TieConDelhi2014 – A pocketful of Learnings!

You all must have read Abhik’s takeaways from the event. We were co-tweeters covering it live and registering stuffs to be shared with rodinhooders. He did an amazing job by penning down for us pointers from almost all major sessions which one should just bookmark. So instead of sharing a second version of the takeaways by me, I thought to share with you the first version of my Experience that lead to few learnings!

DISCLAIMER: These are strictly my personal viewpoints regarding attending a conference or a meet-up! Any resemblance to anyone ‘thinking or doing’ is purely a matter of common sense! 🙂

NETWORK – Go, Meet, Greet, Express, Talk, Smile!

I am someone who has ‘networking phobia’. My agenda is always to find a corner for myself during conferences. The best part for me is the sessions and the second best part is when I am leaving from the venue back to my comfy home. I don’t approach anyone until unless I have anything worthy to share or ask. But during these two days, I learned something about networking which is – “You don’t need an agenda to meet someone.” I realized that your idols are waiting for you to come and meet them. Ask them the right questions and you will get the answers. Express your wish to meet them in future and they will fix the time for you. They are the most humble beings. Their aura is to invite you towards them and not to repel you away. So instead of finding a corner and being all by yourself, go and have a chat. They are experts in leaving you with       some gems to take back home. But only if you keep your palms open enough!

THAT THING CALLED ‘COMFORT ZONE’

Oh yes, everyone talks about coming out of it. But it isn’t something that comes natural. It takes either efforts or a situation to make you realize that life is indeed waiting for you out of your comfort box. The fun part is you will never know what you can get by stepping out of the box, until you do that. There is no other way of laying your hands on things that could add immense value to your life and your doings. In my 5 years of start-up experience, I have had situations that demanded me to be out of my veil several times and all those times, I came back as a different person with something added to my persona. A two day TiECon event is no less. So if you fear of meeting people whom you have only followed on twitter, to be there on stage to share your start-up idea or picking up the mike and asking the most uncomfortable question to the panelists; then this is your time to do just that.

NOT FOR THE SAKE OF IT

I have been to conferences before but never spent so much time in any of them as in this one. By my experience, I have observed that there are a set of people who make sure to be there in every start-up event, meet-up and conferences. These are the kinds who want to be there to register their faces among people. They skip sessions and love the dining and drinks park the most. Networking is the main agenda and they do that with all they have. It’s good to watch them. Though I don’t find anything wrong with that, I strongly imply that don’t just be there for the sake of it. Sessions are taken as a synonym to gyan, but I must say, not all of them are boring. Some are gold. Filter things off! Just going around and shaking hands may not add much value than hearing people who took the effort to be on stage and share things with you.

KEEP YOUR SHEET SOCIALLY INKED

So you are there on social media. But are you using it to your benefit? Do you write each post straight from your heart or by putting enough effort to share what you really mean in a way that would make sense to your followers or friends? Many of us have many influential people in our social media circles. Most of the times, they don’t even know that you exist. But if you have been interesting in all that you post, sensible in what you share and an active social media influencer in your own humble way, then chances of you being recognized in live events are more. Your face may not be recognizable, but your words would be. Establish a connect with people on social media in the most honest way so that when you meet them in real, you are not with a blank sheet to fill in but have something to kick-start a conversation!

ARE YOU BEING CHOOSY? – Attend sessions you thought were not your kind. We are very picky in that. Though that’s a really good way to manage things and make the most out of the conferences, I have seen some hidden gems found mostly in sessions which I thought were not good enough. It’s like judging the book by its cover. 🙂

BE THERE – Consider this as a two day entrepreneurial break. Give laptops, ipads, tablets all some rest. It’s a short-term course in entrepreneurship with back-to-back sessions, intervals, lunches and ofcourse lots of talks. No matter how big or small company you run or are a part of, you being there in all senses is what matters. Some of the mails can wait and calls could be attended at a later time. But these well-planned sessions will hardly come by again. So be there with all your senses active enough to grab the essence out of these days.

WEAR YOUR BRAND:

It’s good to be in your suits, but such events are also a great place to wear your brand in form of printed tees carrying your brand logo. As a start-up, you could be the billboard, a movable one. I myself noticed many start-ups with interesting concepts via tees worn by the guys. Don’t miss out on such a golden chance where the who’s who of the start-up industry could get their eyes on you. It could also be a starting point to a fruitful conversation. Like how about them approaching you and asking, “Hey what is ‘xyz’ about?”

I wore my Rodinhood tee and many mistook me as Asha ji. A kick-starter to many conversations. Or they approached me to know what is TheRodinhoods all about. So it was all worth it!

ASK ASK ASK

It’s very rare that I seek passes for any event. But when a TiECon event brushed across my browser window from somewhere, I got that itch to make it to the event. I asked Asha ji and I was there. Thanks to her for taking the effort. A mail did the magic. So ask. Secondly, while networking with a senior person from the industry I heard myself (yeah… it was spontaneous) asking him whether I can come to his office and meet him someday. The next thing I know is he gave me his card and asked me to come by anytime! The key is to ‘Ask’. The three letter word is often the opener to gold mines.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO OFFER

In one of the meetings someone shared with me the idea of networking which is ‘approaching someone with the intent to offer something instead of thinking of what you could gain.’ Though I have never applied this myself, I will make sure to do that in all my future opportunities. We are not talking about approaching people and offering them products or services for free but instead asking them their pain points and self-analyzing whether you could be of any help. It could be as simple as sharing a contact which could get things rolling for them.

You are open to disagree with some of the above points, in case of which, just write a comment below. Counter views are again a great way of knowing the flip side of stuffs! 🙂

My FB Posts with Pictures describing in short the First and Second Day at TieCon.

Thanks for the read. Keep sharing. Keep rocking!