I believe attending conferences must be difficult for introverted people. The difficult part is not sitting through the whole session trying to figure out if it’s worth it but enduring the long lunch breaks and coffee breaks. During those breaks I often feel like I’m surrounded by CEO’s and COO’s all around me. Everyone of them sounds confident and looks like what the hell they are talking about. In the last two conferences some how I managed without much awkwardness but still felt uneasy and out of place few times.
But in today’s conference I felt very easy. Seems like most of them are tuned into something else but just there to figure out if it’s worth it. I think the reason might be that the attendees are invited and it’s a free conference. Any body with money can attend a paid conference and in my brief experience I found there are so many corporate types come to paid conferences to “network” than to learn.
This morning, for a brief moment I thought I grew up a bit but that proudness last only a few minutes until I got the above thought that it’s not me but the crowd around me that made me at ease.