference in myself from different conferences of planning and advanced or not. It's kind of like, you see families at Disney World that they get through the gates, and they know exactly where they're going. And they get on a ride. And they're having so much fun. And there's the family that stops in front of everybody pulls out a map and says, Oh, what do you want to do today? That's not the right approach to take to a conference, you don't want to be one of those people. You know, some of these conferences are huge, like IRC is just amazing, just the size and scope of it. And I've literally seen people freeze, like walk into the exhibit hall and just freeze because there are hundreds of booths, there are tons of sessions you don't know where you want to go, what you want to do, versus the people that have planned in advance that kind of start working that plan and getting more out of the conference. But don't and, and you and I differ a little bit on this, but I'm not even going to I'm going to go to the dark side a little bit and say don't always stick to all those boundaries and plans you make. And I know that surprises you, Darin Newbold 7:30 oh my gosh, what's happened here. Joshua Warren 7:33 But there's there's a lot of serendipity that can happen at conferences. And that's the one thing I mean, that's that's what we lost for a couple of years there with the pandemic is just the ability to have, like I said earlier, kind of those two experts walking down the hall that they didn't they're not doing a session together, they just bumped into each other and start a really good conversation that you can learn a lot from. So plan time, or realize plan some flexibility and realize you might miss a session to to continue a good conversation. Darin Newbold 7:59 Well, in in one of the things one of my favorite words is this is all about proximity or propinquity in having a bunch of people together that are similar and interest in similar in desires. And suddenly you're standing next to each other maybe grabbing a sandwich together and strike up a conversation and become Bosom Buddies after that going forward and stuff. So yeah, Joshua Warren 8:20 yeah, actually, one of the best connections I've ever made at a conference was an evening event was kind of the big social event of the conference. And I had my list of you know, I need to talk to these people and do these things and go to grab a beer at the bar. And guys sitting there kind of makes a comment about my beer selection. We started talking and really just over beers and a little bit of technical talk, started a working relationship and partnership that has gone on for almost 10 years now. Darin Newbold 8:46 Wow. That's awesome. That is really awesome. All right. So first up, when we arrive at the conference, we need to remember and kind of let's follow our plan, but we want to remain flexible, have some spontaneity and have definitely be aware of propinquity so now we get to fund sponsor sales pitches. Joshua Warren 9:04 Yeah, this is probably the most merchant specific advice. I have to get watches here. Actually, yeah, sometimes literally, the moment you get off the plane in Vegas, people are trying to sell you things. But especially at the conference, and I don't want to I don't wanna speak ill of the sponsors. You know, we've we've sponsored events before and I mean, realistically, that's how these events happen, right? The sponsor dollars, but what a lot of merchants don't know and especially over the years talking to them realize that this surprise them. Oftentimes your badge is going to be color coded or tagged in some way that basically tells all those sponsors here's the money here are the people you want to pitch to. So you're gonna get approached and you're gonna get even outside the exhibit hall, you'll probably get some people that want to tell you about their awesome product or service and just going back to my my level boundaries, just feel free to say no say you're not in interested, I mean, honestly, the the smart salespeople realize they want to spend their time talking to people that are interested in their product or service. So they'll appreciate a, a friendly, you know, no, I'm not interested at all take your card, we just know that you're gonna get those sales pitches. And you have to be careful, because you can end up spending your entire show just getting pitch to and not necessarily meeting the goals you set out for. Darin Newbold 10:23 And a brief side note here, coming from a former and maybe recovering salesperson that's done these kinds of things that there are, there are ways and methods to avoid those situations, and especially just having some emotional and personal awareness that if someone's not interested, you can tell and find ways to either make it interesting or don't even make it about you or your pitch. So there's some ways there, what else do we need to know while we're, while we're here at the conference before before it closes out, and Joshua Warren 10:49 we're exhausted and our feet are numb. I would say, really, throughout the day, try to take some notes. And I am a huge personal knowledge management guy and could talk to you about all sorts of cool note taking apps and or projects podcast 100, pod 100 note taking opportunities and ways to do that. Yeah, but I would say don't get fancy, just use Apple notes, use whatever is built in your phone, use whatever you know, because really, your goal here isn't to you know, write down every single thing. It's to write down enough that when you get back to your hotel that night, maybe you can flush out those notes a little bit more. And even that's just enough to help you remember when you get back to the office. Darin Newbold 11:28 All right. So we've taken our notes, we've survived the sponsors and sales pitches, what's the last thing that we ought to do as we're kind of finishing up or covering through the conference? Joshua Warren 11:39 So I've actually gotten sometimes as much or more value out of a conference through social media than through some of the in person interactions? How does that work? I'm really curious. Yeah, so there are the the first thing is there are people that will go to sessions, and they will live tweet them. So they will literally each, they'll take a picture of a slide and they'll say, hey, the speaker just said, this really insightful thing. And they'll tweet that, well, you can almost attend multiple sessions at the same time that way, because if you are in a session making some notes on it also, either at that moment, or later looking at the social media, the hashtag for the event, you can kind of pull out some key insights, even from the sessions you're unable to attend. Darin Newbold 12:17 It can also help if you're a little add as well, but but help, we're not really sure. To 20 to 20, your mileage may vary. The other thing, Joshua Warren 12:25 though, is there's always unofficial meetups on official get togethers that kind of come together spontaneously around social media. I know that, for instance, the Adobe summit conference I've seen there's already a group on LinkedIn that's forming of like people that are planning on attending that conference, just so they can coordinate and say, hey, you know, after all, the official stuffs over, we're all going to meet here, there, wherever. Darin Newbold 12:49 Now you're speaking my language, it's a party. It's the party. Joshua Warren 12:53 That's basically how you find the parties. Darin Newbold 12:56 And that's in my experience. That's one of the areas that believe it or not, some of the best conversations happen, because it was an opportunity to get together with people that I might not otherwise have been able to get together. Because that's when you you catch them when their guards down if they will. They're all the boundaries, aren't there the gatekeepers, and you can just hey, let's have a conversation. Joshua Warren 13:17 Definitely, yeah, I've had, it's been amazing over my career, the conversations I've had at the parties at these events, and just see the connections that I wouldn't have been able to make otherwise the executives that normally have, you know, three levels of protection around them to keep you from getting through to them. I remember once long ago after a couple of beverages really telling the then CEO of Magento, what I thought about some of the things they were doing, and it turned into a great friendship actually afterwards. But yeah, that wouldn't have happened. Just an unconference session, for sure. Darin Newbold 13:51 And did you know he was the president of the Magento? Oh, yeah, he probably Oh, he Joshua Warren 13:54 made the mistake of actually asking me he was new to the role and asked me what I thought safety tip. I shared Darin Newbold 14:03 a lot. All right. So you packed your bags, you're back on the plane, you're headed home? What's the post conference, follow up digging through the stuff? Also knowing just keeping in mind as merchants you also have then whatever fires that may have come up while you were gone? Or that you may have had to fight while you were there. So what does that look like? Gosh, Joshua Warren 14:24 yeah, that's so true about fires. I actually saw earlier, someone that's at a conference and NetSuite went down. And they're a major user of NetSuite. And they are dealing with a fire while attending a conference. So never fun. But it's a good point about the day to day and how busy you get. I think the most successful e commerce managers that I've known when it comes to conferences are the ones that come back and spend a little bit of time basically taking full advantage of what they learned at the conference. So reviewing your notes, looking through seeing what information that you want to follow up on what you want to share with your team. I think sometimes the most important thing is what do you want to share with your boss and going back to your boss and basically saying, Hey, boss, here are the new job. Hopefully not that but hey, I'm gonna have some hiring managers take you off. But ya know, going through and basically saying, Hey, you outline these goals, here's how I met them. But also, then probably the most powerful thing to do after a conference is write down what you would do differently the next time or what you want to know, for the next year, I know that there are conferences that I've attended 789 years in a row. And each year, I feel like I get a little bit better at that specific show, just because I learn, okay, this party is going to be over here, this group is going to be over there. And so just writing those notes, maybe even sharing them with your boss, that can be a good way to protect the budget for next year for that conference, and maybe even get the chance to go to a few additional conferences. Darin Newbold 15:50 One of the things I just thought of, is also maybe thinking maybe I don't know if he said this or not, but maybe even thinking about who ought to have came more who maybe didn't need to come that did in some of those cases where you were talking about budget, and I was thinking you had made this comment to me, oh, a couple years ago about a big conference and saying, Wow, if I had to do it over again, I probably wouldn't have taken those people that I would have taken these other people within the company, because it would have been more impactful for them. Definitely. And you'll Joshua Warren 16:19 learn that some conferences are more technical, some are more business oriented, some are more sales focused. And so taking the right people from your team for that, definitely, I think there's some, some very good tech heavy conferences out there that if you take your less technical team members, they may not get a lot out of it. And vice versa. There may be some developers that get sucked into retail conferences and are just bored out of their minds. Darin Newbold 16:45 For sure, so any any last things kind of on the post conference follow up? Joshua Warren 16:49 Yeah, I would say, go back to that main social media platform, as well as LinkedIn. And just make sure you've connected with anyone you met at the conference that you you enjoyed, whether it was a speaker or a conversation, connect with them. Kind of if you're if you're the kind of person that likes to do this, you're a little more extroverted online, you can even share your notes, I've seen a lot of people that will take kind of a summary of their notes, share it out on LinkedIn tag the conference, lots of times the conference will repost that, get a fair fair amount of attention. And even if you're not someone that is a fan of LinkedIn, as you know, Darren, I, I'm a recovering LinkedIn hater. You got to realize that a lot of those conversations you had could be in a couple of years, that connection is now the hiring manager that's in charge of the job you'd like to get. So never hurts to maintain those. Darin Newbold 17:42 You never know. You never know. I will make one quick comment about LinkedIn. Is that one of the things that you used to be able to do and I'm not sure if the app still does this, but you used to be able to turn on. And you could tell who was in the vicinity that was in your network? Oh, that's great. It was a really neat thing. I don't know they may there may have been a privacy thing. This was a few years ago when when I had used this. But if it's still part of the app, it's pretty cool. Because it's that location, you can tell Hey, who's around you that you might want to actually meet or connect up with or, or whatever. So those are some things that are kind of neat as as part of the overall process. All right, last, Joshua Warren 18:20 if any thoughts just reach out, let us know what conferences you're going to what questions you have. If we missed any tips, we tried to keep this a little bit more interesting than your average, you know, drink lots of water and wear sunscreen type type advice. We definitely would love to hear from any of our viewers or listeners about you know, kind of which conferences they're finding valuable and what other tips they have. Yes, as always, Darin Newbold 18:44 we'd love to hear from you. And and with that we're gonna wrap up here. We've enjoyed having you along for commerce today and we look forward to seeing here and and talking to you next time until then Transcribed by https://otter.ai