As my ticket and lodgings were free, I made the decision to go to Siege Con in spite of being pretty darn sick. In the end, not only did I manage to get more sick but by the last day of the con they were handing out hand sanitizer. I think that through my hand shaking I indirectly caused 25% percent of the con to fail their fortitude saves.
Anyway, it was still fun. My body was totally not up for staying up and partying, but I did get to make a couple of good contacts and some new friends. (Awwwwww.) We also checked out some game stores in the area and went to Netherworld, which was unbelievably awesome, even though I got punched in the eye by a lizardman’s snout.
I think I’ve finally got a handle on this networking business. I read some of the famous Sloperama stuff right before driving to the con and while the advice is general, it really is the core of what you need to stick to. You can’t just walk up to somebody game-famous and say “Yeah, so I’m working on this thing…” Dude, they don’t care about your final project in intro to game development. If you can really start building a rapport with somebody, eventually the topic will come up and you can sperg about your board game, but until then, it’s better to have some intelligent questions prepared if you’re going to approach somebody with more experience than you.
For an unknown/n00b, picking a pro’s brain is probably the best you can hope to accomplish at a conference. It’s a time for learning, meeting some people, and passing out / collecting business cards, not blatantly hitting everybody up to employ you. If they know of an opening and like you enough that they think you could fill it, they’ll probably mention it when they see your title on your business card. (And on that note, for Christ’s sake don’t forget your business cards! I still don’t know what half the students/recent grads I met at this con *do* because they didn’t have a card!)
If you can swing it, being attached to one of those game-famous people that others are interested in meeting is suuuuper helpful. Just standing by my boss for an hour got me introduced to a dozen people. I also knew a couple of other people who were there, who in turn knew a few other people that followed them around, who in turn brought back a couple other people for me to meet. Having conversations with them also made it easier for other passers-by to jump in. In short: knowing a few other people pre-conference (or in my case, dragging some with you!) seems to go really far in terms of being able to meet people in a way that isn’t totally awkward.
Anyway, the blog agenda is to return to my Crysis level post haste once I catch up on my work-work. Keep an eye out.
ai864 said
Don’t blame yourself for people getting sick at a conference. People tend to not eat healthy, not exercise, get very little sleep, and come into contact with a lot of people, so it is VERY common to exit a conference with some kind of infection because you’re exposed to a LOT of stuff when in an immunocompromised state.
And I agree that it was disappointing, the lack of business cards at SIEGE. I think I only received 2 or 3 cards the entire weekend, and that’s with talking to maybe 50 people. Friggin’ noobs