[boulder.pm] July Perl conference in Monterey

[Walter Pienciak]

Ah, yes,

Getting the management to pay for training . . .

I can only speak for myself and the small technical group
I'm a part of (7 people), but we've always found that
conference attendance *more* than pays for itself in a few ways:

1. Increased productivity (hey, why reinvent the wheel?).  These
   conferences are the best way to keep up with what new is being
   done, and which path people are taking, and why.  Which technical
   solutions are rising or falling.  The people at these conferences
   are the people who *actually do the work*, and someone there just
   finished the job you're trying to figure out how to get a handle on.
   Plus, the informal get-togethers between people with like interests/
   problems have saved my company *countless* hours (dollars) of grief.
   Glossy brochures and salesspeak are worthless; let me talk to a
   sysadmin/programmer who's wrestled with a product, and I'll know
   the truth about it -- good, bad, ugly, everything.  And the odds
   are that they looked over the competition and have opinions about
   those also.  BOFs cut through the bullshit, and that's worth a lot
   of money.

2. Better morale.  Hey, the truth is that in this job market, if I
   feel that my company isn't investing in me and that my job skills
   are getting dated, I'm *out of there*!  My technical group has
   stayed intact for almost 4 years (and I work for a nonprofit, so
   benefits aren't *that* great  ;^)  We feel *strongly* that our
   conference policy is a significant (and good) part of our culture.

3. Training from the best.  There are zillions of "training" classes,
   but the folks at the conferences below are at the top of their
   game.  Want to learn DBI?  Why not learn it from the guy who
   *wrote* it?

4. If you get good enough, maybe someday you'll be a presenter.
   Then your company gets great PR.

5. And if you have open positions, maybe you meet somone who's
   interested.  These conferences sort of filter out bozos.
   (No guarantee, but at least the person is sharp enough to have
   found the conference and recognized the inherent quality.)
   These people are there because they want to learn.

6. Information transfer back into the company.  Okay, you're back
   home with all these papers and tutorial books and scribbled notes.
   Make like the honey bee and start sending people e-mails and
   attachments of things relevant to their projects.  It's all FYI
   stuff and takes little time, so SPREAD THE WEALTH.

Personally, I like the following conferences, as they all consistently
deliver immediate bang for the buck:

a.  USENIX LISA.  It rules.  Seven days of high-bandwidth data
    transfer straight into your head.  No bullshit, little theory,
    just "how to do it".  
b.  O'Reilly "Perl" (now Open Source).  Tutorials, technical tracks.
    Tons of stuff directly relevant to your current and planned
    projects.
c.  SANS.  Anyone who admins or programs in an open environment
    (i.e., web or "Internet") needs to get a serious clue about
    security.  The cost of just one incident would be way higher
    than years and years of conference attendance.

Why, your boss can't afford to have you *not* go!

My $0.03,
Walter

__
Walter Pienciak
Manager of Electronic Information, IEEE Standards Activities

w.pienciak at ieee.org    http://standards.ieee.org/people/w.pienciak/
                       http://walter.dsl.frii.net/family/walter/
+1 303 527 0934        P.O. Box 3780, Boulder, CO  80307-3780


On Thu, 22 Jun 2000, Kyle Moore wrote:

> You talk my boss into letting me go and I'm all for it...should even
> have my new car by then...LOL
> 
> Seriously, I would have loved to have gone to this one...hope you have a
> good time.
> 
> Walter Pienciak wrote:
> > 
> > Is anyone else going out there?  I'm getting ready to make
> > travel arrangements, but I'm toying with the idea of driving
> > (1200-1300 miles each way) and wonder if anyone else'd be
> > interested.
> > 
> > In any case, we could plan on doing dinner or something . . .
> > 
> > Walter