Are Conferences Worth It?

How Higher Ed Can Reclaim Spaces for Collaboration and Connection

Walk into the exhibit hall at any major higher-education conference, in any city, usually sometime between September and March.

The scene is unforgettable. Booths stretch as far as the eye can see: glossy banners, looping videos, bright logos, and a thousand variations of the word innovation.

You’re handed a tote bag, a pen, and a hat before you’ve taken ten steps. Someone in a branded polo shirt greets you with a hopeful smile and a question: “Have you heard about our new learning platform?”

Down the hall, a panel of university presidents trades stories about “what’s working” on their campuses. Later, a foundation-sponsored event gathers faculty to discuss “what real change looks like in the classroom.” Linger a little longer and you’ll run into a startup CEO eager to explain how AI will finally “connect learning and work.”

The air hums with optimism, possibility, and salesmanship. Every booth promises transformation. Every presentation offers certainty.

Then, somewhere between the third breakout session and your stale afternoon coffee, a question creeps in. You can hear it in the chatter at the coffee line and see it on the half-distracted faces scrolling through their phones.

Are These Events Really Worth It?

On one level, sure. We come for clarity and connection, and conferences deliver at least a taste of both. But it’s hard to ignore the sense that something about this whole format is just…off.

The Case for “No”

Conferences are an outdated, inefficient, and expensive way for large groups of people to gather, and have been for a while.

They were born in a different era, when professional associations were still new, budgets were healthy, hierarchies stable, and the only way to share ideas was to gather in person. Back then, a conference wasn’t a box to check; it was access to new research, new colleagues, new ideas.

We now live in an age of hyperconnection. I can attend a webinar from my desk, join a Slack community, or stream a keynote on YouTube—all before lunch on a Tuesday.

Yet despite being surrounded by books, articles, and social feeds, we rarely experience the kind of real exchange that changes how we see our work. Technology has made learning easier to access but genuine connection harder to sustain.

Conferences haven’t exactly caught up to that paradox, and it shows. Too often, they’re inefficient distractions from the real work back home—or worse, ritualized drains on our already limited money and time.

In an era of shrinking budgets and growing demands, the return on investment keeps getting harder to justify.

The Case for “Yes”

And yet, after hundreds of these events, I can say with confidence: conferences are still worth it.

For all their flaws, they provide something higher education desperately needs right now, something we rarely find in our day-to-day work anymore: authentic proximity to others.

Most of us spend our days on Zoom, in email threads, or isolated within departments. The chance to stand in a room full of people wrestling with the same questions is powerful. Conferences remind us that we’re part of something larger than our inboxes.

That’s their true value: the unplanned conversation in the hallway, the shared meal that becomes a brainstorm, the chance encounter that makes your world feel just a little bigger.

But for that connection to mean something—for it to become collaboration rather than coincidence—we need better scaffolding around it.

The problem isn’t that conferences fail to deliver value; it’s that they’re misaligned with what our sector actually needs right now.

We don’t need more polished presentations. We need spaces for shared learning where people can bring live problems, compare notes, and co-create solutions to the many problems we’re trying to solve.

Conferences as a Way to Crowdsource the “Problems We’re Trying to Solve”

So maybe the question isn’t “Are conferences worth it?” but “What might they become if we used them differently?”

Last month, I co-led a half-day workshop at a conference, of course, on the topic of “peer consultancy,” a method adapted from the Liberating Structures framework created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless.

The idea is simple: instead of showcasing what you’ve solved, invite others to help you think through what you haven’t. One person shares a real challenge while others listen, offer observations, and rotate roles. In minutes, a room of colleagues becomes a network of consultants.

At its heart, peer consultancy replaces expertise with curiosity, hierarchy with listening, and performance with genuine exchange.

It’s simple by design: a structure built on principles of diversity, listening, and problem-centered discussion. The goal isn’t consensus or a quick fix. It’s to expand how we see the problem together.

What if a college leader opened a session with a question, “How do we balance our need for revenue with our commitment to student success?” and then stepped back while participants explored it together?

In twenty minutes, the whole atmosphere would shift from presentation to participation, from performance to practice. Ownership would change hands; insight would compound.

None of this is radical. The tables, the infrastructure, and the demand already exist. It’s simply a shift in purpose, from showcasing to sense-making, from performance to participation.

What “Better” Could Look Like

Imagine a conference designed less like a stage and more like a studio:

• What if every keynote was followed by a small-group debrief where attendees applied what they’d heard to their own context?

• What if exhibit halls mapped shared challenges instead of selling discrete solutions?

• What if sessions ended not with applause but with a promise to follow up with two people you just met?

  
  

Conferences could become living laboratories: places to test ideas, exchange failures, and build momentum.

Conferences Aren’t Broken, But…

Many have fallen out of sync with what we say we value.

The best conferences still do what higher education at its best does: they give us an opportunity to think together. They remind us that progress doesn’t come from listening to the smartest person in the room; it comes from making room for smart people to build something new, together.

And that’s the real work ahead: building scaffolds around connection so it doesn’t fade when the exhibit-hall lights turn off.

The next great innovation in higher education may not come from listening to a keynote or watching a product demo. It might emerge from a circle of peers in a quiet corner of a noisy hotel lobby, asking better questions and listening long enough to hear the answers.