Smarts

Dear Conference Attendees,

One nice thing about these conferences is that you are provided with a badge that not only gets you into the sessions and exhibits hall but also helps prompt you when you meet someone whose name you should know. Sometimes the larger conferences will even give you badge holders that are designed to carry your name tag, business cards, and some pens/pencils. These are quite spiffy when you compare them to the crappy plastic envelopes with stretchy string that catches your hair and occasionally snaps the badge up to hit you in the nose when you're trying to take off your scarf.

Other meetings provide flare for your badge holder...because nothing is more lame than just a card with your name and university.

I know these conferences can be expensive, and I understand that you would want to get your money's worth. However, as much as this may be the case, and as cool as those badge holders are PLEASE stop wearing them outside the convention. You look lame. And not only that, but you are making yourself a target for muggers and hooligans in general. Don't you remember those public service announcements in the 1980s/1990s where parents were urged not to sew or otherwise attach their child's name onto their clothes? How vulnerable that made the unsuspecting child to a kidnapper. Though you, conference attendee, are grown up now, this same principle still applies. What could be more irresponsible then walking the streets of a large, unfamiliar city with a large, brightly colored square around your neck proclaiming "I don't live here!! And since I'm basically a tourist I probably have lots of cash and/or credit cards!!" 

Instead, get all you can from a conference by attending all of the receptions, poster sessions, breakfast meetings you can...basically anywhere you might find food. Drink to excess on the cheap wine and the Bud Light. Stuff those pretzels and spinach and cheese pinwheels into your suit pockets/purse/badge holder. After all, it's free, and they're just going to pitch the leftovers anyway.

Please, save yourself the embarrassment and possibly bodily harm by removing your badge as you leave the convention center/conference hotel/business meeting. Then you can go back to looking like a normal person.

Sincerely,

All the Exhibitors Who Know Better