The major part of this week's professional entertainment for me was travelling to Istanbul on Tuesday for the ITI global meeting, which happens once a year.
My involvement in this jamboree was to be present for the full day of meetings on Wednesday as part of the ITI Education Committee, and then as part of the ITI Academy editorial board, for which I am the editor in chief.
Basically, that meant travelling to Istanbul from Birmingham, being delayed for about 2 hours, and then trying to find an Uber at Istanbul airport (we've been issued Uber vouchers). Walking about 2 miles to the outside of the airport in order to collect the Uber (it's illegal for Ubers to enter the Istanbul airport), and then was slightly anxiously getting into a taxi almost in the middle of nowhere for a crazy high speed 50 minute journey through pouring rain into the centre of Istanbul and to arrive at 2 a.m. in the morning to start my meetings at 8:30 the next day.
For anyone who thought that it was glamorous doing this stuff, read the above.
Once the meetings were finished on the Wednesday from 8:30 till 6:00 p.m., I then went for dinner with my, colleagues in the ITI Academy editorial board, before effectively having a free day on the Thursday where I could meet with people that it was important to meet with, chat to people that I was desperate to chat with, and have some chance meetings with people, which are often and always the best way to make things happen (see Sunday night's business blog on networking).
The point about this, though, is that as I write this, I'm sitting in my hotel room overlooking the Bosporus in the distance with the swimming pool in front, which is very idyllic and very fancy. I'm leaving, as the conference is taking place on the Friday and Saturday.
One of the privileges of being the editor in chief of the ITI is that I get to come here, stay in a fancy hotel and get access to the conference, but really, I have no appetite to go to the conference.
I feel slightly guilty about that, but I have been to many conferences in my time, and I've looked at the programme, and I promise that if I sit through 2 days of the conference, here in Istanbul, I will not bring a great deal back to the practice, which will alter it dramatically.
That is not to say that it is a bad conference, it's just to say that the conference function for me is to be here before the conference and to meet the people I need to meet and then to go, and this is the metaphor for all conferences.
When I was a young dentist, when I attended these things, I felt that the only way to get value was to sit through every single lecture, take copious notes and allow it to inform my practise, and I think that is the truth as I get older, and there is rarely any more than 1 or 2 lectures that I have any interest to see, and even those, it's, it's rare for me to sit through the entire amount.
Maybe that's a pathology that's associated with me, or maybe it's ADHD, or maybe it's just that it's easier for me to pick the bits of information that are important.
The real work at this type of thing for me is meeting with the people that will influence my business, my life, my practice, and myself in a way that is positive, not necessarily sitting through some preprogrammed educational content.
Education is changing, as medicine is, as finance is, as everything is.
The way that conferences are designed will change, too.
Blog Post Number - 4541
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