Making the Case for a Professional Conference

Staying competitive in today’s IT job market requires constant learning. Whether you’re looking for something new or want to advance your career path in your current company, the road to progress is long and not very probable if you aren’t willing to stay up to date on the most recent industry trends, skills, and technologies. Professional growth in tech depends largely on continued education.

While our beloved Internet has replaced many of the functions that used to be performed manually daily, it has yet to replace (and probably never will) the need to take the time to physically attend professional conferences. Whether you like it or not, the value you gain from attending a conference can exponentially advance your career. There simply is no replacement for physically joining your peers in interactive learning sessions and, as Inc.com mentioned in a previous article, here’s why:

Learning

Sure, most conferences these days offer some fun happy hours and after parties, but the number one reason for attending a professional conference is to learn. The easiest way to become irrelevant is to fall behind on current technologies and practices your role requires. Finding a conference that offers multiple learning tracks makes it easier to walk away from the event with a list of ideas and skills you can apply to your job immediately.

Networking

Though not the main reason to attend a conference, those after parties do have a purpose. Networking is more than just business jargon and is crucial to career growth. A great deal of knowledge sharing takes place at conference parties because you’re surrounded by people who work in the same industry or role. Networking events are also great opportunities to meet the event speakers and ask questions or bounce ideas in an informal setting.

Sharing

Attending a conference is an excellent first step to enhancing your job, but sharing everything you learned with the rest of your team is how you make the most of the experience. Coming back to the office fresh with ideas and sharing that knowledge with your team will not only impress your boss, but help boost the productive output of your whole team (which will also impress your boss).

Looking for a conference to attend? Our first-ever user conference is coming up this April in Las Vegas. Catchpoint Elevate is a zero-hype event for our users to learn from the experts from leading companies like Google, Microsoft, and Linkedin. Each session will be data-rich and relevant to your exact role in your company’s performance strategy. You will leave Elevate with new ways to tackle your performance issues, as well as ways to enhance operational efficiency and your user experience.

In addition to the speaking sessions, you can attend a full-day workshop to help you get the most out of your Catchpoint service. The workshop will offer different tracks to choose from and you will receive professional credits upon completion.

[Check out our website to register for Elevate](http://www.cvent.com/events/catchpoint-elevate/event-summary-2faabf7d205f441aae785f42ff5b92a5.aspx?utm_source=Blog&utm_campaign=Elevate blog) and learn more about [why you should attend](http://www.cvent.com/events/catchpoint-elevate/custom-18-2faabf7d205f441aae785f42ff5b92a5.aspx?utm_source=Blog&utm_campaign=Elevate blog). Hope to see you in Vegas!