This week, Terry Fallis, Dave Fleet and Joseph Thornley talk about what makes a good conference experience – and what makes for a bad conference.

Dave Fleet looks for knowledgeable, expert speakers who will speak from experience. He wants lots of opportunity to meet speakers and other participants from whom he can learn. And finally, he wants the conference to reflect the new mobile working environment – lots of WiFi and charging stations for his electronic devices.

Beyond that, Dave finds much of the value in attending a conference in finding a handful of interesting attendees with whom he can hang out, get to know better and learn from. These encounters lead to lasting relationships for him.

Terry Fallis looks for speakers with a fresh perspective on their subject matter and who also are good presenters. Substance plus performance.

Joe wants at least one new good idea from each speaker. If he gets that, the conference is worthwhile. If not, he’ll exercise the law of two feet and head out to do some work.

Conference No-No’s: Faulty WiFi; Slides that don’t work and, worst of all, speakers who turn to face their slides and read the words directly off them. (We can read. We don’t need speakers to read their slides to us. Surely, there must be something more to what they want to say than they could fit on a PowerPoint slide.)

The biggest annoyance of all: Product pitches from sponsors who become speakers. When I speak, I rarely mention my company name. I’m there to educate, not to do a product pitch from the stage. And I don’t expect others to abuse their time on the stage. For Dave Fleet, those are the sessions he walks out of.