One of the wonderful things about freelancing is the freedom to attend conferences when and where it suits. Since I turned to full-time freelancing in 2021, I’ve had the good fortune to be part of some professional events, either dedicated to the business of freelancing or in the field I write about — technology and cybersecurity.
How to make the most out of conferences
Attending conferences can be a powerful way to grow as a freelancer, whether it’s networking, sharpening your skills, or uncovering new story ideas. Since I turned full-time freelance in 2021, I’ve experienced the rush of new insights from both freelancing and industry events.
But how do you hold onto that inspiration when the conference buzz fades? In this post, I’m sharing my strategies for capturing those valuable ideas and keeping them organised, so you can use them long after the event wraps up.
Freelance conferences
I’ve gone along to the Content Byte Summit, a new event created in 2023 by two freelancers, Rachel Smith and Lynne Testoni, who also happen to be friends of mine. I attended as a speaker in the first year and as an attendee this year, and it was a fabulous opportunity to meet other freelancers IRL and gain some insights into how others handle their freelance business and learn about things like UX writing, content strategy, book writing and so on.
I’ve also tuned in virtually to several freelance conferences in the US and it’s neat to hear form commissioning editors at bucket list publications that I’d like to pitch someday. I regard these events as important professional development for me as a freelancer and for my freelance business.
Industry conferences
I’ve also had the opportunity to join several industry conferences overseas, where I’ve been hosted as a media attendee and attended many sessions, interviewed keynote speakers, met key people from the host and had a chance to meet other journos and general attendees. I’ve also added on a week of sightseeing afterwards to justify the jet lag — a little perk of running my own show.
The excitement of ideas, ideas and more ideas, but then what?
The object remains the same — I want to gain useful learnings about the topic areas I cover and hopefully generate ideas to help with pitching stories to editors.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll feel that rush of excitement when you’re at an event, scribbling down ideas or madly typing notes on your laptop in the moment.
But what happens when you go home, return to the daily task of researching, interviewing and writing and find all those precious ideas fade?
So that’s what I’ve been thinking about since coming back from a recent ISC2 cyber conference in Las Vegas. How can I store my notes and record my ideas so I can draw on them after the event?
Storing my ideas
There are a few ways I record story ideas:
- For my regular outlets, I maintain a ‘Story Ideas’ document where I record topic ideas and notes from each interview.
At the end of each interview, I ask a general question along the lines of ‘what else should reporters be covering’ or ‘is there anything in your area that you think is important to mention’. These open-ended questions usually yield the kernel of an idea that I can refine or expand into a new story to pitch to the publication. I put them into the Story Ideas file.
- For general story concepts, I use a ‘Story Ideas Tracker’ spreadsheet with tabs for pitched, tech and general ideas.
In this file, I’ll put in more general ideas that may relate to the conference subject matter or may have been prompted by the event but not tightly linked.
Capturing ideas for regular outlets
After an event, I go back through my notebook and review all my handwritten notes. I usually mark up ideas with ✬ Story idea ✬ in the notes for a particular session. It makes it easier to scan through the pages and find all the ideas.
I put specific ideas in the document for my regular outlets, try and flesh them out a bit and then include the speaker’s name (who might turn out to be an interviewee if the story is commissioned), the details like conference name, session title and date.
Capturing general ideas to pitch to other publications
These are the ideas more at risk of being lost because I don’t always have a target publication in mind. To help with this, I’ll record them in my Story Ideas Tracker.
- In the ‘Pitched Ideas’ tab (admittedly not up to date) it list the stories I’ve pitched somewhere and whether they’ve been commissioned.
- The ‘Tech Story Ideas’ tab is where I record a specific idea, topical hook, potential interview sources, links and references, date and a few other columns (most of which are blank in full disclosure).
- An ‘Ideas Dump’ tab is for less fully formed ideas where I can, as the same suggests, dump ideas that are just that, basic ideas at the moment.
The idea is that I’ll check back, flesh them out and pitch to new publications at a later date.
I’m guilty of staying in my lane and not pitching new or different publications to extend myself professionally and expand my pool of potential outlets, but I live in hope this will be the seed of a new story.
What about the professional freelancing ideas?
After this year’s Content Byte Summit, I’ve got a single document with the notes and ideas organised by each session.
It’s saved into my Freelance Resources folder and linked to it from a Trello card for easy reference.
Keynotes are recorded as audio files with a summary generated from Otter.ai my transcription platform and saved into a publication folder.
Could it be improved?
I’m not sure this is the best system so I’m still looking to improve the way I record and store all these resources so they’re usable and not just forgotten once the excitement of the event has faded.
In future posts, I’ll aim to look at what to do with the business cards and contacts you make with people at these events and the general notes and audio recordings.
Do you have a system for organising your conference takeaways?
I’d love to hear your approach or tips on getting the most from these valuable events in the comments below.
Links & recs
If you liked this post, why note ready my article on why you need a Swipe File. Hint: it’s an old-school convention updated for the digital age.
I enjoyed this summary of a recent chat at SXSW Sydney between Mary Meeker and Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins on her experiences on the early days creating and getting funding the billion-dollar design platform.
I attended a session on quantum cryptography at the recent cyber conference and it was eye opening and this covers some of the considerations for security chiefs
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