I feel the same dilemma every time I attend a conference and particularly sales exhibitions: I want to document what I see, and what I think about it, but most of the time conferences and sales exhibitions are exhausting to begin with, so tasking yourself with writing comprehensive blog posts or anything beyond twitter updates seem impossible (unless you’re one of those people who just don’t sleep – but in that case there’s usually a party?!)
Also a good conference gives you input that isn’t necesarily digested on the spot. Ideas and impressions that you want to keep fresh for further deliberation later. So what to do? Twitter is great for the quick remarks or a photo, but it’s a real-time media, and the search function has a very short memory – so continuity is a problem. And your followers may not find your every note-to-self interesting.
The best solution I’ve found so far is to use a posterous blog as a catch-all for my thoughts and first impressions. It ain’t pretty, and it’s not supposed to be. But it keeps the impression fresh for later use, whether that’s show-and-tell’ing your colleauges about all the different gizmos they had at Bett, or your joint notes and impression pictures from SXSW.
Why Posterous? I love WordPress, but for the quick and dirty blog for short term use, I’ll go with Posterous any day: The ability to post anything via email is invaluable when mobile and on a mobile device most of the time. Posterous accepts audio, video, photos, text and whatever else you throw at it. No matter what format it is. If you can send it via email, posterous will post it for you. Then when you get home and your impressions have settled and ideas developed further – you can go back and consult your (audio/visual) notes.