How Two Different Conferences Connect Lonely Professionals
At a glance, QuickBooks Connect and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing are very different conferences. QBC brings together members of the small business ecosystem — accountants, developers, entrepreneurs, and small businesses themselves while GHC is a gathering of technical women and their advocates. A closer look at both conferences reveals how attendees go to both because they both help professionals who’ve historically felt alone in their work connect with others similar to them.
Running a small business can be lonely, whether you are self-employed or managing a mid-size company. Many busy small business owners are isolated from their peers, and want to connect with other like-minded entrepreneurs to share experience and advice. Intuit data shows that 70 percent of small business owners say networking with other business owners is important, and 41 percent feel lonely in their work life.
Likewise, women in tech, especially women in programming, often feel lonely. They may experience isolation and discouragement in a male-dominated industry and are often even advised to leave their field by selecting more nurturing jobs or staying at home to raise children.
QuickBooks Connect and Grace Hopper both give their attendees the opportunities to find and connect with other people just like them. Attendees quickly realize that many other people have (or had) the same fears and uncertainties and trade stories about how to conquer them. The conferences allow people to establish extended support systems, and to share best practices and ideas throughout communities of their peers.
These connections are so powerful that attendees actually talk about finding their tribe and making life changing connections:
Once the inspirational highs of the conference are over, it’s important to maintain the connections and to find ways to bond and grow in everyday life. Online communities are a big part of that. QuickBooks Connect offers OWN IT, an online community connecting small business owners and entrepreneurs. The Anita Borg Institute has local communities for connecting women technologists. If you are lucky enough to live in a larger city or metropolitan area, meetup groups are a great way to build connections.
In addition to hosting large global conferences, both ABI and Intuit host regional conferences around the world. Whether the multi-day Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (India) or 1 day events in London and New York, women in computing around the world have the opportunity to meet face to face. QuickBooks Connect has expanded from their three local to the US events from 2015 to international audiences in London, Sydney, and Toronto. For small business owners, this is critical as they are the least likely group to travel around the world to a conference.
For myself, I was a first time Grace Hopper attendee this year. The energy of the event was HUGE. The best part for me was the opportunity to network and give back to the students who attended in droves, such as the extended lunch conversation I had with a talented Yale CS student and the summer internship interviews I did on behalf of Intuit.
Because of unfortunate timing, I had to leave Grace Hopper before the closing keynote and party to fly back to San Jose for the QuickBooks Connect Hackathon and Conference where I was responsible for all of the developer-facing activities and content. At our hackathon, I watched teams meet and form and build amazing solutions in just 24 hours. They found ways to complement each other and built relationships that will support them as they move forward in their careers.
What conferences do you attend? How do they make a difference in your life? I look forward to hearing your own experiences.
