The Conference-Commando Field Manual

At the end of each day, it's essential to review your progress. "Sit down in your hotel room and think about the people you've met, the things you've learned," advises Steve Miller. "Do a running analysis of what you've accomplished and what needs to be done."

Stage V: Back to Base

Cindy Johnson, who works in knowledge management for Fujitsu Network Communications Inc., based in Richardson, Texas, is a prolific note taker at conferences. Every night, she writes up summaries of what she learned that day. After she returns home, she circulates one version of her trip report to people inside her company, and she distributes another, slightly less classified version to an email discussion list for knowledge-management professionals. During a conference, John Patrick sends colleagues at IBM quick-fire emails that are filled with interesting quotes, announcements, statistics, and insights. Both of these conference commandos want to share the intelligence that they've gathered.

"I work for a big company," explains Patrick, "and we can't all go to these conferences. So, in addition to sending off dispatches, I write a one-page email of my thoughts on things I learned that are relevant to what's going on at IBM. That email goes out to a dozen or so executives in the company."

Johnson makes sure that she's composed her trip report before her plane lands back in Texas. "If you don't do it before you get back, you'll be overwhelmed by all the work that has piled up while you were away." Johnson also uses the flight home to enter business cards into a contact database. And if the flight is long enough, she tries to write follow-up emails to people she met during her trip.

If a conference has been a team event, then a wrap-up meeting is essential. After Maria Campbell and her colleagues return from the Frankfurt Book Fair, they assemble for a two-hour post-event meeting. They list which new manuscripts they need to read for clients and which promises made at the conference require their immediate attention. "We need to get synchronized again after the conference," Campbell says.

She and her fellow commandos don't take this follow-up work lightly. They go to conferences to make connections between people and between concepts, so they do whatever they can to extend relationships and to continue discussions beyond the event.

"You know you've been to a really valuable conference if you come back not only with a stack of business cards and lots of reasons to contact people, but also with a sense of being stimulated to ask questions of yourself," says Susan Goodman. "A good conference has a thousand offshoots. It's an opportunity to network, to learn, to participate in the development of your industry, to step outside of your company -- and outside of yourself."

Scott Kirsner (kirsner@worldnet.att.net) writes on business from Boston's North End. Of course, he's seldom at home -- he's too busy attending conferences.