tis the season of conferences w/ me :)

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Hello, hello. Thanks for listening to guidance counselor 2.0. Listen, I want to give you a quick rundown of what this podcast is and what you're about to get into as you listen to these episodes. We had guidance counselors in middle school. We had guidance counselors in high school, but we didn't really have guidance counselors in college and now as professionals. We don't really have anybody to turn to to ask a quick question to learn something about the job search or to navigate your career. So that is what I want this podcast to be for you. I want it for it to be a tool for you to navigate the job search and your career.

So that being said, I hope you enjoy this episode and if you need to reach me, tailor at vacovac.com is how to get in touch with me old-fashioned email social media at tdsintdessey. And finally, please rate and review this in the app store because I want this to be discoverable for others so they can navigate their careers. Hope you enjoy the episode. So let's dive in, right? React Miami. So I was in Miami last week for those of you who did not know. Try to put out some content. Maybe some of y'all seen it. Maybe some of y'all did it. My mom was like, I didn't see any content.

I was like, Mom, I put it out all over the internet. And so I want to give some thoughts. First and foremost, so conferences are back. I got accepted into another conference to speak at not making the announcement yet. Got it clear with the wife and the kids to make sure I can go. But it's got me thinking. I was like, it's time to start talking about conferences again. If you feel comfortable traveling to be around people, you need to do it. If you don't totally understand, totally understand, complete empathy and grace to me on that perspective. And so for me, I do want to talk about I do want to talk about React Miami how special was Beth what's going on.

It's great to see you. Beth was down there signing down and react to Miami. It was such an amazing event. And I was talking to a lot of individuals and you know, I really tried. I want to save y'all. Yeah, William exactly react to Miami was amazing. I want to save y'all some headache. So that's what this show is for. So the first part of conference season is first picking a conference that you want to go to. Right. What I would do if I were you, I would do your research right. Not every conference is created equal. So I would highly do some research. Some conferences that I think you should look into definitely react to Miami next year.

Definitely be back there next year. If they have me back. I you know, code stock and Knoxville already happened. That's a great event. You know, I would say I mean, there there's a ton of conferences. Shoot, I'm trying to think of more. I'm drawing a blank momentum conference and Cincinnati. Michael Richardson. He is also a former speaker of the show. I would check that out. If you're interested in going to conferences, shoot me DM. I'll give you my thoughts on it. Render obviously definitely be there. But the big thing with conferences, it can be very overwhelming. It's very, very overwhelming. I as an introvert. Yes, I'm an introvert.

I'm very good at social sprinting like in these moments. But conferences have overwhelmed me a lot. And so the first thing I would recommend to everybody who was watching this if you go to a conference and I posted this the other day. Pick like five to 10 speakers that you want to meet based off your similar interest. Right. So for me, I think one thing I struggle with is I go into these conferences and like man, like I got to try to meet all these people. This is exhausting. And basically what I do is is anxiety cripples me and I just leave. Right. And in the past, I'm like trying to meet people and then like anxiety overtakes me, especially the hallway track.

Right. There's a ton of people. And it can be very overwhelming. And so what I would recommend first and foremost, pick five to 10 speakers that you just absolutely want to meet. And also pick five to five to 10 classes, depending on how big the conferences that you must go to. Right. Here's the deal. This may be an unpopular opinion. You don't have to go to every session. You don't you don't you don't have to go to every session of these conferences. You know, I have realized that I need to give myself a break. I I really truly do. I need to give myself a break.

And so I do that. I pick a few sessions, a few speakers that I know that I want to go see. And then and then I give myself the the the ability to breathe to maybe go walk around some other booths. Maybe to work a little bit to kind of get away from everybody. That's totally acceptable. I also want to let you all know this. You need more than anything else. Every person you meet. I know it's a little awkward. You need to try to connect with them on some social media platform. That's incredibly incredibly important. Business cards are fine. If you want to hang out business cards.

I get it. But to me, so if I were you, if you're going to conferences. And I'm going to have this for render. Look into the dot card. It's called dot card. And basically it's a card that you can hold up to anybody's phone and it immediately. It immediately pops your social media information on their phones so they can connect with you. I've become the in react Miami. I was like, again, the big thing is how do you scale yourself to hundreds of thousands of people. How do you do it right. And it's it's friction. You need to you need to take away friction. Right.

Friction in this situation is, hey, Mr. Mrs. Person, can you give me your phone so I can plug in my information. That's friction. So you're going to have a little awkward. Right. You're kind of asking for somebody's number. It's kind of weird or their social media handle. So you got to not create friction. And so I would look into the dot card. If you are going to a meetup neck or conference next. Another. And I see some people chiming in with comments. If you have questions about how to do with conferences. Please let me know. Let's talk about him here in a minute. So the next thing I will say is the hallway track.

So for me, don't go to all the sessions, but be present for the hallway track. So what is the hallway. You always hear about the hallway tracks hallway conversations. It's literally just when the sessions and everyone's in the hallway, like going somewhere else. Now this can be overwhelming as an introvert like myself. It's very overwhelming. What I would do is I would really try to find one or two people that you know what the conference. And I would always go back to the hallway. So you can get introduced to other people. Right. I found myself in a react to Miami sometimes kind of standing there like this.

With no one around and I was like, Taylor, go find somebody you stand around by yourself. No one's going to come up to you just like you don't want to come up to them. And so what I always would go back to you. I would always go back. to somebody I know at react Miami, stand with them and then get introduced to other people. Like for example, I went to a dinner with a few devs the first night. I know Brandon who spoke with the conference from Dayton, Ohio and blitz, JS. I hung out with Brandon. I kind of like stayed around Brandon and Brandon introduced me to a bunch of people that now I'm friends with.

And I connected with them on social media. If you don't connect with them, how are you going to keep up with them? Right. Again, networking is taking a taking one interaction and trying to stay in touch with them forever. Like that's like that's what networking is. Right. And so again, make sure that you are getting their information some way, shape or form. I wouldn't do email. I mean, you can do email. That's fine. But again, the whole part of social media is being front and center. Right. Like I'm going to give shout out to Samantha. Right. Shout out to Erica. Gabrielle. It's great to see you.

Right. You know, you bear it. I'm going to give shout out to Barry. All these individuals are so consistent on my show. So consistent. You're law. here. Let's see here. Samantha goes, what are some common sense etiquette rules when interview no resume. Okay. So this is a good question. I want to get this. This doesn't apply to conferences, but I would do want to get to this. Listen, when it comes some, some quick etiquette. Samantha actually have a podcast on this. It's a while back. So you may have to scroll. But I do have a podcast on this. No fake backgrounds. I think it looks really cheesy.

Make sure it's clean. So I would dress business professional on the top. There's no needs where suit and tie or full on dread. At least in my opinion. Be comfortable. Have a lot of natural light. Like I have a light right here that shines on my face. I have natural light coming in here. Make sure your room is very well lit. And then also have a really good webcam. I would definitely splurge. We live in a remote world. I have a 4k Logitech webcam. And it makes all the difference. You really want like your virtual identity or your virtual presentation about who you are is just as important as the real world.

So you need to make sure you have all those things. Gabriel comes in and goes, what sort of the difference between a conference and a big meet up. Very good question. Basically a conference has multiple speakers. A big meet up usually has just one topic and one speaker. And usually a meet up is like for one or two hours and usually a conference is at least for a day or two. So it's a lot bigger. But the same principles that I just talked about for a conference networking connecting with individuals on social, you know, picking out a few people that you want to meet. And so you can do it for a big meet up.

If they use meet up.com or another tool to aggregate people's like RSVPs. Go on to the RSVP list before the meet up and pick five people you want to meet. And then here's the deal. If you can pick five to 10 people you want to meet. Give yourself grace. And like if you're just tired leave, you can leave. It's fine. You can hold yourself to five to 10 people at a time. Riley, dude, you're living up mine. We loved all the videos. Thanks, man. Definitely going to start going to conference as soon to meet all the people interact with. Yes, all due to about posting, bringing business cards as old schools that may be to give people a physical reminder.

Yeah, I think business cards can work. I do think we all find people on social media. So if I were you kind of going to best post down here about a QR code, which this is incredibly this is huge. I may do this for render. That's something you need to do. I would have a QR code on the on the business card. And to link to something else. I think business cards are fine, but let's be honest. You get a business card and it just goes away. Social media is your business card. Now LinkedIn is your business card. Right. And what's great about LinkedIn is if you post content.

And you connect that person, then that person becomes part of your ecosystem. So they start seeing you. I can't question so many people Miami new people and I've started to post content since Miami and all those people are commenting on my stuff now. That would not have happened if I didn't connect with them. Let's see her Christina. It's great to see a girl. I meet people for food. I tend three sessions. I hang in the hallway a whole number. I love the way you write and communicate, Christina. Yes, this is it. I meet people for food. You're right. Hang out with them at the lunches at the dinners, whatever.

I tend three sessions. Love that. I hang out the hallway. I hope my room. I love this strategy. It's all about balance. Right. Because let's be honest, y'all we all have lives after the conferences. Like you can't come back from the conferences just being completely drained where you got to take two or three more days off. You got to pace yourself. Right. Patient. It's okay to go back to your hotel room and watch some TV. I'm going to say that again. I'm giving you full permission at conferences. If you are feeling overwhelmed and tired, go home to your hotel, turn on the TV and just relax.

Give yourself a mental break because conferences are a lot. Going back to best comment. This is awesome. I think I'm talking to do it. Again, going is conferences is marketing. Like if you're there, you are a company. Just because you don't have a booth, you are your own company. Right. That's the whole thing with content, creation, blah, blah, blah. You are your own individual. You are your own company. How are you getting your details out to others is incredibly important something that I would think about. Let's see your Barrett comments with best. Lots of conferences per QR cards on badges these days. Yes. So we act Miami.

No, e-merge had that. It was a little janky though. It didn't quite work correctly. But yes, I do think there's a huge, huge opportunity for QR codes at these conferences. Let's see here. Stephanie Parker. It's great to see you. And then Christina, I recently went to a conference and made sure I met up with someone I knew and were able to network with other people together. So it took pressure. Again, yeah, I mean, going up to a group of strangers at a conference is terrifying. It's just absolutely terrifying. Like, hi. Like, especially me too. I'm a recruiter, right? And I try to hide that shit like crazy.

But at the end of the day, like, I still got to say I'm a recruiter. So again, networking connecting with people that you know what these conferences is so, so incredibly important. Let's see here. Samantha, thank you so much. Anna, it's great to see you. I hate Taylor conference season. It's definitely upon us. It absolutely is. I'm likely to be moderating at the World Congress in Berlin. Holy smokes. I won't go to that. That sounds like a ball. When there were 5,000 attendees, I am pumped about it. Can't wait to get back on stage. I love that so much. Anna. Yeah. And again, 5,000 people.

That's a lot of people. Again, Anna, I'm curious if you have any strategies, kind of what you do with conferences. If I was going to this big of a conference. So, um, emerge. So react Miami was in a conference called emerge America, which was I think is big as this 5,000 people. It gets kind of crazy. Really just find your tribe in this conference. Get to try to find out who is going. Stick to them. And then meet those people and then move on, right? Try to network at the boost, right? Because there's also the booths as well. We haven't talked about that. That's another opportunity to network as well.

So yeah, again, be strategic. Don't get overwhelmed 5,000 people is a lot of people. But again, find your tribe and just really lean into that. So you don't have to be super overwhelmed with trying to meet 5,000 people because that's just not possible. Let's see here. Barrett comes in. Remember the last time I actually handed someone a business card. I got a box of 300. Yeah. Only 2020 doing the music. Yeah. Again, I think I think business. So I was actually thinking about it. And this may be a little crash. And I'm sorry. This is my show. So whatever. I was actually going to the bathroom.

And somebody left their business card at a urinal. And I was like, you know what? This is actually a brilliant idea. Is leaving your business cards where people kind of hang out for a quick second to check it out. Because let's be honest, it bear and I met in the hallway and I handed him my card. Barrett. What is Barrett going to do? Barrett's immediately going to put it in his pocket or his laptop case. And honestly, Barrett Barrett's not going to look at it again. He's just not. You got to think this way. There's a lot of marketing that plays in the conferences. So that's where the QR code or the dot card where you can like hold your card up to your phone to someone else's phone and your social media pops up.

That's why it's so important. Just a business card with your email. Like that's not going to work. I'm to be honest with you. If if you want to do a traditional business card, I honestly would leave the cards randomly in the conference. Just leave them randomly. I think that's the way to do business cards is leave them randomly where people can find them because people are going to be curious. If there's a random business card like hanging out in a urinal stall, I looked at it. Right. I mean, I was, you know, there. So again, I'm going to move on from the urinal talk. Sorry about that.

You know, social media is your business card. Yes, absolutely. I'm going to see your Sabrina. It's great to see you. As you hear Barrett. Love small conferences. The best conferences. I'm like, yeah. So I actually agree with Barrett here. I think going back to the large meet up versus conferences. I think like react Miami was perfect. There's about 300 to 400 people there. And it's such a good vibe. I think I think small conferences. I think that three to 500 number is perfect. I think you start going north of that. Well, first off, it just gets a lot to manage. But yeah, small conferences are the best.

Yeah, I'm sorry, Ben. All right. So yes, luckily, some of my old friends from Twitter are Francesca. They're awesome. We'll be there as well. Some developers and I personally, so I'll be sticking with them. Also, I'm guessing I'm, I'm, I'm speaking as a moderator, probably some social person. I figured I'm making an extra there. I love that so much. Yep. Again, just again, I said, I figured just to make the connections there in deep in the connections on social later. I love that so much. I imagine finding a woman's card in man's restroom. I'm not, I'm not that. Let's see here. Christina, I'm lucky enough to be the keynote speaker.

So they come up to me. I don't have to seek them out also knowing which platform is the best to connect. Yeah. So this is another thing. Right. So there's some group of people that like Instagram. There's some people that like Twitter. Right. I prefer Twitter or LinkedIn. Again, I think this is where you need to look into a dot card and have it to where people can choose, which is incredibly important. Cool. So that's conference talk. Let's see here. We talked about hallway tracks. We talked about, you know, channeling people to your social media talk about business cards. We talked about picking out speakers.

We talked about resting. I think that's it. I think that's it. You know, I think, you know, I would ask your employer. If they support the budget for you to go see a conference, they should at least one conference. I know a lot of tech companies have it to wear any of their individuals can go to one conference that they cover the cost of one conference a year. If you need literature to go to render, I would highly check out render, ATL's website. They actually have created a sample email to send your boss. So I would check that out. So all right, y'all. Well, that is it for me today.

Why don't you talk about conference season. Again, community is so important. Community over everything. Again, react to Miami, Gabe, Michelle. They did such an amazing job at react to Miami, creating community. Again, it's all about community. What are you going to do with those random people you need at conferences. What are you going to do with those connections. And in my opinion, you channel them to social media where you should be putting out content and related to your your career and your specialty so you can build community that way. Tomorrow morning, unicorn finders, 9 30 AM central. We have a national technology council award winning company startup called culturally tech and it's incredible.

Lightning cast, natives going to join us. So please, please check that out. Yes, Beth thank you so much, Beth, plan your conferences, be access with people with disabilities. Please. And thanks, thank you, Beth, for saying that. I need to get better. Obviously be more vocal about this as well. And so, Beth, thank you so much for putting that. It's so, so important. And then bear, yeah, try speaking at conferences. A lot of companies will fuel costs. Yes, absolutely 100%. So unicorn finders tomorrow morning 9 30 am central. Go hang out with us on unicorn finders. We also have a LinkedIn page. The unicorn finders. Please go connect with us.

I'd love that. And then Friday I actually have a render atl individual on the show. We're going to talk about career stuff. It's going to be great. So again, you all have a great one. Thank you again for hanging out with me today on this wonderful hump day. You all have a beautiful day. I'll see you all tomorrow with unicorn finders. Peace. Hey, you did it. You listened to an entire episode. And I am very grateful because you know why there's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a lot of episodes and I myself rarely finish an entire episode. So I appreciate you so so much for listening.

Quick reminder, please rate and review this podcast in the app store. I want this to be discoverable to others and the only way that happens is if you take the time right now and rate and review it. Please like right now. Unless you're driving, then don't do it. So thank you again. If you need to reach out to me at tayloratvaco.com or at t-test and on all social media handles. And I hope you have a fantastic day.