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[Mike Schwartz-PC Support & Services]

> I've never understood this fascination-bordering-on-obsession with
> conferences, meetings, seminars, etc., when a good old piece of plain old
> documentation will do the job.
> 
> Then again, I don't do the travel gig, and I don't like to mix vacation
> and business -at all-.  Most people -appear- to like to write off things
> like conferences on their taxes--at least the self-employed of the lot.
> Perfectly acceptable as a deduction, but the impression (perhaps
> erroneous)
> I would hardly qualify most conferences, meetings, etc., as "necessary",
> for exactly these reasons.  And I'm nowhere near a management type.  It's
> just so self-evident to me.

	Well, I certainly get yelled at enough by my wife because I have my
head stuck into some kind of technical book often enough...

	But I really enjoy the change of pace that a conference offers.  

	It really helps us form a sense of community to have a chance to
meet each other in person at the conference.  I can easily say that I do
things a lot differently in filePro and that my business is a lot different
based on things that I've learned and people that I've met at filePro
conferences.  

	In some industries, it's easy to see that conferences and trade
shows are little more than "party time."  But the filePro conferences have
been mostly "meat and potatoes" for a solo programmer like me, isolated up
in the north woods of Wisconsin.

	As a bad examole, I was at the SCO conference in Las Vegas, and I
doubt that I would go to another one.  They were pretty much all sales hype,
as opposed to the old SCO conferences in Santa Cruz.  I might go to Las
Vegas for the one day of technical training that they are having the day
after the conference, though.      

	I spend about 99% of my day looking at something that's no further
than a monitors distance from my eyes, and I really appreciate a chance to
look at a screen or presenter that is several feet away.

	There are probably studies done on retention levels and rates of
learning from books versus lectures, but if I am "trapped" in a lecture
hall, it really forces me to focus on what the presenter is saying for a
full hour.  I think I probably have a touch of ADD (Attention Deficit
Disorder), because I find it hard to really concentrate and learn what I'm
reading for a full hour.  I usually have to absorb a book a little at a
time, and then switch to something else.  I switch from a computer book to
an aviation training book a couple of times an hour, and that forces my
brain to keep switching gears.

	But, as I mentioned in my last post, I wouldn't complain if there
were BOTH a white paper and a lecture...