Instruction Is Done to You. Learning Is Something You Do.

I used to run conferences for a living. ZendCon. The Dutch PHP Conference. For a couple of years I ran my own, CoderFaire. I've attended more conferences than most people know exist.

One thing always puzzled me. Why would anyone skip Tutorial Day and just go to the conference?

Don't get me wrong, the sessions were usually awesome. But Tutorial Day was different.

A conference session is instruction. "I learned this, I'm going to tell you about it." You listen, take notes, and hope to God you still remember it after lunch.

Tutorial Day was where you got your hands dirty. The best ones had you building something while the class leader helped you understand the how and the why of what you were building. You came away with code. You came away with the muscle memory of having built it. You came away with the inspiration.

Conference sessions were instruction. Tutorials were learning.

Instruction is done to you. Learning is something you do.

So why skip it? I don't think most people think it through. Tutorial Day adds about a third to the price of the trip and gets you one workshop, maybe two. The conference gets you twenty sessions. Twenty against two, for less money, isn't a hard call, especially for whoever holds the purse strings.

But that math doesn't ask the right question. It isn't twenty against two. It's learning against instruction, and learning is worth a great deal more. It's the difference between doing the exercises and reading the chapter. The textbook and the conference session can only offer instruction. In a tutorial, learning actually takes place.

And that math can't see the thing I watched happen year after year: the day you spent building something was the day that made the whole trip worth it. You knew it because the next day, out on the conference floor, people were still talking about what they built on Tutorial Day.

These days I get to do both. I build the instruction, and I set up the learning. My favorite thing I run is basically Tutorial Day, every other week. Class leaders show people how to do something they didn't know how to do. The attendees build something. They walk away with something they can point to and say "I built that." They walk away thinking "I can use this on that Jira ticket I've got waiting on me."

And I get to watch their eyes light up when they grok.

Next time you're planning to attend a conference, don't skip Tutorial Day. Don't skip being able to show your coworkers something useful and cool the next week.

Now go get your hands dirty. Don't settle for instruction. Go learn something.

Originally posted on LinkedIn: "Don't Skip Tutorial Day"