Conferencing can be overwhelming. National conferences are exciting opportunities to learn and connect, but they can be packed with a dizzying range of content and events. Attending virtually is no exception. With so many sessions, people, and ideas to take in I have often found myself wondering afterwards what I actually got out of it. I forget which people I wanted to follow-up with or what ideas I thought I could implement. For me this is even harder when I attend virtual conference since it is so easy to tell myself that I can have the conference going and still get work done…when this really just puts the conference in the background and leaves me wondering what I really learned.

Most of us are familiar with how the pandemic affected conference-going. Virtual conferences became the norm for a couple of years and hybrid conferences have become much more prevalent than in the past. While this has increased the convenience of, and often the ability to attend, conferences, it has also created a whole new system to learn to navigate.

With #MLANET24 fast approaching, your Virtual Assistance Committee has come up with a few tips and tricks to get the most out of your virtual conference experience. While this tip sheet was created to assist with the virtual conference experience, we also encourage attendees in Portland to use it to help focus your experience and interact with those attending virtually.

Share your knowledge! We encourage all attendees to add their own tips and tricks for virtual conferencing on social media with the conference tag #MLANET24!  Let’s all help each other have the best conference experience yet!

Tips & Tricks for a Great Virtual Meeting Experience

Prior to Meeting

• Make arrangements to set aside time, and possibly space, to attend sessions and be away from your day to day work  
• Make your conference schedule – Prioritize interests/needs. Note which content is likely to still be available after the conference. 
• Can you arrange a day off after the conference to rest? Or a day after the conference to process the experience and the materials?

At the Meeting

• Set aside time, and possibly space, to attend sessions away from your work!
• Take periodic screen breaks for snacks, coffee, movement…all things that are built in to the in-person experience
• Say hi in the Pheedloop chat!  Have fun interacting with colleagues online, including posting reactions, links, or supplementary information
• Follow colleagues’ accounts and MLA hashtags on your preferred social media platforms 
• Talk to, text, email your colleagues and friends about what you are learning and find interesting
• Make notes of any presenters that you may want to contact after the meeting for collaborations or to learn more about what they are doing and any ideas you want to try implementing, you might even take a screenshot or snapshot of slides and contact information to refer to later

After the Meeting

• Review favorite content or notes you might have taken—what do you want to consider for later? Are any takeaways shareable with colleagues who weren’t able to attend?
• Contact those presenters that you enjoyed or felt like you would like to collaborate with—MLA is all about making connections!
• Share the new knowledge you acquired and make plans to share YOUR ideas next year!