How to convince your boss to send you to an ACES conference
Aug 26, 2026
The good news is that you have plenty to work with. Whether you're making the case for an in-person ACES conference or a virtual one like VCON, here are a few ideas to help you address the concerns your boss may have about professional development, practical value, cost, or the impact on your team.
Focus on practical knowledge you can use
Professional development is easier to justify when there is a clear connection to the work you already do.
ACES conferences bring together editors and other professionals who understand the challenges of editorial work and can share approaches grounded in real experience. That means you can bring back proven methods, practical perspectives, and ideas you can apply to your own workflows, projects, and decisions.
When talking to your boss, think about where your work could benefit from stronger processes, better tools, or additional expertise. Those are the areas where the conference can have an immediate impact.
Point to the breadth of the program
ACES conference programming reflects the full range of editorial work, with sessions across four core areas: Words and Language, Core Editing Skills, Business of Editing, and Soft Skills for Editors. Within those areas, sessions explore topics such as plain language, inclusiveness, editing techniques, project and client management, collaboration, leadership, communication, and more.
That variety gives you the opportunity to strengthen the skills you rely on in your current role while also building knowledge in areas that can prepare you for new responsibilities, changing expectations, and the future of editorial work.
For your boss, the value is versatility. One conference can support the work you need to do today while helping you build the skills and perspective you’ll need as your role evolves.
Core content focus
Words and Language
Language trends, plain language, lexicography, inclusiveness, bias and sensitivity, jargon, cross-cultural language use, voice and tone preservation, and styles.
Core Editing Skills
Grammar, syntax, tools, fact-checking and research, techniques for editing (e.g., big picture editing or sentence level).
Business of Editing
Running your own business, project management, client management, fiscal management, marketing, setting boundaries, and networking.
Soft Skills for Editors
Time management, critical thinking, attention to detail, professionalism, collaboration, relationship building, leadership, empathy, adaptability, and communication.
Get more from your professional development budget
If budget is your boss’s main concern, focus on how much professional development one ACES conference delivers for the investment.
For less than the cost of some standalone training courses or consulting sessions, one registration can deliver hours of professional development through a single budget line.
That gives your boss a stronger return on the same budget, with one investment supporting several development needs at once and reducing the need to fund them separately later.
ACES members can also take advantage of member registration rates, making the investment easier to justify, too.
Show how the value can extend to your team
The knowledge you gain does not have to stay with you. It can strengthen the work of the broader team.
Resources, handouts, presentation materials, and key takeaways from ACES conferences can become useful starting points for conversations with colleagues. You might share a technique with another editor, bring an idea into a team meeting, or use what you learned to improve a process everyone relies on.
If you're attending VCON, you also receive up to 90 days of access to recorded sessions, giving you time to catch presentations you missed or revisit especially useful ones.
Emphasize the quality of the learning
ACES is recognized as an authority on editing excellence, and its conferences bring together respected experts and experienced editing professionals from across the industry. The sessions reflect the standards, practices, questions, and challenges editors are working with today.
That gives your organization access to knowledge rooted in the editing profession itself. It can help you stay current on industry trends, tools, and best practices while learning from people with direct experience putting them into practice.
Use the conference format to strengthen your case
The format of the conference can give you another argument for attending.
For an in-person ACES conference, being there creates opportunities for deeper interaction with presenters, experienced editors, peers, and vendors. Networking receptions and conversations between sessions give attendees time to share information, brainstorm ideas, solve problems, and build connections that can lead to new perspectives and useful ideas to bring back to their work.
For a virtual conference like VCON, professional development comes without airfare, hotel, ground transportation, or other travel expenses. It also means less time away from home and work and more flexibility to fit sessions around other commitments.
Make your case specific
Before talking to your boss, spend some time looking at the agenda and identifying the sessions and topics that are most relevant to your role.
Then connect them to something concrete. What challenge are you working through? What skill would help you contribute more effectively? What knowledge could you bring back to your colleagues? Which sessions align with your team's priorities?
The clearer you can make the connection between the conference sessions and the work your organization needs you to do, the easier it is for your boss to see the registration as an investment in the work itself.
