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Technology Conferences – We Need Each Other

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Article from ADMIN 67/2022

By Ken Hess

Technology conferences allow us to exchange ideas, discuss solutions, learn new things, and geek out. Most of all, they give us that human connection we can't get in video chats or from email and text messages.

I think the primary thing that the pandemic has taught us, if nothing else, is that we miss each other. We miss gathering. We miss discussing. We miss learning. And we miss clinking glasses. Technology conferences gave us technonerds everything we could want in the latest in technology: the learning opportunities, the gathering of like minds, the toasting with beer glasses, and the geeking out over someone in a Storm Trooper costume or a modified DeLorean. Tech conferences gave us what we need most: each other.

As a non-monetized sideline, I perform weddings. I've only done a few, but I'd love to do more. I customize the wedding for each couple. I make them personal, and the focus is 100 percent on the two people getting married. That's why, in part, I've never been able to deliver the message I feel describes our need for each other. The story is short, simple, and beautiful.

Whether you believe that an all-powerful God drew us out of the earth or that lighting struck a pool of chemicals some half billion years ago, the first gift given to us was life itself, and the second gift was that of each other. Since those first two one-celled organisms huddled together in the darkness, we have needed each other.

Technology conferences satisfy our need to gather. Zoom calls and virtual meetings just don't have the same effect on our psyches. Sure, we can see each others' faces, we can discuss business, we can share lunches, and we can cover a multitude of topics, but when we look around the room, we are still alone. We all know that isolation isn't healthy, but during a pandemic the opposite, at least physically, is true.

I need to speak directly to a person in a booth. I need to pick and choose my swag. I need to tell my favorite joke when I have the opportunity to introduce a speaker. I need to covet the T-shirt I didn't get. I need to ask questions during a breakout session. I need to sit down uncomfortably at a table full of strangers at lunch

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