Make your visit count

Posted by Jaan on November 15th, 2010 | Add your comment

There are a number of brilliant web biz hubs around the world to visit for networking, learning and working: Berlin, Stockholm, Shanghai, Linköping, New York and London to name a few. And San Francisco isn’t half bad either.

Regardless of where you go, the best way to prepare is to have an open mind, an open schedule, and apply what you learn as you go along. Here are the four things that will make your next visit to San Francisco count, but they should apply to any web hub around the world.

• Purpose, decide on the ONE thing you want to achieve. Too many people visit the SF tech scene with an overambitious agenda. It inevitably leads to stress and missed opportunities (see point 2). Focusing on one thing doesn’t mean you only do one thing on your trip, rather that you make sure that one thing gets done early and properly.

• Flexible schedule; be open to whatever happens. There is a lot going on in San Francisco all year round, and you’ll likely be invited to events, get-togethers, nights out and all of that goodness. Make sure your schedule is flexible enough to accept those invitations; networking is everything and casual networking is even better.

• Don’t pay for a hotel room. Stay with someone you know or a friend of a friend. It saves you money and it’s good for networking.

• Every day, do something with what you learned or saw. If the rest of your team is still back home it’ll be doubly worth it to check in with them and tell them what’s going on. Put what you learned in to context of what you are working on. That way your visit here will be doubly worth it; putting new found learnings to work is the best thing you can do.