In the spirit of transparency, I’ll point out that this post is a solo effort by Travis Voss.

No, not that season, though there are a few Christmas in July sales going on. It seems to be the season for all of the industry events and conferences. It’s the season for me of industry events. Though, to be honest, can you call period of time that runs from April or May to mid-November a season? Regardless, as I look over my calendar and think of some of the road time I have and will put in during this time it makes me also consider what the benefits I, and my employer, get from it might be.

There is obvious value to the company if I am speaking. We get to share our story and we get exposure. It’s nice to keep people abreast of what we are doing and collaborate with our peers and partners so that we might perhaps win more work as well as perform better collaboratively on current and future projects.

There is also a great deal to be gained from being in the same rooms and spaces with thought leaders. It is invaluable to gain that insight to how our peers think, what things they are looking at. It is invaluable to be exposed to my counterparts in other areas of the AECO industry. This is where we can have real, genuine discussions on, what (Nathan Wood), are our #SharedPains and also start to have conversations around how we can work together to solve them. I can’t put a dollar amount on the ROI of that.

The #SharedPains lead me to another benefit. I get to meet and connect with other construction tech nerds. I get to geek out. I get to see new tech, get hands on, talk to the people using it, and the people making it. I get to give direct feedback into the tech being created. There is an explosion on the market and the makers of this tech are starving for that feedback. We are in an interesting position of being able to drive much of that innovation in a way that suits our different use-cases. I get to turn and question a colleague who has experience with a workflow or a device or some software and listen to how they are leveraging it and think about how it might benefit us.

These conversation and making those connections are crucial to me. I know in this digital world there can be a great deal of that done via email, phone calls, and LinkedIn or Twitter, but I am still of the age where I feel something is lost. There is great benefit in speaking face to face. It is nice to reconnect with peers and to hear about how the initiatives they were starting the last time we spoke are going. I want to grow that network. I want pull more thought leaders, innovators, techies in from all areas of both construction and technology.

With that in mind, might as well advertise my next stops in August. Luckily these are mostly in Chicago, which eliminates at least the flight portion of the travel, but the schedule is packed enough that you may have to remind me who I am and why I am at these events if you see me. I’d also, like to thank the ContechCrew for having me on a panel this month at their Roadshow in KC!

Aug 15–17 I’ll be at the AGC IT Forum.

Aug 20–22 I’ll be at Advancing Field Technology where I will be speaking on days 2 and 3.

Aug 23 I’ll speaking along with a colleague at Constructech Technology Day.

Aug 27–29 I’ll round out the month attending MEP Force: Fabricating the Future

If you are going and see me, stop me and let’s chat. If you have any questions about the events, feel free to reach out and I’ll do my best to answer them or connect you with someone who has the answer.