[jonathanwallace]

I go to conferences for professional development.

Typically, conferences are for professional development. Here's how a conference is superior to me clicking my way to professional development.

1. I'm not distracted by the demands of my day job. When I go to a conference I leave my day to day concerns behind. I can completely focus on learning and networking.

2. The biggest benefit for a conference for me personally is that I'm inspired by speakers, by what they're doing and working on, and by what my fellow attendees are doing and working on. This temporary reprieve from my day to day in #1 in conjunction with #2 has me itching to get back to my keyboard to code.

When I attempt to skip a conference and just watch the videos, I rarely watch them because of all the other things that are competing for my time and attention.