Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Who Can Attend Conferences Anymore?  A note I sent to Molly:

Hi Molly,

we've never met but have mutual friends/acquaintances in Peter Merholz, Christina Wodtke, and some other IA/UX folks. I've been reading your blog with delight most days.


One question, though: how are you able to do all the travel that you do? That is, in this economy vis-a-vis our profession, how are you able to attend so many conferences and also do so much flying around? My curiosity is primarily professional. Having left Germany in December 01 and returned to the States, I've seen a marked downturn in corporate support of conference attending. In addition, despite what airlines would like us to believe, travel (especially internationally) continues to be expensive.


I miss it, actually. I miss the flying from Hamburg to Chicago to San Francisco to Seattle to Newark in order to test an information architecture. I miss the frequent travel from Hamburg to Munich and Innsbruck for projects. I miss the travel to Gotheburg and Stockholm....and I miss the international give and take with folks at the IA summits, STC (yes, even STC), CSCW, and other conferences.


So what's yer secret?


Anyone else have the same question?

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