So here’s the question: if everyone can get all the information they need online with the proliferation of blogs, Wikipedia, online books, etc., why do they still go to conferences?

Based on our study results of BarCamp Seattle (only just now posted on resources.pathable.com), here’s my answer in seven words: professional friends and a feeling of community.

Cheesy, I know. You don’t tend to think friendships and sense of community really matter in a collegial, professional context, but you know what? They really do.

Here’s the longer story:

We created Pathable because, in our own experience, meeting people at conferences is hard. Sure, you can start up a lot of random conversations, but it’s hard to find those five people at the event who have the same passion you have, who can really geek out with you on some topic. I’m one of those crazy, hyper-social people who love conferences, and even I find it difficult walking into an event with a totally new crowd.

Still, where else can I go to find a whole group of people with the same passion for social technology as me, who can talk about it for hours and hours on end into the evening over wine? Where else can I go, see the bigger picture of my field, find out what’s hot or not in the industry, and be totally inspired when I come back home to my day-to-day job?

Nonetheless, being the social scientist that I am, I felt we needed to do a real study at an event to test some of our assumptions. How important is networking at events? What are people *really* looking for? What makes them want to come back year after year? And, can Pathable really help?

Last summer, we sponsored BarCamp Seattle by providing Pathable for free. The attendees were mostly people in the technology industry in Seattle. The BarCamp organizers were a very friendly group of folks and were amenable to our sending around questionnaires at the event and online afterwards. We asked a lot of questions assessing various features of the event (quality of session, quality of conversation) and then included some standardized measures (from social science literature) adapted to assess networking and sense of community.

The results surprised even me.

Of these variables, what was the #1 predictor of people intending to return the next year?

- The quality of their conversations.

What was the #1 predictor of people saying they would return year and year?

- Their sense of community.

That’s right! At a professional event where people were meeting to talk about technology, the top predictor for returning year after year was sense of community. We similarly found that our sense of community measure and our event attachment measure were very strongly correlated (r = .81).

We also found that Pathable helped: the more people used Pathable, the more “professional friends” they had at the event, and the higher their sense of community and event attachment. They felt the more they used our matchmaking feature, the more valuable Pathable was in helping them meet others. See Figures below.

What does this all mean?

Well, it indicates to me that people really do seek out “professional friendships” in their work life. These are people who share your passion for what you do, can really provide a lot of knowledge and support in helping you be effective at what you do, and will collaborate with you in what you do. These are people for whom sometimes you have to travel far and wide across the globe to find them at conferences — and to participate in that community feeling around what you do.

[post cross-posted at blog.pathable.com]