Not necessarily at conferences, I but I have found the "Wow, that sounds really hard!" tip incredibly useful, especially with people in fields I'm not too famil

Not necessarily at conferences, I but I have found the "Wow, that sounds really hard!" tip incredibly useful, especially with people in fields I'm not too familiar with. It's genuinely interesting to hear about other people's jobs. I think this phrase works so well because it grants the other person permission to go beyond the one sentence sound-bite of their job, and tell you about the difficult (and therefore interesting) parts. I think this is the essence of a great small-talk prompt - invite the other person into territory they are familiar and comfortable with so that they can vocalise thoughts they've probably already had but wouldn't just say without prompting. Doing so usually produces enough material that you can then ask another question or say something relevant yourself. Of course, some people don't need prompting, though it often seems to be the case that the more eager someone is to talk about themselves the less interesting they are, and vice versa.