Tips to Help Justify Your Attendance
Getting approval to attend an off-site event from your manager is sometimes a challenge. This page contains tools and suggestions on how to effectively make your case, and we have provided a Word doc for you to download and submit to your manager.
BENEFITS GUIDE
When you propose attending AV/IT Technology Leadership Summit it is important to focus on what you will bring back to your organization. To demonstrate return on the investment of attending a conference use this “benefits guide.”
Gain Knowledge from the Educational Program
- State your organization’s specific goals or needs, and then state how specific components of the conference will help meet those needs.
- Which topics and sessions have relevance to your organization’s current priorities and goals?
- Are there topics that will provide insight into a challenge or goal your organization is facing right now, or expects to face in the next 12 months? Identify specifically what you can use, and how.
- Which topics are most relevant to your professional development goals or your organization’s expectations of you?
Networking Benefits
State how attending the AV/IT Leadership Summit will allow you to meet and interact with industry professionals in similar roles and organizations from around the country. You will be able to take the pulse of what your peer organizations are talking about and planning for, and how they are accomplishing specific goals.
Meeting Vendor Benefits
- This intimate setting provides valuable time you would not get a trade show to meet with vendors to better understand technologies and solutions available now, the near future and hear what’s in the pipeline to your organization make informed decisions.
- Gather first-hand information, and compare competing products and gain knowledge of the companies you may be interested in evaluating.
- Having vendors in one place at one time is the most efficient and cost-effective way to evaluate product offerings.
Sharable Data Post Event
After the AV/IT Summit is the perfect time to explain that attending Summit was beneficial not only for you as a professional, but also for your organization. This also helps to ensure that you will be able to attend in the future. A technique used by some attendees is to create Conference Report. A Conference Report includes information to impart with your organization. Examples include:
- General conference information
- Presentation summaries
- Networking Event summaries
- Vendor Presentation summaries
- Information about products gathered from conversations with vendors
- Ideas to be used upon returning from the conference
