It's been nearly three years since I had the chance to sit down with one of my favorite social media Energizer Bunnies, C.C. Chapman. Last night, we chilled a bit in the Roosevelt Hotel lobby with the 140 Conference crowd and caught up, real-life and real-time.
The conversation quickly turned to balancing self-promotional demands, such as attending, speaking for and networking at conferences, with client demands--the stuff we actually get paid for. C.C. recently did a rant on Managing the Gray in which he recounted a request for him to travel to a conference and document it, with his camera, via Twitter, recording video and presumably blogging as well. He relayed that not only did the conference organizers not offer any compensation for his time, talent and the cost of lost paying opportunities due to his taking that day to cover their conference, but they hadn't even given thought to covering his travel.
And every consultant among us has been there: balancing pro bono speaking and event attendance with client work. Which events, if any, do we insist on being paid to speak at? Which do we choose to do pro bono but insist on expenses being covered? Which do we simply attend because of the value of the event itself, with no compensation of any kind expected?
At this point, we could have launched into a series of anecdotes and analyses of value, but we didn't. C.C. gave some great advice: follow the "hell, YEAH!" factor. [edit: link added 10-29-09]
That is, if the opportunity to participate in an event makes you say, "hell, YEAH!," then you should participate, whether you are being compensated or not. If your response is a lukewarm "meh," you probably shouldn't engage in the event, even if you're being offered generous compensation.
As I'm already setting my conference schedule for next year, this advice was a lightbulb moment for me. I've been dying to go to South by Southwest for two years, so that was the first event I registered for, even though I'm not slated to speak at all. I really regretted being out of town for Chris Pirillo's Gnomedex and Liz Strauss' SOBCon this year, so those are definitely "hell, YEAH!"s for 2010.
What about you? What are your "hell, YEAH!" events for 2010?
