[HN Gopher] Rules for Conferences (2019) ___________________________________________________________________ Rules for Conferences (2019) Author : ivanagas Score : 50 points Date : 2022-05-10 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (milan.cvitkovic.net) (TXT) w3m dump (milan.cvitkovic.net) | andrew_ wrote: | One of mine, which I put into practice after attending a | JavaScript-focused conference in 2018: Don't attend conferences | that focus excessively on latest-thing social issues or identity | politics. | | Conference rules/terms/bylaws that are longer than a Life | Insurance contract are also a personal red flag. | Spooky23 wrote: | That's a good policy. There was one conference where our | counsel started laughing at the absurd terms that would be | illegal for us to abide by. | version_five wrote: | Yes, I work in machine learning and some (many) of the | conferences are very scary politics-wise. | | Personally I think it's better to focus on conferences that are | smaller and more niche and don't have the baggage that comes | with getting big and famous. Any time spent on politics is time | not spend on actual research discussion | the_snooze wrote: | >If you're presenting, leave more time for questions than you're | supposed to. | | My personal corollary to that: when you're preparing a talk, | focus less on trying to get all your findings across and more on | what questions you want the audience to ask you. The least | interesting talks are those that are unfocused and overwhelm the | audience with a firehose of information. The most engaging talks | are those that guide the audience to ask interesting questions. | lucb1e wrote: | I agree with all the rest of the post but interestingly I would | say the exact opposite for each of the first three points. | | > Don't attend any talk that's being recorded | | I know myself. I've tried watching those back but it never | happens. At best one or two talks if I'm particularly curious | about one thing and there's no info about it elsewhere. | | Which makes me think talks may just not be the best form. I guess | I like them for the combination of entertainment while getting | new info. | | > You'll get all the same info in 10% the time by skipping | through the video later | | That's the problem with video, though: it's almost impossible to | skim. I'd be curious if someone quizzed you on those talks after | watching them in real-time versus with skipping. Sure, 10% and | "all the same info" are both hyperboles and are not to be taken | literally, but managing 80% of the info in double that time (20%) | would surprise me. | | > Caveat: if attending the talk will let you meet the speaker | (usually it won't) | | What conferences do you go to where the speaker is locked away | after the talk? This confuses me. Or do you mean the line will be | too long anyway and there is no point trying? | mostlylurks wrote: | >managing 80% of the info in double that time (20%) would | surprise me. | | This isn't particularly difficult. If you skip the pleasantries | at the start and end of a talk and use a playback rate of 4x, | you'll more or less get that 20% duration. 4x is quite | understandable (once you're used to it) given how slowly people | giving talks tend to talk. Though if a talk is really dense in | terms of content, you might have to go slower just to give your | brain a chance to digest the information. Most tech talks | aren't that dense, however. | foobarian wrote: | Honestly this depends on the conference, but if it's the kind | of thing where it's a CV filler mill you won't learn anything | from either the talk or reading the paper. And then there are | talks which are impressive because the authors did a lot of | work - again you don't learn anything because the solution is | obvious, just takes a lot of effort. In those cases I agree | it's better to shmooze. | buscoquadnary wrote: | So I'd love some advice or help I've never really seen the appeal | of attending conferences. | | It seems like there is so much information presented so rapidly | that I end up forgetting most of it pretty quickly and am only | able to focus on a few things. I don't drink or really party so | that doesn't really do anything for me. | | It seems that if I want to learn about something the best way for | me is to sit down and read about it for a while. Not to mention | half of it seems to be marketing drivel depending on the | conference. | | So HN what am I missing? How do I make a conference useful? | version_five wrote: | Meeting people is a big part of it. Even if you're not very | social, I found attending conferences to be great for | understanding what people are doing _now_ , getting a feel for | the personalities in my field, and making connections and just | learning. | | When I used to go to more academic conferences, I mostly went | to smaller tight-knit ones where most people knew each other. I | found that much more interesting than the big ones with | thousands of people which definitely feel more anonymous and | take way more work to meet people in, and end up being closer | to what you'd get from attending something online. | | Tldr, try going to a ~100 person niche conference in your | specific field, or at least one that has tracks that emulate | that | bombcar wrote: | The key is meeting people who are interested in similar things, | or working on similar problems. | | That's it - that's the entirety of it. | | The dirty secret is conferences would be much better if they | simply had no sessions scheduled at all, and locked everyone in | the ballroom for the entire day. | Beltalowda wrote: | > The dirty secret is conferences would be much better if | they simply had no sessions scheduled at all, and locked | everyone in the ballroom for the entire day. | | I've been to conferences where I simply forgot to attend any | talks at all, simply because I was too busy/having fun | chatting to people. | | A lot of the more "professional" conferences have stands just | for paying sponsors though, and usually not a lot of them. | They tend to be a lot less lively than open source | conferences and the like which allow any ol' open source | project to set up a stand. I like stands because they're a | good conversation starter, and in many ways also like a | presentation yet a lot more informal. | | Unfortunately all of that died with COVID in my area, and | hasn't really started back up since :-( | lnwlebjel wrote: | I've run a very small (~20) conference over the last 15 yrs | and this is basically the plan. We even had it on a cruise | ship one year. The friendships, and collaborations that have | ensued are a testament to its effectiveness. | | (To be honest we do have a few short talks and an agenda to | guide the discussions, but these are mostly requirements of | the funding that we've found) | [deleted] | andi999 wrote: | Very nice. I disagree with not going to recorded ones. When is | the time to watch recorded talks: never. So it is now. | | And the 5 minutes talk 17 min discussion could work, but it | really depends on the company. If head of e. g. darpa gives | instead of a 1h keynote a 15 min teaser and then all 1000 | participants can start discussing, it might not really work (as | other situations as well). | nescioquid wrote: | Beyond the scenario you describe, I have some apprehension | around audience questions in these venues, as the questions are | often enough digressive or part of some dominance/status game. | | For a speaker to aim for presenting for 25% of the time and | fielding questions for the remaining 75% strikes me as lazy or | a dodge in case you have no idea how to effectively present | your information. | | Totally agree with you on the recorded talks, BTW! | throwaway98797 wrote: | > Don't attend any talk that's being recorded | | bad advice, I meet the best people at talks I find interesting. | There's no better feeling than going to an obscure topic and | finding the room packed. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-10 23:00 UTC)