Conferences require a substantial investment of time, energy, and money. To maximize this investment, I view each conference as having 3 components: pre-conference, conference attendance, and post-conference. This is what works for me.  Pre-Conference activities to maximize the conference include:

Pre-Conference:

1. Determine 3 goals for the conference.
2. Have all activities be in service to these goals. Examples include: meeting 2 organizational leaders, reconnecting with colleagues to form a collaboration, and learning about a new method to increase funding.
3. Request from the organizers: an attendance list, conference schedule, and the twitter hashtag to identify the conference.
4. Google speakers & attendees you wish to meet.
5. Send an introductory e-mail mentioning something you admire about their work and a note about how you look forward to seeing them at the upcoming conference.
6. If those you wish to meet have blogs, subscribe to their RSS feeds.
7. Follow these individuals on twitter.
8. Tweet using the hashtag and get to know others planning on attending.
9. Schedule a social outing for interested individuals during the conference. For example, this past summer I coordinated a hot air balloon ride to get to know some other attendees at the National Speakers Association conference in Phoenix.
10. Map out conference sessions you plan on attending.

I will post tips for conference attendance and post-conference over the next month.

An interesting article on Forbes.com by Emma Johnson provides some useful information on making the most out of business trips. She included a few of my tips on conferences. Recently, Seth Godin blogged about the importance of the big conference. As the number of conferences decrease, the importance of making the most of the remaining conferences increases. If you are going to go big, it is best to be prepared.