If I think back to the pre-Covid era I would go to a lot of tech conferences throughout the year. They were a great place to learn, but also to network and in some cases where lifelong friendships were built. My particular favourite was an annual conference in Florida which I went to every year from 1999 to 2015, it happened every January and was a highlight of each year.

It was where I learned to do public speaking, I met friends, built more than one business and felt at home. But things move on and when Covid hit that part of my life had already pretty much stopped. But having been to a really good one day conference at the NEC in Birmingham this week, and a couple of other events over the last few months (including my first visit back to the US in years) it has got me thinking.

My experience of these events has changed massively, I used to go for the deep technical content and to try and find new business, whereas now I attend for the corridor conversations with colleagues or other attendees that might not otherwise happen. But regardless of the reason, they are incredibly valuable and I couldn’t be happier that in person conferences seem to be slowly coming back to life.

It’s likewise with going into the office. Obviously, during Covid everything changed and I went from five days a week in the office to working from home permanently along with a larger percentage of the population. I am very lucky that my employer is not forcing us back to the office. We go in for the “3 Cs” – collaboration, community, and coaching. And that has settled out with me being in an office or a depot around 2 days a week on average. It works really well, but within that the importance of meeting people should not be underestimated, even for a massive introvert such as myself.

One thing I don’t miss, however, is catching colds. I genuinely haven’t had a proper cold since pre-Covid times, but this weekend I have been absolutely wiped out by something which has left me on the sofa not really able to move very much. I can only attribute this the the event I went to on Wednesday. At least the Euros are on, so there is something to watch!