Justify Your Attendance

One of the best ways to get approval to attend a conference is to connect your organization’s goals to your expected conference experience.

List and prioritize your reasons and purpose for attending the conference. Your priorities should align with current issues and technologies important to your organization.

BEFORE

• Outline the benefits and costs of attending the conference in a formal letter to your manager.
• Meet in-person to discuss the organization’s needs and how you intend to meet those needs by attending technical sessions, tutorial courses, the technology exhibit and by networking with others.
• Provide course descriptions and instructor biographies for tutorial courses you wish to take.
• Include presentation titles and presenter names for talks you wish to attend. Highlight notable Keynote Speakers and special presentations affiliated with your company’s technology of interest.
• Include those vendors you intend to engage while visiting the Exhibit.

DURING

• Document your learning experiences at the conference as they happen. Do not wait until after the conference is over to capture the benefits of attendance.
• Collect contact details of connections made during networking events and identify similarities in organizational challenges and priorities.

AFTER

• Promptly summarize your conference experience in writing and offer to share what you have learned with others in the organization.
• Use your experience from the conference to immediately address an issue or project important to your organization. Document how your organization realizes savings gained.
• Maintain contact with connections made during the conference.
• Use these accomplishments to justify attending the conference again next year.