Conference Chic: What's In My Bag

Welcome back to the Conference Chic series! If you are just now joining me, be sure to check out my posts on the importance of attending scientific conferences here and how I prepare for conference travel with planning rituals and Evernote here.

As a recovering over packer, I challenged myself to just stick to the essentials and I think I did a pretty good job! Knowing that I would be doing a lot of walking, I wanted my conference bag to stay light and yet still have anything I might need for the day. One tip that helped me was the fact that I ALWAYS stay at the conference hotels. Usually the more expensive hotel option, the convenience is worth the expense since most of the events will be held there which reduces your commute. Therefore, I was able to keep my bag relatively light with only my Conference Essentials. My iPad Air, a Mophie extra battery case for my iPhone, my very necessary lipstick, a small plastic envelope to corral business cards I received, a business card holder for my own cards, a conference provided water bottle to stay hydrated, as well as tea and snacks to hold me over during back to back sessions.

What To Wear

Versatility is key here since there are several different situations to account for. Professional attire for presenting and general conference attendance, slightly more casual dinner attire, and much more casual sightseeing attire. Depending on the size of the conference and field of study, attire tends to range from casual to business professional. Personally, I prefer to stick with the classic business casual attire from the airport to the conference and back. I firmly believe one can never be over dressed! You never know who you will run into on the plane and I like the idea of being prepared in case a casual airport conversation turns into a job opportunity. In another effort not to overpack, I stayed with a classically chic black and white color palette and used interchangeable pieces that all worked together to form several different outfits and professional accessories.

I look forward to giving you more tips on how to stay conference chic!

Restez Chic Toujours!

Conference Chic: Preparation is Key

Thanks to my Pre-Conference Planning Rituals, the week before a conference is often the most fun time making preparations as opposed to a stressful rush trying to get things together. As you can see in this colorful image here, I am at my desk and browsing the conference website. Since these websites tend to get updated regularly with changes until the meeting, I usually wait until the week before to start planning my time at the meeting. I downloaded the conference app and started familiarizing myself with its interface so that once I arrived at SRCD I could use it to seamlessly navigate the different events.

My new business cards were also delivered this week and I was BEYOND excited to see Doctoral Candidate on them! I highly recommend that no mater what stage you are in of your career that you get some made. I have had a business card since my freshman year at Spelman College when all it had was my name, Spelman email address, and Agent of Change as my "position". I believe they make a lasting impact while networking and makes me feel a different level of prepared and professional. I usually get 250 made and there are a lot of resources for free ones online, your university may offer to pay, or you can get some business card paper from Staples and print them off yourself with Microsoft Word.

This is also when I download the final Program PDF onto my iPad in Evernote. Evernote is my go to app for corralling, tagging, and organizing all of the information that comes into my life because I love how easy it is to find so many different types of information. In order to best prepare for your conference maximizing Evernote's features I suggest that you...

Create a new notebook with the title and year of the conference

Use the Forward Email to Evernote feature for any conference related email updates you get and save them all to this notebook for easy offline access

Download a PDF version of the final conference program and also save it as a new note in this notebook

Use the annotation feature to mark which talks in the program you plan to attend

Take pictures of poster presentations, fliers, and business cards of those contacts you are interested in staying in contact with

Use well titled notes to take notes at the different talks you will be attending

I hope you found this helpful and I look forward to giving you more tips during this blog series!

Restez Chic Toujours!

Conference Chic Series

Attending scientific conferences and meetings are a large part of grad school life; it also happens to be one of my favorites! I returned from the Society for Research in Child Development’s Biennial Meeting a few weeks ago and am still riding on the productivity surge that attending these conferences gives me.  

Since I am on a leave of absence right now, I almost declined to attend this conference since I was not presenting this year but I am so glad that I went! I was terrified that people would ask me what I’m working on now (which is mostly reading papers in my newer areas of interest and Netflix) but I focused on the direction I want to take my research program and received so much support and many helpful suggestions that it was amazing! 

Attending and presenting at conference’s in your field of study are great for...

1. Staying up to date on the current trends in your field
2. Getting feedback on your own work by other researchers 
3. Gaining exposure to areas of the literature outside of your specific subfield
4. Connecting with scientists at all different career levels
5. Reconnecting with former undergraduate classmates and faculty 
6. Networking with leaders in the field whose work you have repeatedly cited

If you have never attended one of these meetings it can be rather overwhelming especially at some of the larger ones. But I am here to share with you my tips for successfully navigating these conferences. I had so many ideas that the original post became incredibly long and even I did not want to read further than the first section.  So I decided to turn this into a mini blog series! I will be talking about how I prepare for conferences, how to effectively navigate the meeting spaces, networking tips, and other tricks that will help you maximize your time effectively. 

Enjoy!

Restez Chic Toujours!