Maximizing Your Conference Experience with Essential Digital Tools

I go to conferences just a few times a year. To make the most of the frenzied days, I rely on a suite of tools. Read on for those worth trying.

I. The Week Before

1. Mine Your Network Goldmine

Clay | This personal rolodex enhances your contact list with info from LinkedIn and whatever other social platforms you choose (Instagram, Facebook, X). You can use Nexus, its new AI-enhanced search, to surface contacts in your conference city, or people in your network with specific expertise or interests.

If you connect Clay to your calendar and email, it shows you a list of past meetings and email threads you’ve exchanged with a given contact for context. At the conference you can also use it to add private notes to a contact. It’s free for up to 1,000 contacts, or $10/month billed annually for unlimited.

Pro alternative: Folk is a more advanced CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool that’s useful if you’re attending conferences for sales, or if you manage a service business that involves a lot of outreach. It’s a pro tool, but surprisingly well designed. There’s a new ChatGPT integration so you can use ordinary language to query all your contacts and sales leads. If I were to run a sales-heavy project, I’d use this.

2. Build Your Intelligence Hub

Perplexity Spaces | Create a dedicated Space for your conference—think of it as a smart folder for all your research queries.

* It can be private, shared with colleagues who can contribute, or public.

* Use it for queries related to conference sessions you’re attending or leading.

* You can also use Spaces to plan for free time between sessions. Customize a Space’s instructions with your preferences to discover restaurants, music, museums, or whatever else interests you near the conference.

* Upload files to give the AI assistant further context. Add reference docs from conference organizers, recommendations from friends, or a city guide you like.

Learn more: Check my most recent Perplexity guide..

Alternative: you can similarly set up a project in Claude or ChatGPT with relevant documents and queries. Or set up a notebook in NotebookLM.

For further prep: Check out this pre-conference Planning Exercise, part of a helpful OpenNews toolkit by Emma Carew Grovum.

3. Create Pop-Up Networking Meals

Partiful | Set up open lunches or dinners that conference connections can join spontaneously. Group meals build on hallway small talk for relationship building. Many people eat alone because coordinating is tricky, or they don’t know where to go outside the hotel or conference center.

It’s completely free. Create events during the conference, then share the QR code when you meet someone interesting—they can RSVP instantly on their phone. You can use the app to check RSVPs, or to send updates or follow-ups. Or post the RSVP link to an event discussion thread, or include it in an email. Schedule 2-3 meals throughout the conference and cap attendance at 6-8 people for rich conversations.

For informal conference get-togethers Partiful is a good alternative to Lu.ma — the RSVP app I like using to send invites for my paid subscriber events online. Both are great, but Partiful integrates texting in a smart way, includes QR codes for RSVPing, and has a more social feel for spur of the moment gatherings.

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II. At the Conference: Capture What Matters

4. Never Miss a Moment

Granola | This hybrid note-taking app combines your typed notes with AI-enhanced transcription. Record sessions on your phone or laptop while jotting down key thoughts—Granola merges both into session summaries you can query.

When my mind wanders during a session, I like being able to review the transcript to catch up. And if I have to step out for a minute or respond to an important message, I still have full notes.

No audio or video is stored, just the transcript and summary. I’ve been surprised at how accurate the transcripts tend to be, even when I’m sitting in the middle of a large presentation room. It’s free for 25 meetings or $18/month for unlimited.

Case in point: At the Online News Association (ONA) conference I just attended in New Orleans, I created a folder with Granola for all my session notes. Now I can query my whole collection of conference notes for follow-ups.

Alternatives

* Bloks is a pro option I’ve written about before. It integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, and other pro platforms, but it’s now $69/month billed annually after a 14-day trial, so it’s only relevant for hard-core business use.

* Macwhisper is a great free app that can record and transcribe locally on your laptop, but it doesn’t show you the live transcript or let you mix in your own notes.

5. Connect with People

LinkedIn QR Code Scanner | Skip the business card shuffle. To use LinkedIn's free built-in QR scanner, tap the mobile app’s search bar and click the scanner icon on the far right. You can then scan someone else’s LinkedIn QR code or have them scan yours. You’re instantly connected without having to type anything. No need to spend an hour processing a stack of business cards later.

Uniqode | If LinkedIn doesn’t suit you for connecting, create a free Uniqode digital business card. Save to your Apple or Google Wallet to easily share contact info without having to hunt through your photos app.

Or if you want a simple way to give people you meet a link, a PDF, a group of images, or a vCard with contact info, QR Codes Unlimited lets you quickly create and download a QR code for free with customized colors and designs.

6. Digitize Everything

Scanner Pro by Readdle | Transform blurry photos of slides or awkward snapshots of handouts into clean, readable documents. The features I like:

* Quality scans | New tech improves on previous apps I’ve tried.

* Smart cropping | The app auto-detects slide or paper edges.

* Conversion | I usually render scans in high-contrast black and white, unless the colors are crucial.

* Organization | It’s simple to keep scans in topical folders, e.g. receipts, books, mementos, recipes, ONA25.

* Less paper | At conferences I try to scan most handouts now instead of hauling a stack of paper home. It lightens my bag, limits my office paper mess, and shortens processing time back at work.

* Cleaner camera roll | I prefer scans in a dedicated app so they don’t clutter up my camera roll.

* Access your scans from anywhere | Use Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive for automatic backups and to see or share your scans on any device.