How to Prepare for a Professional Conference

As language professionals, we have a duty to keep up with training and education in our languages and specializations; with technology, legislation, and other developments important to our field; and with other people, both colleagues and clients. Attending a professional conference is a great way to manage all of these obligations. But conferences, by their very nature, can be big, overwhelming, and difficult to navigate. Simply showing up and hoping for the best is a recipe for exhaustion, failure, and wasting all the money we invested to be there.

To really make the most of the conference experience, it helps to arrive with a plan in place. The plan may cover not just what you want to learn, but who you want to meet, how you want to spend free time, and when or how you will take any breaks needed for your mental or physical health.

At a recent Deep Dive Networking session, ATA members shared their advice on managing all the moving parts of an ATA conference. Most of the tips below came from their discussions (with a few others from my own experience). We hope you find these tips helpful, not just for ATA67, but for any other professional conference you attend.

Before the Conference

• Use social media to connect with any speakers you want to hear.
• If you want to meet a particular speaker or colleague who will be there, contact them in advance to set up a meeting—don’t just hope you’ll bump into each other in the hallway.
• Review the list of educational sessions and decide which ones to attend. Draft a personal schedule so you don’t miss anything. (I’ve spoken with several colleagues who like to add the sessions to a Google Calendar on their phones, but the Deep Dive attendees prefer my method—writing or printing the schedule on paper. If the phone dies, you’ll still have a hard copy.)
• Make any needed reservations. You’ll need a hotel room, Airbnb, or other accommodation, and you’ll need to arrange travel. The travel piece may include multiple steps, like finding transportation from the airport or train station to the conference venue. If you plan a side trip or any tourism around the conference, make any needed reservations for your preferred activities.
• If you can afford it and can make the reservation in time, stay at the conference hotel. It will be easier to ask the conference staff questions and get problems solved when you’re constantly on-site.
• Go shopping. Make sure your clothes and shoes make you feel comfortable and confident. For shoes in particular, make sure they’re comfortable. You’ll spend a lot of time in them, and if you don’t use a mobility aid like a wheelchair, you’ll depend on your shoes alone to keep you moving all day.
• Prepare a one-minute elevator speech so you can introduce yourself quickly and confidently.
• Also have business cards ready to share. You can choose physical cards, a virtual card, or combine the two by offering a physical card with a QR code that takes visitors to a dedicated landing page on your website. This page could have a message like, “Great to meet you at the ATA conference! Here’s my contact information.”
• Block off time in your calendar for the week after the conference. You’ll need that time to follow up on what you learn.
• Reserve a spot for any division-specific events or meetups you want to attend. Some of them, especially the Spanish division event, fill up quickly.

Choosing Educational Sessions

• Choose sessions in areas you want to improve on or areas of particular interest.
• Keeping up on technology and legislation is important, so pick a session dealing with one of these topics.
• Language-specific sessions will give you a chance to practice one of your working languages.
• Pick a session that allows you to learn more about your area of specialization.
• Some speakers are well-known as great presenters. Fit in a session of theirs if you can; whatever the topic may be, you know you’ll hear a good talk.
• If you want to attend two sessions that are scheduled at the same time, team up with a buddy. Each of you can attend one of the sessions and compare notes afterward.
• While you will probably want to maximize your session attendance, plan in breaks and networking opportunities as needed. Conference attendance can be exhausting, so give yourself permission to rest and take care of yourself.

Meeting People and Networking

• If you haven’t been to a conference before, take advantage of any available welcome activities. At the ATA Annual Conference, you can attend Buddies Welcome Newbies on Wednesday afternoon. This session will give you a chance to make some connections even before the Welcome Reception.
• Attend the opening reception! Whether you’re extroverted or introverted, this is an easy way to meet new people and reconnect with people you already know. You can flit from group to group or focus on talking quietly with one or two people, as you prefer.
• If colleagues you know, friends, or fellow ATA division members will be there, create a WhatsApp group with them for use during the conference. You’ll be able to stay in touch so you can meet up to attend sessions together, find a lunch buddy, and always have someone to talk to.
• If you’re able to, attend division events. They’re a great way to meet people who share your languages or interests, and they’re usually smaller and more intimate so you have time and space to chat. (The Spanish Division is an exception to this rule. Registration is often capped at 100 participants, so the term “small” may not apply. If you go to this one, be ready to party!)
• Be friendly and smile. Especially at the ATA conference, people are very friendly and willing to talk.
• Taking photos and exchanging notes can be great icebreakers.
• Find a buddy to hang out with. Having a new acquaintance with you can be more comfortable than wandering the halls alone.
• One colleague moved to a new state shortly before an ATA conference. During the conference, she looked at nametags constantly and said hello to everyone from her new state.
• It’s great to meet people with your languages or interests, but don’t ignore people who work in different areas or language pairs. One benefit of conference networking is the ability to grow a group of colleagues who complement your specialties. If a client of yours needs help with a different language pair or specialty field, you can provide added value by referring them to someone you know.
• Be familiar with emergency procedures. For the ATA conference, check the Safety Tips section on the ATA website for advice on hotel- and conference-related issues. If it’s a true emergency, like a severe medical issue, call emergency services directly (911 in the United States).

Following Up on Learning and Connections

• Use the block of time you reserved before the conference. Contact new connections, review and implement your notes on educational sessions, sign up for any new services you learned about, redeem coupon codes from vendors in the Exhibit Hall, or do any other follow-up you need.
• To follow up with new connections, you can send an email, connect on LinkedIn, or do both. Either way, include a short note if possible. In your message, include a greeting, a mention of where you met, a detail that will help them remember you (a talk you had or the meal you ate together), and let them know you’d like to keep in touch.
• Take a minute to review any new software, subscriptions, or other tools you purchased. Make sure you know where to find help and how to set up and personalize your new toys.
• This is one area where AI can be helpful. AI tools can extract information from business cards and organize your notes so you can read them easily and act on what you learned.

Final Advice

Doing everything listed here may seem like too much. In that case, prioritize. Pick a main goal for the conference, like learning more about T&I business practices, and one or two secondary goals, like making 8-10 new connections in your specialty field. If things are going well and you still feel energized, you can always add to your schedule on the fly.

Most importantly, leave room for the unexpected. The most valuable conference experiences can come from a conversation over coffee, an impromptu dinner, or a chance encounter with a colleague you might not otherwise have met. You don’t have to attend every session or meet every goal to have a successful conference. Give yourself permission to adjust your plans, follow your interests, and enjoy being part of the T&I community.

About the Author

Danielle Maxson has been translating since 2009 and specializes in medical translation with a focus on patient records. She is an ATA-certified Portuguese to English and Spanish to English translator and the former chair of ATA’s Business Practices Education Committee. Before focusing on translation, she worked as a Spanish teacher and a medical interpreter. She recently earned CHI-Spanish certification and is once more available for healthcare interpreting. For more information, visit https://dmaxsontranslates.com.