How Do You Afford To Go To Conferences?
Tuesday 15 April 2008 - Filed under Code
I’m completely bummed I’m not going to make it to any conferences this year – I should have volunteered to speak a bit earlier! cfObjective looks sweet but by the time I payed for the conference, airfare and a hotel I’m guessing I’d be looking at $1,000 at a minimum. Eeek.
I’m curious for those who attend. Do you pay for this out of pocket? Does your employer pay for some? All?
I *could* ride my bike up :) but it would take a few days according to Google:
2008-04-15 » Jim Priest
15 April 2008 @ 11:40 pm
cfObjective will be the first conference I’ve ever been to. Luckly, my employer is flipping the bill.
16 April 2008 @ 12:39 am
Jim, my employer is paying for cf.Objective…of course we are in Mpls. So, that makes it easier to justify. I would suggest checking with CF locals to see if you could cut costs by either staying with a local CF dev or staying at another hotel (other than the conf host). Just some thoughts.
16 April 2008 @ 2:06 am
Sheesh…I would love to attend some of the conferences as well….unfortunately I live in New Zealand…..I would hate to think what it costs to try and attend.
16 April 2008 @ 3:07 am
Previously I paid for them myself… I even had to take holidays to go.
That’s something that really annoys me about UK based CF companies. They don’t seem interested in investing in their developers. (I know this isn’t a UK only problem, but it’s REALLY bad here).
Now that I run my own consultancy firm, one of the things on the cards for our people is we’ll pay for one conference a year. If someone needs to attend more than one, then we’ll let them go on the companies time rather than their own.
Long term we’ll try and allow more than one conference as we really see it as an investment in our team, and therefore the company.
16 April 2008 @ 6:24 am
For the most part, my employer pays. They have a conference budget (luckily they don’t factor in travel or lodging in these numbers), so most of the time I have been speaking at as many conferences as I can so I can get away with little or no charge to get in the door.
It is getting harder and harder to pick and choose which conferences to go to. It used to be simple: CFUnited & MAX, but now with 360|Flex, CFUnited, MAX, cfObjective, WebManiacs, and all the Camps out there (let alone conferences for educationa institutions and usergroups), it makes it really hard… I love the choice, but it dosen’t make it easy!
16 April 2008 @ 6:54 am
If you want to start comparing pricing, come talk to me about travelling from Australia.
Honestly, I can’t afford NOT to go. But that may just be me speaking as a framework author.
That being said, as a programmer, I get more out of going than I ever could at a 9-5 in the office, just in terms of education, and in terms of making my brain just think of news ways of doing things, getting inspired and all that stuff.
The added bonus is – I don’t know how your tax system works, but I can claim a lot of it back on my income tax as a work expense – as it is work related, so it doesn’t end up being roundtrip all that bad.
16 April 2008 @ 7:10 am
I’m fortunate to work for a company these days that invests pretty significant in its employees. That said, I was going to offer what Mark already has. If you can afford the initial hit, you can get a nice chunk of it back by writing it off (non-reimbursed work expense).
Depending on the conference, it’s that initial hit that can be tough.
16 April 2008 @ 7:11 am
Thanks for the feedback – I didn’t think about the tax angle – that may be something I explore!
16 April 2008 @ 7:14 am
My employer is paying for me and a colleague to go. We can actually walk to the hotel from our office here, so neither transport or lodging are issues.
But if/when I decide to go to CFUnited, I will be in the same boat as Jim. I think the only reason we got this approved was because it is local.
16 April 2008 @ 7:35 am
The answer is you make it a priority. This is my sixth CFUnited and the first where my employer is paying.
Grab the earliest discount, drive and share the ride with friends and finally share the room. Sometimes it means staying down the street to save a few bucks over the headquarters hotel.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way…
16 April 2008 @ 7:45 am
Wow, and I thought it was just me. I will be going to my first conference (WebManiacs) next month.
I work for the state and the Governor announced a moratorium on all out of state travel. I asked whether they could pay for the conference if I paid for the hotel and travel.
That is a go and luckily the flight into BWI is ridiculously cheap. I would recommend checking out TripAdvisor.com if you are paying your own way because they gave a wealth of hotel reviews so I was able to find an affordable hotel only a couple miles from the conference and only 3 blocks from the White House.
16 April 2008 @ 7:53 am
Typically we are a sponsor in some way to help promote our product, so I have to go. :-) Though we don’t hit all the conferences. I will at least get to go to cfobjective and cfunited. Maybe more.
16 April 2008 @ 2:01 pm
Dan Wilson pointed me to the Adobe Max speaker request form:
https://adobemax.dabbledb.com/page/callforsessions/NLXYueHm
If anyone else wants to go there and enter my name to give an Ant presentation… feel free. :)
@Rick – I KNOW I’d get a lot of a conference but it’s a difficult decision. I can go by myself to a conference or I can take my kids to Disney for a few days.
18 April 2008 @ 9:39 am
Why do we still live within the physical time and space constrain when we have something as wonderful as The Online ColdFusion Meetup Group @ http://coldfusion.meetup.com/17/ ?
Why do we still hold expensive conferences when you can host one free online?
We just have to figure out how to pay the speakers..?
18 April 2008 @ 9:53 am
Henry – I agree online presentations are a great resource but I do think the biggest value of a conference is to actually meet and interact with other ColdFusion carbon units :)
18 April 2008 @ 7:07 pm
Jim, agreed. there is no substitute to the hallway conversations with the incredible people you meet at conferences.
When I was consulting solo I budgeted 1k/yr to be at whatever conferences would make the best expenditure. I did CFUNITED twice and never regretted the expense. I would echo the comments above about doing room shares. I don’t know all the cities for all the different events now but you can get rapid rewards vouchers for SW airlines on ebay and go anywhere they fly for about $220.
Then there’s the entrepreneur in me that notices you have significant traffic and comments on your blog and thinks: why don’t you put a big banner on your blog that you’ll paint your face and wear the shirt of any company 24/7 while you’re there if they cover all your expenses. would make a helluva conversation starter while you’re there, probably generate more traffic to your blog and would defer all the cost to someone else. Rick said it, “where there’s a will…”
sean
18 April 2008 @ 7:49 pm
Sean – I was actually thinking about trying that… :) I need to think of something creative… If I did CFUnited I could ride up on my motorcycle and plaster myself with advertising!!