I’ve been to two regional IDSA conferences, an IDSA environmental design conference and one IDSA national conference.
The conferences themselves were all mixed bags. Learned some stuff, saw a lot of stuff I already knew, saw some stuff that just confused me.
The invaluable part was always the mingling. I know designers in Canada and our problems, but it was fun sitting next to someone from a world leading manufacturer or consultant and hearing about what they go through. It was also great getting to hob knob with people working their way up the management chain and gleaming some insights from that.
If I could take a 6 month sabatical to work full time on a conference, I think I’d try to find a way to merge the mingling and workshops. They tried this at the national I went to (breaking out into groups of 20 to discuss issues). However, I feel like there must be a way to take it one step further.
Also, I’d like to see more non-design material. I know people who sketch better than me, who do more research than me and who have designed more sheet metal enclosures than me. I have that network to support my design knowledge. What I don’t have is the insights into management, psychology, marketing. I think my ideal line up of speakers would be 30% design + 70% other.