ACES conference first-timer

[brcread]

Hey guys,

A friend and I are attending our first ACES conference in April.
Any advice on making the most of our time there?

Thanks,
Beth

[Jim Thomsen]

Mingle.

[Wayne Countryman]

Mingle.

Yes.
People at their first conferences tend to express amazement at how helpful others are. Chances are, your company's problems aren't unique. Try to catch up with people you see at sessions or elsewhere who share your grief or seem to have solutions.
Everyone will be wearing badges showing their names and companies. You'll find lists of those attending and their companies.
Having business cards to hand out makes it easier to stay in touch during and after conferences. You can gain mentors, contacts and friends.

Other matters:

You'll find more sessions that interest you than you can attend. So:
1. Soon after arriving, check the schedule and mark choices. (A partial preview of sessions is on the home page of this site.)
Some sessions are held twice. Some are double in length, or are broken over two days. Some have limits on how many may attend; these will require signing up in advance (probably at the registration table).
2. Go over the schedule with a buddy or two to plan to attend different sessions and share information afterward. Have your buddies pick up extra handouts as they leave sessions.
3. Find your own handouts from sessions you miss. There might be some on hallway tables set out for that purpose soon after sessions or later in the day.
Some might be posted afterward on this website; for a preview, look for some from last year.

These conferences require preparation and endurance:
1. Wear comfortable shoes.
2. Look for urns of coffee and pitchers of ice water throughout the day. You'll see them in hallways and in session rooms. You might need caffeine; you'll definitely need water.
3. The air might seem thin in Denver if you're a flatlander. Some visitors feel a bit off until they adapt to the oxygen level.
4. Mingling begins in the morning and lasts at least until the bars close. Sleep is hard to come by. Try not to arrive tired. There's no shame in napping.
5. There will not be a final exam. It's not a job interview. Relax and have fun.

[dfisher]

5. There will not be a final exam. It's not a job interview. Relax and have fun.

Damn. There go the plans for my sessions. Guess we'll just have to drink. :)
Doug

[Jim Thomsen]

Good point about the altitude. Hopefully getting there a day early will help me. I took a career time-out about 11 years ago to work at Yellowstone National Park, and it took me a couple of weeks to get over the ill effects of going from life at sea level to life at 8,300 feet.

"The Mile High City" is just that — 5,280 feet.

Most online sites I've found on altitude sickness say it doesn't have serious effects under 7,000 feet. To learn more, look here.

[brcread]

I hadn't even thought about the altitude. Going from just-above-sea-level Baton Rouge to Denver, it makes sense that we may have some issues with that.
All the advice is great and much appreciated.

Many thanks (and keep it coming),
Beth

[Gerri Berendzen]

I agree with Jim — mingle.

If you're attending the banquet, make sure you don't sit at a table filled with people you already know. Same goes for the opening reception. Don't skip it, and introduce yourself to at least one new person. I've met a lot of people and had a lot of good conversations at the banquet tables.

Don't feel reticent about asking the board members for advice on what sessions are like or anything involving ACES. Also, if you're interested in discussing issues with a person from a certain size or type of publication, stop a board member. We usually can point you to a specific person.

Introduce yourself to presenters, especially if you think you'd like to take their session home to your shop. Ask questions during the sessions — learning is what we're all there for.

Check out the ACES Web site for resources, stories and our blog.

Find out where people are getting together off conference hours. There's always someplace. It's a lot of fun and it's one of the best ways to do that mingling.

[Gerri Berendzen]

Oh, and bring a sweater or jacket. I think there's some sort of rule that says conference rooms need to be too cold.

[kschwing]

Having moved from the flatlands to higher altitudes (from the East Coast to about 6,000 feet), I'll reinforce the altitude sickness thing. And, also! People tend to drink heavily at these events. I'd advise imbibing slower (lame, I know) than you would at home, at least until you see how it affects you. Some people have more trouble with drinking at altitude than others. Some aren't affected at all.

[ahay]

Don't be too worried about the altitude. I never have a problem in Denver, and I live only 900 feel above sea level. And I also don't have a problem while drinking at altitude. The worst part is landing at the DIA, which makes me ill. So it doesn't affect everyone, and worrying about it or expecting to be sick might make it worse.

Some sessions are repeats from other years, too, so talk to people who have been to find out about those.

[thryn]

... want someone on your hotel room floor? ;)

I'll be coming up from sea level, too (Sarasota, Florida), so it should be interesting! Here's hoping altitude doesn't adversely affect us. Thanks for starting this thread.

-Kat

[kathmo]

A few other things I've found helpful at conferences, ACES or otherwise:

Get outside at some point during daylight, even if it's just to walk around the hotel. If I don't do this, by the third day I feel as if I've been living in a cave (full of interesting folks, nevertheless). Fabulous bookstore in lower downtown (LoDo) Denver, the Tattered Cover, is worth a walk from the hotel (or take the free shuttle bus down the 16th Street Mall).

Bring along a couple of energy bars to go with all that coffee and/or water between sessions. This keeps the stomach from growling just before lunch or dinner break.

I read name tags and search out folks who work for other papers with the same ownership as my employer (Sacramento Bee -- hello, McClatchy!) or are also in capital cities (Denver, Baton Rouge!) -- great icebreaker.

Have fun, and if you see Kathy Morrison on a name tag, introduce yourself.

[Jim Thomsen]

At my first conference, I'd say I had to take the initiative on introducing myself to others about 70 percent of the time; the rest of the time, others approached me.

So, yes, make sure your name tag is visible. I heard some of the women joking last year about how to be careful about where they put their name tags. That was so people didn't appear to be leering at the women's chests when they were just trying to figure out who the women were and where they were from. (While, of course, leering at their chests.)

Also, if the name of your employer as stated on your name tag doesn't make clear where you're from, take a pen and write in the name of your town below the name of the employer. My first year, people would look at my name tag and say: "Where the hell is Kitsap?" (My paper is named after the county we cover, just west of Seattle across Puget Sound.) Then again, making people ask could be an icebreaker unto itself.

One mistake a lot of first-timers make is latching onto one or a few people from the outset, and traveling in a hermetically-sealed vacuum-packed herd together for the rest of the conference. Don't let the first friends you make be the only friends you make. The advice to sit at a table of people you don't know during the Friday night banquet is spot-on; it's especially a great way to connect outside your age group.

There's a strong but unspoken "be cool unto others" aesthetic at ACES conferences. That means that people shouldn't treat it as their happy romantic hunting ground, and I've seen particularly boorish examples of such behavior discouraged by others once it's been spotted. It also means that if you're away from the hotel, or a little the worse for substances, you can ask almost any conference attendee — whether you know them or not — for an escort back to the hotel, and you can be reasonably sure you'll get it.

Volunteer to work at the registration or merchandise tables, or at the silent auction room, for an easy two-hour shift. It's a great way to meet a lot of new people in a hurry.

More as I think of it ....

[Deirdre Edgar]

Everyone has given such good suggestions already, there's not much for me to add! But as conference VP, I feel obligated to chime in. :)

Do mingle and meet as many people as possible. In my experience, everyone, from the biggest paper to the smallest (and those at magazines, websites, etc.), is approachable and happy to chat. Lunch is another great time to meet people. I've spent many conference lunches with one or two people I did know and the rest of the group I didn't.

Gerri is so right about packing a sweater for the meeting rooms! You'll end up in one that's freezing; it always happens, despite our best efforts.

There will be a complete schedule of sessions posted before the conference, so you'll be able to decide early what sessions you want to attend. (An update to what's posted now is TK very soon -- I just need to find a few free moments!)

I also wouldn't worry too much about adjusting to the altitude. I was in Denver for the first time in October and didn't have any problems. (I wasn't drinking, though, so Katie might have a good point on that!)

Enjoy yourself, and afterward let us know how it all went!

[Deirdre Edgar]

Hey, look, it's my two-year anniversary of joining the discussion board!

[Jim Thomsen]

One of the great things about the ACES conference is that there's no "ghettoizing."

The New York Times people don't turn up their nose at you if you work for the Backwater Falls Bugle. The metro-paper people don't hang just with other metro-paper people. Some of their concerns may not be concerns you share, but there are universal constructs and issues that cut across all circulation categories. We're all underpaid and overworked. We're all frustrated by reporters, by managers and by the increasing Web-centric workload piled upon us.

The bottom line is that at a conference, we're all "just people" and connect on that basis.

The reason for this is that ACES has done a good job of creating an atmosphere in which we're all there for a shared purpose. There isn't a lot of hustling or private-agenda-pushing going on. It's a good place for job-seekers to make good contacts, but that comes — in my observations — as a natural product of just conversing over drinks or food like any two people (or group of people) would do, rather than as contrived schmoozing.

[Gerri Berendzen]

Also, while you look for sessions that most fit your immediate concerns, don't overlook sessions just because they don't seem to fit your size paper.

At my first conference, one of the first sessions I attended was essentially about handling conflicts between the city desk and copy desk (or — and at the time this was a new term for me — line editors and the copy desk). I basically went because I was there at the time and the room wasn't full. I didn't really think it applied to me because my paper isn't big enough to have a group of dedicated line editors. (Our line editors are the managing editor and the news/web coordinator, with the copy desk filling in on feature pages).

But there was a lot of information shared in that session that would fit multiple situations, and I found the session to be really useful.

Also, just because you're a new copy editor now, it doesn't mean you don't want information on things like management issues. Consider what you can take back to your newsrooms, but take in a session just for you as well.

Finally, and this doesn't help a first-timer as much as it helps the organizers: If there's something you're looking for and don't get, be sure to ask someone on the ACES leadership team about the possibility of doing that in the future (or fill out those surveys!)

[LisaMc]

Jim wrote:

Volunteer to work at the registration or merchandise tables, or at the silent auction room, for an easy two-hour shift. It's a great way to meet a lot of new people in a hurry.

So I'll take this opportunity to do another solicitation for volunteers: We need 'em for registration, merchandise and the silent auction. It's only a couple of hours (more if you want) and it's a great way to meet lots of fellow copy editors. Please e-mail me at lisa.mclendon (at) gmail.com if you can pick up a shift. Our conferences run on volunteers, so please help out if you can.

Thanks!
Lisa

[JillLReed]

Yes! Volunteer for something!
I have done this at a couple of the past conferences and it is a GREAT way to meet people.
This year I will be helping at the registration table bright and early Thursday morning.
I figure that will be the best way to meet the most people.

[brcread]

Thanks again for the great advice.
Can't wait for Denver ...

[kduhe]

- Find a guy named Chuck and hang out with him;
- Get a grammatically incorrect tattoo; you'll meet every copy editor in sight;
- Attend the early morning yoga session, just to watch;
- Kiss a founding member of ACES -- on the lips if he'll let you;
- Watch out for pool sharks;
- Have an extra beer for me -- unfortunately I'll have to miss Denver.

[(sic) 'em]

1) Find the bar where most of the attendees have set up shop after the sessions end for the day (or if it's the first night, find a group, find a good place, and set up shop).
2) Imbibe, liberally (but perhaps at a bit slower of a pace, as Katie suggests.).
3) Mingle.
4) Repeat.
5) Sleep on the plane.

In Miami, where we had the whole of South Beach just a 10-minute cab ride away, I had a much better time at the Irish pub-style place on the eighth floor of the building next to the hotel downtown.

[csmount]

In Miami, where we had the whole of South Beach just a 10-minute cab ride away, I had a much better time at the Irish pub-style place on the eighth floor of the building next to the hotel downtown.

And the drinks were a whole lot cheaper there, too, if I recall correctly; a real newsroom bar it was.

[ldehoff]

It's been a while since I hit the Irish bars in Denver, but I'm sure there are plenty within easy walking distance of the hotel -- and if Irish bars aren't your thing, there are lots of other options.

I use Yelp.com a lot here in San Francisco, and it has a Denver site -- check it out to get an idea of what to expect. It's a good way to find lunch spots as well as bars. And for those who are wondering whether the Saturday night party spot serves drinks that aren't beer, the answer is yes; they have cider, wine and liquor as well.

Just over a month to go! :D

[kelli306]

I am trying to save room in my suitcase for my trip to Denver. What should I wear to the sessions? Is it casual, as in jeans and sweatshirts, or is it business casual, as in slacks and dress shoes?

Thanks for your help!

[Jim Thomsen]

I would say casual — as in jeans-and-sweater casual — for everything but the Friday night banquet. There, most people like to be a little dressier.

And some people like to wear their favorite nightclubbing clothes for the Saturday night bacchanal/blowout. But it's hardly expected.

[brcread]

Jim, I think "bacchanal" may be your favorite word lately.

Thanks to everyone for all the replies. I cannot even begin to say how helpful y'all have been.

[JillLReed]

I would guess the attire will be a bit more casual than it was for the banquet in Miami.
Partly because Denver is just so different from Miami.
Partly because it looks to be quite a bit colder than it was in humid Miami.
And I have been to Falling Rock Tap House on a previous Denver trip. Casual is fine.
The main thing is be comfortable and have a good time.