Attending a conference: who to go with?

So I’m going to a conference next week. I went to the last edition of this one two years ago, not long into my post-doc. I barely knew anyone, and those I knew the name of were far too senior for me to hang out with (apart from the brief bow to them if I got the chance). I had been on my own from my lab, so I was really alone –initially anyway. I had previously been to big conferences, but always with a bunch of other researchers from my own lab, so I was never alone, like. But I always found it very hard to meet new people, get into conversation with people and all. Then that one where I went on my own, I met loads of people about my age/stage of career, or not, and chatted with many people, got into discussion. It was great. But I had no other option, and no one to fall back to to go out for dinner.

This time, just one colleague will be joining me, but things will be really different: I am less of an underling (if I may say so): my experience has increased, my portfolio as well, I’m in charge of my own shit. That’s a first major difference. Also, it happens that this time I will know a lot of people attending; and not just colleagues, and not people from projects I’m involved in. People from different institutions, people I will collaborate with in the future. And also, finally, I’m now involved in one of the associated journals meaning I get to go to some private restricted meetings where I’ll get to meet new people in a privileged context of a group working on one common thing, as someone just not looking and learning (although I have a lot of learning to do still!).

So I’m curious to see how it goes, and how my feeling of the conference will be this time. After my last experience I told many young colleagues that going to a conference on your own is probably the best way to do it, even if it’s a bit scary. But now I’m actually getting part of a network, I guess this’ll be interesting too!

But I SHOULD go back and finish those slides…