Today I had the good fortune of talking with Jordan Schwartz of Pathable.com and I got to thinking about how important preproduction is for all events and meetings. We will have the Podcast interview with Jordan up soon and Pathable has some great features.
I have always told my clients once my teams get on site the hard work is already done. I think this is the same thing when attending a conference to network. Jordan and Pathable obviously understand this, but their are some things you can do on our own for personal preproduction so you get the most out of events and conferences.

Here are 4 tips that might help your conference or meeting experience be more fruitful.

1) Get a list of questions ready. Avoid small talk questions. Be prepared with some deeper questions. Think about systems, tools, techniques, careers, challenges, company issues good and bad, handling the down economy. Like 5-10 questions ready to go when you hit the show.

2) Even before getting questions together do some pre-networking online. This will help you formulate the questions above. Check out conference site for people you might want to meet. See if they have any forum boards. Check out Facebook ad other social networking sites. In some cases its much easier to establish online relationship first before the face to face. Check to see if any bloggers, speakers that are there that you can connect with.

3) Figure out the sessions you are going to attend before arriving. Know when the breaks are so you can make connections and meetups. The more face to face connections you have will really improve your experience at the show. Make it your conference if you want to get something out of it.

4) Check the Twitter stream. Make sure you keep track of it on www.search.twitter.com Many hidden gems will pop up before and during the conference. Great way to connect with folks interested in the same things as you.

If you can’t wait for our podcast to be released or are just interested in more information about Pathable.com, Jordan Schwartz will be giving a Webinar on Thursday, 1/15 at 1:00 pm Central Time MPIs MeetDifferent attendees, but I think anyone can tune in click here for details.