Tips that you may find useful on doing a conference/meeting:

• Plan In Advance
Most sessions in big meetings run concurrently. It can be completely overwhelming if you're not prepared. Try to plan what you're going to do in advance - if possible get schedules and abstracts before you actually arrive at the conference. Whenever you manage to get the schedule, go through it and figure out what you want to attend and who you want to talk to. When possible this means reading the abstracts relevant to your situation. This can take a fair amount of time.

• Take Notes
Carry a notebook with you at all times and use it! A small voice recorder and digital camera might also be useful.

• Poster Sessions
A poster session is a hall where researchers put up posters describing their work. The good thing about this session is that researchers and practitioners will be hanging out at each poster and you can just go up and talk to them.

• Introduce Yourself as a practitioner and Don't Be Shy!
In my experience, most researchers and practitioners really enjoy talking about their research - so don't be shy about talking to researchers one on one! They are almost always more than happy to talk about their work and may even take some extra time to explain things.

• Take Care Asking Questions in Lectures
If you're thinking of asking question at a lecture session, be brief, clear and concise. Don't ask for advice on your personal situation. Think hard about whether you can figure out the answer from what you've already heard and whether your question would be of general interest. You can often catch the presenter after the session is over for more individual questions.

• Make Contacts
Don't hesitate to ask researchers and practitioners for their business cards and bring some of your own if possible.