Date: 19/07/2021
Speakers: Euan Lindsay and Scott Smith
Why
- What are your priorities for the conference? That will help you figure out what to do while you’re there
- Technical scholarship, opportunity to publish, maintaining networks (seeing the same people over and over at annual conferences)
When
- Stick around afterwards, find out what else happens around (before/after) the conference
- Be aware of when sessions run, find sessions you need to attend
- Deliberately schedule things around why you are there
- It’s okay to skip sessions to have a detailed discussion with someone else
- Use the breaks between sessions to have conversations
- knowing your flexibility will help you decide whether to continue a conversation now or later
Where
- Where are you staying in relation to the location of the conference?
- Know where to find pharmacies, food, etc.
- Feel free to be a tourist before or after
What
- Am I here for the posters, presentations, workshops?
- Attend a session you know nothing about
- push yourself out of your comfort zone
- Review papers for the conference
- be paper neutral – every paper generates 2-3 reviews, so review 3 papers
- you might feel freedom to not attend sessions if you’ve already reviewed papers from that session
- Presenting
- be proactive about when you want your warnings (can ask for longer warnings if needed)
- go in and test the slides before the session in the actual room
- know what you’ll do when the AV breaks at the conference
- get a friend to ask you a Dorothy Dixer, have a slide after your presentation
- don’t let your PhD student out unless they’re ready – let them answer questions themselves
- Chair a session
- make it enjoyable and easy, give an overview at the end and people will leave the session feeling they’ve learnt something useful
- keep to time, cut people off
- facilitate discussions and have a question for each presenter (hopefully don’t have to because there are enough questions in the room)
- ask to be a co-chair to learn from chair if you are less experienced
- Join in the social activities
- Attend the conference dinner and know the dress code
- If you are invited to dinner, say yes
- Give yourself permission to not work and recharge batteries
- put an away message in email and be disciplined, don’t check emails
- put a longer period in your out-of-office (manage expectations of those who are emailing you)
- Think about things you can talk about next year and think about what one of your colleagues would be interested in – send papers around to your colleagues after the conference
- a good way to maintain existing relationships – and inviting them to pay it back
- doing it within your school/faculty positions you as the school/faculty expert
Who
- Who do I want to see?
- Meet with both existing networks and new people
- How will new connections know who you are?
- Follow up with an email and some sort of identifier (“we spoke about x” or “I was the one with the purple ponytail”)
- Don’t travel as a pack with people you already know
- Figure out who is the most important person in the room (nodes amongst the community)
- look for someone who has co-authored with lots of people, well-regarded, friendly
- Talk with senior colleagues to get a list of key people to approach
- this “gives you permission” to go up to someone and talk to them
- Collect business cards from 10 people + email them a thank you (+ say hello/give a seminar the next time you’re in their part of the world or see them at the next conference)
- don’t be discouraged if people don’t follow up or if they don’t respond to your follow-up
- Everyone has something interesting to say
- remember that who you approach is an expert in their field, not everything
Running a conference of your own
- Support network for younger colleagues
- Entertaining conference for old colleagues
- Blend of technical and social side
- Create long breaks to have good conversations
- Choose correct food for chatting on the side
- Make activities for people to talk
Online
- Connections made via the chat/back channels during sessions
- Breakout rooms before/after the dinner/awards ceremony around shared interests
- Keep in mind travelling to a conference means leaving things behind while online conferences compete with everyday life