On 12 May 96 at 18:03, Michael L Gueterman wrote:
 
> This may sound kind of silly, but since this will
> be (unless something else comes up!) the first
> HP oriented conference I've ever attended (even though
> I started messing with HP's back in '78), what are
> some tips for getting the most I can out of it?
> I've read the proceedings for as many years as I
> could, (and there were many times I was a little
> more than perturbed to find that an article whose
> topic I found intriguing, had only a single page
> which said something like "handouts will be provided
> at the whatever") but I'd like to know as much as
> I can going in about it.  I believe it was Glenn Cole
> who mentioned that the Tutorials are not included
> in the proceedings (Its hard to know what your missing
> until your told!).  This is a good tip to know.  Any
> others?
 
And Larry Boyd responded (in part):
 
>As far as tips for attending.
>
>1)  Plan ahead.
>    Get your planner out, look at the talks/abstracts, figure the
>    walking distances between them and decide where you're going to
>    go.  (This includes studying the map of the conference hall.  You
>    can't get to the room if you don't know where it is.)
 
<snip>
 
>3)  Don't get discouraged.
>    Not all talks will be what you thought they were, and some speakers
>    (every been to one of mine:) aren't as exciting as some.  However,
>    if you keep to your plan, by the end of the week, you will have
>    received a lot from the conference.
 
Keeping Larry's point #3 in mind, I always try to identify 2 sessions that
I'd like to attend during each time slot; that way if one of the sessions is
uninteresting I can try the other one.  Also, if you know someone else who's
attending the conference, and who's interests that are fairly similar to
yours, you might think about coordinating with that person for those times
when there are multiple sessions running at the same time which are of
interest to you both: you go to one talk and your partner goes to the other
 -- just make sure you and your partner both get two sets of slides!
 
 -- Evan