Thank You To Our Business Partners
Justify Your Attendance
Conferences are an excellent training opportunity and can offer a great return on investment. However, getting approval to attend can sometimes be challenging without compelling evidence to make your case.
ARMA has created a toolkit of easily customizable resources to help your supervisor understand the return they will see on this important investment. Use these resources to build your case to attend InfoCon 2024.
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Conference Attendance Justification Letter: Use this customizable letter template to help explain and justify your conference attendance to your supervisor
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Conference Attendance Expense Estimate Worksheet: Use this worksheet to break down your full estimated cost of attendance
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Conference Attendance Benefits Worksheet: Use this worksheet to create a custom list of the benefits you and your organization will gain from your attendance
General Tips
Some organizations' travel and training budgets have been reduced. Here are some things to consider to consider when crafting your request:
- Tie your career goals and professional development to specific sessions in the agenda. Explain in specific terms what you’ll gain by attending, and how InfoCon 2024 will benefit your work performance, job satisfaction, and organization's information governance goals.
- Offer to deliver a presentation with Q&A to teach your colleagues on the effective practices, tips, and processes you learned. You can also offer to meet with your supervisor when you return for a recap of the high-level takeaways.
- Share speaker presentations and handouts with your colleagues. As an attendee, you’ll have access to speakers' materials on the conference app to download for 60 days post-conference.
- If you are working to obtain or maintain your designation, remind your supervisor that this is a great way to earn CEU credits and is less expensive than registering for separate conferences. It also requires less time away from the office.
- Which exhibiting companies will be demonstrating the tools you use or are evaluating for future use?
- What doors can networking events open for you and your organization?
- How can increasing your involvement with ARMA benefit your growth as an information governance professional?
- Ask "what is the cost of NOT attending," in terms of both your ability to stay abreast of new developments and missing valuable tools, perspectives, and relationships that will help your organization anticipate and adapt to the future.
- Prepare a plan which shows who will cover for you and how work will continue to get done while you are attending the conference.
Prepare Your "Elevator Pitch"
Whether it comes up before or after you’ve submitted your formal request to attend, you can be certain that an opportunity – a 60 second opportunity – will arise for you to confidently and succinctly convey the importance of attending ARMA InfoCon 2024.Every organization is different, so make sure to align your ask to the strategic goals, mission and vision of your company. Once identified, have your bullets committed to memory and confidently present your request to your supervisor.
Elevator Pitch Talking Points:
- Professional development
- 3-days, concentrated to best practices in enhancing compliance and reducing risk; optimizing information governance; improving security measures; and leveraging cutting-edge technologies
- Networking opportunities to form meaningful connections that can open doors to valuable partnerships, collaborations, and opportunities for your organization
- Sharing gained knowledge with others in the workplace upon return to strengthen your team