Conferences for Introverts. Part 7: Media
So, you’ve met the real stars of the conference — speakers. You’ve interacted with other attendees and now have a bunch of new great friends. There’s one special “class” of conference attendees that you probably want to meet as well — the press.
You may want them to cover your products, or hear their takes on the conference announcements, or help them form a broader and more informed opinion by providing your feedback. Or you may just want to hang out with people whose articles you read and listen to on podcasts.
Whatever the reason, meeting journalists at a conference could be both easy and difficult. Yes, they are there to talk to people. No, most likely, you aren’t the person they are there to talk to. Journalists are often busy with all the pre-arranged meetings, briefings, and writing about everything they’ve heard there. Especially at big conferences with lots of announcements.
So, unless you have a good reason to arrange a meeting upfront, you’ll need to put in some work if you want to meet someone in particular.
Know how they look
This may seem obvious, but from my experience people often know the names, but don’t know the faces. At one of Microsoft’s Build conferences I’ve sat at a session next to a friend from Microsoft:
MS guy: I’m looking for someone from Windows Central
Me: That’s Daniel Rubino (Executive Editor of Windows Central) in the next row
MS guy: Oh, really? Nice!
Seriously, if you want to meet a specific journalist/blogger/anyone look them up. Especially if you want to meet someone who appears on video once in a while. Twitter avatars can be small, outdated and deceptive, but if you’ve seen a recent video, you are much more likely to recognize that person when she/he is passing you by.
Twitter is your everything
Even if you don’t care about social media in “real life”, Twitter is the best communication tool when it comes to conferences. It’s asymmetric, so you don’t have to be friends with someone to communicate with them on a level field. And that’s what arranging things at conferences and alike is all about.
And, once again, as an introvert you have an opportunity to “warm your relationship up” right before you want to meet someone. So follow all the journalists you care about and engage before and at the conference.
Press room
If you really, really want to meet someone from the media and you have no way of prearranging that meeting, you can lurk around the press room and chances are they will get out or get in at some point.
Pretty much every conference with notable media presence has a special room for the press where they can file their stories in comfort. You can usually find its location on a conference floorplan.
Make sure you know who you are looking for and how they look. And keep it below the creepy level :)
Live recordings, meetups and side events
Bigger and smaller podcasts often record their episodes at or around the conference. ATP did it at WWDC. Windows Weekly often do it at Microsoft conferences. Take the opportunity to be in the audience and interact with the hosts during the show or afterwards. If you are a regular listener of those shows you won’t miss the announcement and all that’s left is showing up.
Additionally, there may be evening meetups or other side events associated with podcasts, blogs and other media entities. Usually these are frequented by more than just organizers and their listeners or readers. Be there and get acquainted with lots of great people. Beer (in moderate quantities) helps introverts move a little bit towards the extrovert end of the spectrum, and you can just hang out in a group with a beer in hand without actually saying anything, if you don’t feel like it.
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Hope you are enjoying these tips. Next time I will post the final (unless I come up with something else in the meantime) and the ultimate tip to improve conferences for introverts. Follow me so you don’t miss it! And thank you for sharing and clapping!
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