TIPS FOR CONVINCING YOUR BOSS TO SEND YOU TO THE HOW DESIGN CONFERENCE

The HOW Design Conference is the single most inspirational, informative conference for graphic designers. It's your chance to refresh, pick up new tips and techniques, and network with 3,500 other designers.

But if you want your boss to pay for your registration, you need to explain the bottom-line benefits—and there are plenty. We've compiled a handy list of the most compelling reasons to help you convince your boss that the HOW Conference is a valuable tool.

1. You'll get four days of continuing education on everything from utilizing new software and developing new ideas to improving in-house client relations—this is the stuff you don't learn in school.
2. Brush up your technical skills. Then take your new knowledge back to the office and hold a training session for your co-workers.
   1. Pre-Conference workshops offer in-depth instruction (three hours with the experts) in Dreamweaver®, Photoshop® and InDesign®.
   2. The sessions in the HOW Learning Center track give you a chance to explore new hardware and software options—and the information, training and answers will come straight from the developers.
3. Explore new resources and options in the overflowing Design Resource Center. You'll make contacts that will help you bring your next design project to life, whether you need paper, stock photography, software, hardware, specialty printing techniques or just about anything else. You'll return to the office with tons of free samples, plus contact information for a variety of vendors who can help you solve future design and production problems. (These contacts could prove indispensable to your officemates, too.)
4. You'll get lots of other free stuff, like a T-shirt, tote bag, breakfast every day, drinks and snacks at the parties...
5. You'll be inspired by some of the top designers in the design industry—and if you bring back just one valuable idea, the Conference will be worth it.
6. You'll attend sessions full of practical, bottom-line material on proving design's ROI, avoiding pricey mistakes in your prepress files, creating effective email communications and more.
7. Networking opportunities galore: the Networking Kickoff, breakfasts, time in the Resource Center, breaks between sessions, receptions—every minute you're not in a session is an ideal opportunity to meet industry experts and plenty of working designers. These folks are great resources when you need help with a future project, have a position to fill, or just need someone to bounce ideas off of. Keep those business cards you collect. They will come in handy.
8. If you take a Studio Tour, you'll get the chance to see how other firms are organized, how they set up their space and how they've handled some of the problems your business might be facing.
9. Host an "everything I learned at the HOW Design Conference" presentation for your officemates when you get home. (In your Conference binder, you'll find handouts from every single session—even the ones you didn't go to—so you'll have plenty of inspiration and information to share. You can even purchase MP3s of just about every session, so your colleagues can benefit almost as much as you did.)
10. Does your company have an open job position? Offer to post the position on the message boards near registration and then scout out potential candidates at the Portfolio Review. You could even screen possible hires on-site.
11. Do you work for a design firm? Offer to call on clients or potential clients in the Boston area and present your firm's work. Or volunteer to meet with vendors while you're in town.
12. With 7 tracks, 60 sessions, 10 workshops and 2 studio tours, the HOW Design Conference is a bargain. It's content you won't find anywhere else.

Want more ammo? Join the HDC Forum and pose the question to designers who've been to previous HOW Conferences. You won't be disappointed.