Conferenced Out
Jan 29th, 2007 by Karen
In case you haven’t noticed I’m been on the road for a little bit. Normally, I like traveling and I love conference because they are a great place to meet new people and learn things. The only problem is that being on the road for too long can induce conference burn out.
This is what happened to me on my ALA Midwinter / Open Repositories trip. I tried to manage my intake of information so that I didn’t get overloaded or peopled out. However, I failed not quite miserably but badly. By the afternoon, of day 2 of Open Repositories I had gone into overload land. Luckily there was some terrific nuggets I gleaned before I ceased to be functional. Manakin rocks. Must check out Fez for Fedora.
I also learned the painful lesson that I CANNOT do more than a week of conferencing without paying a price. I cease to absorb knowledge at a certain point and if I continue to force myself you then start to develop an aversion to conferences in general. Also, there is a level of exhaustion that is created by having to be on all the time. Plus, there was the HUGE pile of work on my desk this morning.
I’ve still got some notes from Open Repositories to post. I won’t promise that they will be forthcoming quickly because that would be unrealistic given my other commitments, particularly the was approaching beginning of 5 Weeks to a Social Library.
I swear I’m never going to do a trip like this again. If it looks like I’m forgetting someone please gently point me back to this post as a reminder to bring me back to sanity.
Been there too, had no choice, either. I trimmed as much as I could, and flew home Monday from ALA, but I still came back exhausted and then played catch-up. I agree, unless you are a road warrior par excellence, two conferences b2b are just too much.