Last week, Toronto hosted Tech Week. A city-wide celebration filled with events and workshops revolving around the Technology sector.
I had such a...
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Hahaha, I'm already sold with this alone. When I get the chance to get back to Manila or even abroad, I think I would attend free tech events and connect with people like you did. Thanks for the tips.
PS. Beautiful pics btw
It's definitely a great habit to pick up. Let me know how it goes Elmar.
Thanks!
I would push back slightly - ROI depends heavily on career stage. early on, the serendipity is worth it. but 5+ years deep in a niche, conference talks rarely clear your reading queue.
You need to be more selective if you are working deep in a niche, quality beats quantity. The good thing with Tech Week is that there are hundreds of events to choose from so you should find an event for your ICP. Curation is key in this case.
and the corollary is you stop feeling guilty skipping - once you have an ICP filter, 'not for me' is a complete answer
agree, that is important to not get sucked into a FOMO spiral and cut the noise to focus on the actual signals
pre-deciding what counts as a signal before FOMO kicks in is the real work. once the spiral starts, the threshold shifts. writing the filter when you are not under pressure means you do not renegotiate it in the moment.
What I find interesting is that events like Tech Week compress years of weak network connections into a few days.
You can spend months reading blogs, following people online, and commenting on posts. Or you can spend a few days meeting builders face-to-face and create relationships that would have taken much longer to form digitally.
Knowledge scales through content.
Trust scales through interaction.
Good events accelerate the second one.
Agree. I made some valuable connections in one week. In a world accelerated and misconstrued by technology, the best way to establish trust is often to meet face-to-face.
Agreed.
One thing I’ve noticed is that content creates visibility, but conversations create opportunities.
Many people focus on growing an audience. The bigger leverage often comes from building relationships with a small number of highly aligned people.
A single meaningful connection can sometimes be worth more than thousands of impressions.
Very true. The other important aspect many forget are the follow-up coffee chats to keep the connection going once the events are over.
Exactly.
The event creates the connection, but the follow-up creates the relationship. I’ve seen many people collect business cards, LinkedIn connections, or social follows and assume the networking happened. In reality, the value often starts weeks later when you continue the conversation around a shared interest, project, or problem.
Relationships compound just like knowledge does.
Sounds nice! So this is not a prototypical "tech event" hosted in one venue, but more a 'festival' kind of thing spread out over multiple locations in the city?
And do you know if they have these "Tech Weeks" in other cities?
Correct! A week long 'festival' would be a good way to describe it.
It is organized in a decentralized way where events can be independently hosted all over the city by local startups, tech firms, VCs etc.
Cool, I think I would like that more than a whole week at one venue!
The Builder’s Grid is such a smart idea because it makes networking feel more natural while also giving other builders real visibility.
It's definitely a win win for everyone involved. It was fun too to set up.
It is the best tech event in Canada. I am glad that you enjoy it, Julien! I had a blast at the Toronto Tech Week last year. I agree with you because it is a great place to network.
Thanks Ben! Hopefully we meet at next year's edition!
Thank you, man!
I completely agree. Beyond the talks and networking, Tech Week gives you something that's hard to get online: a sense of what people are actually building right now and where the industry is heading.
Very true Karina.