[HN Gopher] Rules for Conferences (2019)
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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.
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