I did probably 6-7 years of national IDSA conferences, and in general I never felt like there was much that I was “learning”. There might have been good things to be “exposed” to, new software, materials, but less so on techniques that I felt were going to dramatically change my career. With that said, I was at a very mature corporate design practice, so if I was working at a small firm or as a freelancer, that stuff would have been fascinating to me.
What I felt was more valuable was that I usually came back having socialized with new people, feeling refreshed and more inspired about the work I did. I think my favorite keynote/speech was Story Musgrave, who’s life as an Astronaut was easily the most engaging content I remember from any conference I had ever been to. It was outside the realm of ID, but the themes of problem solving and unlimited potential of one persons life was really inspirational as a person.
With that said, usually by the 2nd or third day I’d be done wanting to sit in a conference room and would end up walking around whatever city the conference was in or sitting in the pool. So perhaps there was some super inspirational mini-sessions that I missed out on, but usually by then a lot of the smaller talks are people promoting their consultancy/product/service.