Saturday is Startup School, a free one-day conference at Stanford put on by Paul Graham and YCombinator. I decided to apply this year and was accepted. Not that this is a real honor: my guess is that the criteria for being accepted are (1) applying before they’re full, and (2) being a software developer who is interested in startups. Apparently, I met both criteria.

So if you’re going to, let me know! Post a comment, email me, or say hi.

The problem: why pay to hear what you can read for free?

But why fly out to California just to hear a few people talk? Why pay a grand or two for a trip to OSCON, RubyFringe, etc.?

After all, the devil advocates, I could probably read a few books or a dozen blog posts and get access just about all of the information that will be communicated at these conferences. As a bonus, reading is faster than speaking, so I could probably see double the information in half the time. That would save me a lot of money and several days of my life.

Let’s take this to it’s extreme. I’ve seen Paul Graham speak once (at the first RailsConf). He basically wrote an essay for the conference, presented it, and then posted it to his blog. What a waste! I didn’t need to go to RailsConf just to hear something I could read on my own, right?

Six reasons that conferences are worthwhile

The thing is, learning doesn’t work that way. At least for me. I learn probably 10x-100x more when I sit down for a good talk than by reading the transcript. It has to be good, of course – a bad talk is no better than a bad transcript. But if the speaker and the information are worthwhile, hearing it in person that beats words on a page every time. I think there are several reasons for this.

First, being in a room with a speaker creates a stronger personal connection than just reading an article. The connection might still be weak; you might sit in the back of a room with a thousand other strangers, and the speaker might be mic’d and small. But even this weak connection allows for different, and stronger, relationship than you get from a blog post or a book.

Second, nonverbal communication is important, and is pretty hard to pick up from words on a page. In person, someone can communicate in at least four important ways: the words they speak; tone of voice and vocal emphases; physical gestures; and their overall manner and appearance. In writing, you just have words.

Third, in-person communication allows for a greater fidelity of communication. Dan has talked about a study of how audio quality impacts communication. Compare a PA system at a bus station to a CD, or a bad VOIP connection to an in-person conversation. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a 1-second delay (think Apple video chat)? It is really tough. So the difference between reading someone’s words and hearing them speak is huge. (Bruno wrote a great article about email last year that describes this well.)

By the way, none of this is to say that there is anything wrong with books, blogs, and the written word. I love books, read blogs daily, and write emails every now and then. They have a place, and are better than oral communication for some things. They just don’t replace conferences. But I digress.

Fourth, when a speaker presents at a conference, they have a tighter feedback loop that offers them a little more control over their message. If they say something confusing or controversial, they can read the audience and slow down, clarify, or restate their point. Notice I say “a little” – I read enough Derrida in a former life to know that a speaker (or author) can’t control the hearer’s understanding of the words they say, and that writing and speech communicate in fundamentally the same way. But face-to-face (or face-to-audience) communication makes feedback and interaction a little easier.

Fifth, if I sit down to listen to someone, I’m making a larger commitment of time and attention. I may read 50 blog posts in one day, and devote a few minutes to each. You’re lucky if I spend more than 10 minutes reading your blog post (and your name is probably Steve Yegge). But if you have something to say, I’ll listen to you for an hour. And I probably won’t be listening to music or checking my email in the background while I do.

Sixth, conferences let you experience a talk with other people who are thinking about the same things. There is something about sitting next to people and seeing how they react. When do they laugh? When do they seem bored? When do they listen with rapt attention? Your learning is shaped by theirs, and you shape their experience too.

OK, so I probably still won’t drop $1,400 for Business of Software 2008. But it is tempting, and if my startup were profitable yet, I’d be there.

Are you afraid to talk on the phone? Do you have a mysterious, gnawing instinct to avoid face-to-face contact? Do you catch yourself making rationalizations like “I bet he won’t be there if I call, I’ll just e-mail and wait for his response.”

These are signs your brains has vomited on itself and become reliant on your keyboard as its sole communications outlet. Beware.

This happened to me the other day: I had an e-mail exchange going with someone, and their latest request didn’t make sense. He was asking me to do something, but I couldn’t figure out what. My first instinct was to a fire off a quick “Hey, I don’t get this” e-mail and sit happily awaiting his reply.

Then, in an act of self-defiance, I picked up the phone to call him. I hadn’t ever spoken with him before, but hey, the number was right there on the e-mail signature. How hard could it be?

Not very. In all of 45 seconds I had my question figured out and was moving on with my work. E-mail would have taken 10 times as long and would’ve had a much higher chance of miscommunication.

Which brings me to an idea my friend Dan exposed me to: the higher the fidelity of your communication, the better chance you have of making yourself understood. Makes sense, right? A phone with a good connection is better than a walkie-talkie with white noise and static. An MP3 with a high bit rate transmits communicates more than one with a low bit rate.

In other words, the higher the fidelity, the clearer the message. E-mail, with its asynchronism and ability to attach rich documents, is great for certain kinds of messages. But when it comes to quick conversation and explanations, it has a low bit rate. And I think many of us have become so e-mail-saturated that we get lazy and abuse it in simple situations.