Rocking the Conference

I've been to a good number of conferences given my age, and while I usually enjoy them, it's pretty expected that by the end of the day I am exhausted and have a bit of a headache. Maybe it's all that stuffiness of "being at a conference" and dressing up or being around dressed up people.

Yesterday, however, was entirely different.

It's a pretty cool feeling to walk into a conference breakfast roundtable room and recognize at least two dozen people there. I schmoozed, I introduced people to one another, I stimulated conversation, I offered people resources, exchanged emails, oohed and aahed participants with explanations of all my projects, and got a good number of suggestions. It felt as though S. and I were this powerhouse tag team, being the spokespersons for our groups during workshops, asking questions to panelists (having the moderator calls on you by first name=priceless), and S. actually had a line of people waiting to talk to him by the end of the final networking period. I don't necessarily feel that I walked away with a ton of potential collaborators for my projects, but I got a few new ideas, and more importantly I got my name out there a bit more. It's wonderful to realize that all these people also think that the types of work I do is important and that I'm not just some crazy and idealistic kid. Maybe (knock on wood) there will be job opportunity born out of all those handshakes.