Preparing for BIO

Hopefully everyone is busy getting prepared for BIO this year. As with any conference of this magnitude, some advance preparation is required. If you've never been to BIO, the conference can be overwhelming. My personal suggestions are that you define a couple of objectives for your attendance. These might include building a network, some market research or finding the right partners for your business. All of these will require interacting with people, so come prepared with your elevator speech (30-60 seconds to explain what you do) and be prepared to hear lots of others. Everyone has an interesting story somewhere and my experience has been that we can all benefit by hearing someone else's story. Some tips:

• Make sure you are able to clearly communicate what you do in 30-60 seconds, the rest of the conversation depends on it.
• Make a point of interacting outside your well known colleagues, there is a world of possibilities at BIO. The lunch sessions are a great place to meet new people as are some of the receptions.
• Go to at least some of the networking events and talk to people you don't already know, you will find your horizons broadened and perhaps even make some new business contacts
• Bring a large number of business cards and take notes on the ones you receive, there will be too many after the conference to remember all the details. Follow-up quickly with those of interest after the conference.
• Plan your time in advance. The "my event plan" on the BIO2008 site is a powerful tool.
• If you are new to the industry, check out some of the presentations made by companies at the partnering sessions in the business forum. Most of the presentations are of very high quality