Prez Talk

I have been attending STC India Annual conferences for the past five long years. I wish to take this opportunity to share a few points/suggestions with you so that you can plan better for this year’s conference:

• This year, the 13th STC India Annual Conference takes place in Chennai from December 1 to 3. Although Chennai experiences the harshest of summers, December and January are the coolest months of the year. Temperatures fall substantially down to as low as 20º C at the peak of winter.
• Advise you to stay in a hotel which is closer to the conference venue. In this age of internet, travellers offer feedback on the hotels and rate them accordingly. It may help you to decide to stay at that hotel or not. Remember that you have a networking dinner to attend on the main conference day that usually goes on past 9 PM in the evening.
• Book your tickets (air/railway/bus) in advance. I know that most of the times the delegates have to wait till the last minute before registering for the conference. But, if you are sure that you will attend the conference even if your company does not sponsor your trip, it makes sense to book your tickets a bit early.
• Arrive at the conference a bit early. It is understood that most of the delegates attend the conference and skip the pre-conference workshops. But, then arriving at the conference location a night earlier would help you. Many a time, there are requests for a conference slot change. It is better to address them earlier to the program management team.
• Scheduling to attend the sessions: Most of the STC India Annual Conference offer parallel sessions. This is done to accommodate as many conference topics as possible and offer delegates the choice to pick and choose sessions. If you are traveling in a group, do decide amongst yourselves who would attend which sessions. A KT can be done later by your friends on the sessions you have missed. In this way, you can make the most of all the sesisons.
• Read the conference newsletter carefully. It usually contains key information which can be useful to you. Also, the agenda contains abstracts of the papers being presented by the speakers. It will help you decide whose sessions you would like to attend.
• Never miss the opportunity of networking. You may wish to go to a sponsor stall booth and look at their offerings. You may get a chance to drop in your resumes if you wish to.
• Do not forget to keep the boarding passes, hotel bills, cab receipts and so on of the conference. You may require this for your reimbursement later.
• Keep a diary/notepad and record the summary of each session that you attend.

We recently concluded the 1st STC India UX Conference. 80 people attended this conference that was conducted at Welingkar Education College, Bangalore, and it was a terrific experience.

I look forward to meet you at the 13th STC India Annual Conference.