…when you’re not able to attend.

All the chatter about this week’s LeWeb got me thinking about the great presenters and learning I’m missing out while sitting here in Philadelphia.

Once I got (mostly) past my initial envy, I set out to do the next best thing – keep up with it all while sitting here at my desk.

Here are some of my favorite ways to stay informed.

Before the Show and When It’s Live

• The Web Site – Just about every conference has a site. Some of the bigger shows will have live video feeds, archived presentations, etc.  It’s a great resource.
• Show’s blog – Get a behind the scenes scoop and daily updates.
• Twitter – Follow the show’s twitter account if they have one. If the show uses a hash tag, setup a search in your twitter client to keep up with participants.
• flickr – Check out if they have a flickr account, and look through attendees’ pics by searching on flickr.
• Facebook – If they have a facebook fan page, this is a great way to actively interract with the community.
• Google alerts – Get emails as-it-happens, once a day, or once a week. I find tracking things via email will sometimes remind me to check out the other channels above, even when I get busy or distracted.

live video from leweb with integrated twitter stream

After The Show

• Delicious – When you find an article that you want to remember, use delicious (or your favorite bookmarking tool) so you don’t lose them. Make sure you choose a tag that’s specific to the show (ShowNameYear works well for me). Tagging is the key to getting the most out delicious. Look for an upcoming post on a good tagging strategy.
• SlideShare – Many presenters will add their decks to SlideShare after they return from the show. Start looking for them immediately, but I’ve found some take up to a month to get around to posting them on SlideShare. And when you do find a deck you like, don’t forget to bookmark it in delicious.

I’m sure you’re reading through this list and thinking “I didn’t have time to attend the show – how am I going to have time to do this?”

Many of the sources I listed above also offer RSS feeds – e.g. twitter, flickr and facebook. If you use Google Reader, I like to organize all my feeds for a single tradeshow under a folder. Then, I can click the folder to get a combined view of all the posts I’m following in date order. I find it more valuable to read posts in combination rather than individually going through each feed’s posts one at a time.

Twitter also has several services that make following trends and archiving tweets easier (e.g. Monitter and Twapper Keeper).

Trade shows are often where products and services are launched, and where new ideas are first presented and discussed. Although it’s impossible to attend every trade show that interests you, it doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from them.