Knowledge gained from conferences
Rabea Gransberger: In the beginning, I learned a lot about core Java and about performance in Java. Learning about the future of Java helped me because I knew more than other people and could pass this knowledge on to them in conversations.
The main thing is just the broad knowledge that you get at conferences. You get a very early look at some new tools that are coming out, like Testcontainers, for example.
I did hear about that a year ago at the GeekOUT conference and now it's gaining an even bigger audience. So, I think it's good to be one of the first people to know about a certain tech.
I invest a great deal of time in researching a topic for my talks. It's not always that I know everything about the topic myself. For example, with code reviews, I had my own impression of them. I also read papers about code reviews to actually create the talk and to get some more knowledge.
I put articles that I find on my reading...