A Conference Abroad
How China Does a Technology Conference
Last week, I spoke at a conference in China. I have spoken at conferences in about a dozen different countries around the world, but never had I seen anything like China.
The Environment
I remember taking the elevator to the 4th floor of the hotel and walking into the door of the conference room at 8am to the sound of loud Chinese pop music and flashing lights. There may or may not have been dancing, but there definitely was a DJ. There were 3 large projector screens and what appeared to be a raffle taking place. Giant stuffed animals were being given away. People were chatting loudly in groups. It felt more like a wedding reception than a conference.
It was quite unusual to have a conference that was 8am-6pm on a Saturday, but I imagine many people wouldn’t have been able to get the day off work so this was the best time. I was impressed with how many people turned up early on a Saturday and how 90% of the people were still there at 6pm. It was also a fairly diverse crowd. I would guess that around a third or more were women, and there were people from all over China. We took a show of hands and more than half of the attendees had flown in from Guangzhou or Shanghai.
I knew I would have a translator for this talk, so I sought out this person to kick the tires. From past experience, I’ve learned that having a translator can be hit or miss (usually miss). I was pleased to find that this conference had the best translation setup I had ever seen. They distributed handheld radios and headsets with two channels: one for Chinese to English and one for English to Chinese. There was a booth in the back with two women performing the translation, each with a seemingly native level of proficiency in both English and Chinese.
Next, I made a move for my seat. At this conference, the speakers had reserved front row seats. Along the way, several conference goers recognized me from YouTube or other places and asked to snap a photo. This happens from time to time when I attend conferences, but usually not more than once per event. It was unusual for so many people to recognize me without having been introduced. After a couple of photos, I sat down at my seat and I was immediately showered with gifts. I received three gifts from the organizers of the conference. There was a tall glass plaque, a large Chinese fan, and a very ornate scroll that was about 10–12 feet in length. This is much better than another canvas bag and pen with a random consultancy firm’s name on it that one typically receives at these sort of things.
Giving the Speech
I had the good fortune of going second. In my opinion, second is the optimal position in which to speak at a conference. If you go first, you really have no read on the crowd and what to expect. If you go towards the end, you usually don’t get to enjoy the other talks because you’re fiddling with your slides or just thinking about your turn. Also, many people tend to disappear by the end of the conference for different reasons. (e.g. to get a round of golf in, catch a flight, or because someone already gave the talk they came to see) The most important information I gleaned from the first presentation was that these people really knew their stuff, and that the level of English varied widely from second language proficiency to none at all.
I reached the stage and started my slides. I had prepared the same deck in both English and Chinese. I gave the Chinese slides to the projector operator and I kept a laptop in front of me with the English versions. I would flip both sets of slides at the same time to keep them in sync so that they could read the set in Chinese and I could use the English ones as a guide. As I gave the talk, I had the most engaged and attentive crowd I can ever recall. There was a bit of lag between my words and the translator’s words, but there was no one in the crowd playing Minecraft or getting work done as is the norm in the Western world. It was great! At one point, I brought out a prop for a demo and 50–60 people immediately left their seats to come up near the stage to get a closer view. I have never seen anything quite like this — they were completely enthralled. I ended up going 15 or 20 minutes over time, but no one seemed to mind.
I ended the talk with a Q&A. All the questions asked showed an advanced level of proficiency with the product. People wanted to know where they could find more info on items I had discussed; they asked in depth troubleshooting questions for advanced scenarios. Unless I’m in America, I’m lucky to get a single question, whereas here the curiosity was seemingly bottomless. The Q&A went about 15 minutes into lunchtime which was even more remarkable given that the previous speaker had taken about an hour of Q&A about the same topic.
After lunch, I sat through 4 hours of uninterrupted talks in Chinese. There were no breaks. Everywhere else I’ve spoken, people usually get (and require) a break between each talk of at least 10–15 minutes, not here. Each speaker gave a talk that was highly technical and completely saturated with information and data. There were no minimalist slide decks full of LOL-cats, memes, and jokes or fluff-filled talks that are not much more than unsubstantiated declaration of opinions. Here, there were no sales pitches, no grandeur. It was all content, no filler, no interruption. No one wanted to waste a single second on irrelevant material.
Summation
Technology operates in English. All the documentation, blog posts, and news articles written about it tend to be in English. As someone in China who may speak a bit of English, sifting through the mountain of tools, blogs, and other information is likely a daunting task; that’s if you can even find the good stuff with the restricted access to some of the relevant pieces of the Internet (Google, Twitter, etc.) that you would have in China. You are undeniably at a signicant disadvantage when it comes to keeping up with what’s going on.
This conference and ones like it seem to be China’s way of working together to bridge the gap. What I saw was not a big consulting firm trying to get a bunch of vendors and executives with purchasing power under the same roof at a resort destination. It was not a bunch of academics gathering to debate the issues in the field during the day and go out drinking in the evening. It was a group of people working together to share what they had been able to decipher from the outside world with their peers. They may not be able to see what’s trending on Twitter, but they can assemble and discuss what has made it over to their job or their part of the world.
In the west, we are inundated with blogs, articles, posts, conferences, and other chances to learn more about our field. We have so many that we don’t fully appreciate and seize the opportunities. The ease of access provided by the modern Internet has seemingly diminished the unique learning value that conferences can provide. I sometimes feel that nowadays conferences are seen as a chance to go on a trip somewhere or a chance for sales people to lineup a bunch of potential clients. Companies view them more as a perk they must provide to stay competitive with hiring and appease employees than as a continuing education opportunity that increases the value of their employees. In China, not so much. These people used this limited time to absorb a wealth of knowledge with no intent on wasting a single second, even on a Saturday. Isn’t that the way it should be? If not, then why do we have conferences?
