Conferences – I’m a huge fan! Regular readers of the blog will know I have shared my thoughts about the benefits of conference attendance/presentation/participation etc. Today I continue my sharing by telling you about one of the best ideas I heard at the most recent conference within which I had the great fortune to participate.

First, some background. I am a post-doctoral researcher, focusing upon improving young driver road safety. Over the years I have attended, presented at, and/or participated in a wide variety of conferences, including those more generally addressing road safety and injury prevention, and more specifically addressing particular risk factors such as adolescent psychological distress and learning-to-drive. I have found each and every one of these conferences to be an invaluable source not only of education, but, most importantly, inspiration and engagement.

Second, having said that, conferences are what you make of them. You need to listen to different ideas (and you may not necessarily agree with these, which is often the best source of inspiration), and you need to speak with others, whether they presented themselves or simply attended due to a burning interest. The sky is the limit.

Third, and my point for today – I learnt something very important at this conference. Attend conferences (and other networking/learning/engaging opportunities) outside your ‘area of interest’, and you might be surprised by what you learn, who you meet, and the range and breadth of inspired collaborative projects which may emerge. In my own case, as a trained psychologist and scientist, I had never considered attending, for example, an engineering conference. However, this makes sense. For example, civil engineers create the roads upon which all my young drivers travel; automotive engineers create the vehicles within which all my young drivers travel; computer engineers create the computer systems in the vehicles in which all my young drivers travel. Do civil engineers, automotive engineers, and computer engineers think about the young drivers who will be travelling on, through, and within their creations? I don’t know, but I will find out!

I hope I have encouraged you to ‘think outside the box’.