Conferencing fun

Conferences can be a time to put your career into perspective, to reflect on long-term goals in the workplace, and to refocus on the things that matter most in your organization. To me, they’re also a blur of faces and nodding heads, comments that contain the wisdom of 10 minutes, career stories that probably won’t stick with me, and business cards and pages of notes that will eventually get stuck down in some drawer or other. (They also mean dry over-air-conditioned rooms and way too many snacks, but I suppose that’s for another post.) I met and rubbed elbows with a lot of interesting people at the last conference I went to – it was a long one, and fairly small, so names and faces stuck with me for a little bit longer than they generally do. But something else was different about this conference as well: they had Karaoke night. Outside the hotel, with tiki torches and a much too accessible bar stocked with the hardest of liquors, we were able to witness such incredible things. Full-fledged. No turning back. These are your colleagues, this is the cream of the working crop, and this is the way you sing I Will Survive in off-key shrillness while attempting to bob and bounce in some kind of regulated rhythm. There’s nothing like hearing the woman who stood up in Session 4, gently readjusted her glasses, and made that very thoughtful comment about the future of our profession telling me, in so many words, that she doesn’t think I’m quite ready for the jelly that is her bootylicious body. Now that puts everything into perspective.