Simon Willison’s Weblog

What does attending academic talks give you that you can’t get out of skimming the latest articles in all of your field’s journals?

18th September 2012

My answer to What does attending academic talks give you that you can’t get out of skimming the latest articles in all of your field’s journals? on Quora

Conferences are all about the people. Sure, you can stay at home and read the journals or even watch videos of talks—but you’ll be missing out on the opportunity to get to know the other attendees. You can often learn more from conversations with other attendees than you can from listening to the speakers!