Why do we need "useless conferences"

I would like to raise the question of why, after all, people go to the developer conference, spend money on travel, hotel, the conference itself, and even the work is idle.
This article examines the reasons, in addition to "new knowledge" and "exchange of experience," which are often ignored by management, or by us, under the pretext "there is nothing new, everything is on the Internet."
So here are my arguments:

1. To see, hear, feel the train of thought of professionals.
You know how children grow up, why they join society so quickly. Many nuances and judgments, but one of the main ones - they absorb what is happening around, imitate. That is what allows you to talk, walk, learn, and more. As we grow older, we continue to imitate, first blindly, and later, with experience, comes the awareness of the reasons for the actions that were imitated. The result is a conscious choice, taking into account the various options.

For good, to grow you need to understand where, and how it looks about. For this, we need professionals around, and preferably a lot to be able to realize and make choices.
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2. Interest in learning new.
The atmosphere, the atmosphere around, is it worth the money? Yes! Bright memories are often such because of the unusual (not ordinary) situation. And so these memories give a good incentive. And this is very important. The incentive that will make pay attention to the article and deal with it, because "the speaker, so enthusiastically told."

The bottom line is that a person who is not used to processing information that came during the day, for example, in the evening after work, will also react to the message about the new version of mysql. But! If one of the developers of mysql, delightedly tell him how easy it is in the new version, you can solve a specific task, then everything can change, at least for the evening). There are questions, enthusiasm, interest.

A person can find it all himself, constantly hear, but not all people can work efficiently and in an organized way, many need examples, leads, for the birth of that very “stream”.

3. This is a little vacation.
I believe that one of the main attractions of vacation is the ability to change the situation. Buy a ticket, and please. Another daily routine, another meal, in general, life is becoming different, is it not wonderful? And when this happens during working hours, i.e. it is necessary to work and you are on a little vacation, and with a clear conscience, and the attitude to information is completely different.
Unfortunately, over time, some programmers perceive our creative profession as a routine, and for this reason there is no longer any desire to engage in self-education in this field, to learn something new, there is just a cycle of mon-fri - workers, sat, sun - weekends. This little vacation is an opportunity to break out of the cycle, and allow a person to see his work in a different light.

4. Team communication in a different setting.
Probably it happened to everyone to meet a friend in an unfamiliar environment for us, when we could not imagine that this was possible. “Do you go to museums ??” (you exclaim, seeing in front of you a familiar punk with a mohawk), as a result, the side that was previously reversed becomes clear. We will find out more about the person. The conference is an opportunity to see a person and his behavior in a different situation, a lot of programmers are around, many are discussing something, someone is bored, and someone is being photographed with promotional girls, or else - most are being photographed, and some are discussing something) ).
And if you need to get to Moscow from another city, then add a train (the plane has a different atmosphere). People learn more about each other, the team becomes more cohesive.

5. Development prospects in the company.
I think it makes no sense to speculate on the topic, which gives the applicant the knowledge that the company is directly interested in its development, and in every way contributes to this and it is not just words. In small towns, all such information is usually in plain sight. And ambitious and promising
Experts know the plan of their development, and are looking for the company, the work in which maximally corresponds to their goals.

PS I do not claim that all this will work in the moment, and all of a sudden they will become very curious and interested. These are just arguments that need to be filtered for your team. But I want to note that the movement is necessary. "Movement is life"!