More and more I am getting something out of all those great events that I am not able to attend due to time or expense. Occasionally events get covered in videos that are made public and posted to YouTube, but often there is no video available for events. For those events, there is often an industry blogger who covers the event by liveblogging from each session.
While some sessions are more easily covered than others, some bloggers do an amazing job of conveying both the gist and the details of presentations, questions and answers. I recently “virtually attended” SMX West by reading the excellent SMX West liveblogging coverage by Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media.
It’s not the same thing as being there (for one thing it is hard to network and chat with people by reading), but getting ideas and keeping abreast of trends is really possible. I also find that even though many of the presenters have blogs, they tend to organize their material differently in a presentation. If you are lucky enough to have them post their deck on slideshare or another such service, the liveblogging combines well to give you 90% of the idea flow.
Of course, my kitchen is not as exotic a place to consume this stuff as live in New York, San Fran, or Seattle, but it is way cheaper.
Photo by jimjarmo.