I am a firm believer in life-long learning and I find that conferences are indeed one of the best ways to find relevant and current information related to my area of interest. I have been in the industry for a long time and feel fortunate to have friends working in meetings and events around the world, many who I only see at these same meetings, as attendees, facilitators and presenters. These are both good reasons to attend meetings and likely the same reasons many of us attend events on a voluntary basis.  (vs say a mandated corporate meeting).

Maybe it is just me, but here is a struggle I face with attending conferences; conferences typically are not that comfortable.  One of the challenges in attending is that it is so easy as an attendee to lose our ability to be an adult, as we are overwhelmed with difficult to navigate information, finding our way through an unfamiliar facility or facilities, in different cities or countries, often in different time zones and with cultural variances.  Often we are used to being the meeting planner and knowing all the details, and in attending we lose our sense of control, and with this the sense of comfort the control over the details gives us.

Occasionally I have the opportunity to attend an event (or plan one such as Event Camp Vancouver) where the experience of the participants is put at the top of the list of deliverables.  Where information is available ahead of time, where we feel welcome from the beginning, where the environment allows for seating that is appropriate for our learning style and where we feel our opinions and ideas can be shared.

To read the rest of this post, please go to http://tahiralovesevents.blogspot.com/2012/03/permission-to-be-adult-conference.html. Posted with the permission of Tahira Endean.