I just got back from Agile 2009.  It was a great conference - 1350 people attending over 300 sessions on 20 "stages" with a lot of open spaces for people to chat about ideas they heard in the sessions, or ideas they had rattling around in their heads.  With that many sessions, there are many times when multiple sessions of interest are scheduled at the same time.  Quite a quandary, but my friend Chris Matts has come up with a way to address it.

Instead of trying to go to all of the sessions himself (he ends up going to very few), he starts up conversations with folks and finds out what sessions they went to and whether they liked them or not.  If the topic sounds interesting to Chris, he then seeks out the presenter, indicates he heard great things about their session and asks if they could give him a quick rundown of topic.  Chris refers to these as “Learning Options” because he can find out about new, interesting ideas that he wasn’t originally seeking to learn about and doesn’t have to invest 90 minutes to find out if they hold his interest.

While this little trick is helpful for getting the most out of attending a conference, it can also be very helpful in your every day job.  Instead of trying to hoard knowledge about everything in your own head, simply keep track of who knows that information best, and establish a significant enough relationship with that person so that you can call them up at a moment’s notice and get the key information you need.  That approach helps keep your head clear for the really important stuff you need to keep track of (like your wife’s birthday) and also allows you to access key pieces of information quickly.

So the next time you think about your network, consider adding some notes about what people’s expertise or interests are.  You may just end up learning something you hadn’t intended to.