Donna Genie (YouTube, Feb 5, 2024) offers guidance for selecting accounting conferences to attend, focusing on maximizing learning, networking, and return on investment. In this segment she warns attendees to watch for conferences that charge speakers ("paid to play") and emphasizes evaluating agendas, sponsorship status, and the value of sessions relative to travel and attendance costs.
As the new year approaches, it's time to check out where you're going to get some new knowledge this year and where you can get a burst of energy to help you move your business to that next level. Every year I look at conference lineups and judge where I want to go. There are a lot of accounting conferences out there, and there's some that I really love and some that I would never go to. But when you're looking at places to go, meet with your people and gain industry knowledge and make good connections, I want to give you a few tips on what to look for to make sure you're getting the best bang for your buck. And an example here is I was looking at some accounting conferences I was interested in trying that I had never been to, and one of which the agenda just came out and it's not until October, but they just put out their initial efforts of what's going to happen at that conference, and they're still looking for sponsors for the event. So I noticed that they are looking for speakers who speak at the conference, and those are paid to play. Now, you may not think much of that at first, but let me give you a little insight. Typically I, as an attendee at these conferences, I'm paying a fee to go to the conference. I'm paying for the hotel, the food, all the stuff to travel to get there. So I want to make sure I'm getting really valuable information.
