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Death of the question

17 12 2015

Zombie apocalypse

It’s something I’ve noticed over the years going to scientific conferences and seminars — the number of questions, and more importantly their quality, have declined.

Sure, it’s anecdotal and it might just be that my perspective has changed, but I’d bet my left testicle that it’s true.

But why? There are possibly many contributing factors, such as increasingly jam-packed conferences with multiple concurrent sessions, a massive and increasing number of participants and less time for each of us to present our work. However, I think the main reason is that we’re now all glued to our electronic devices.

Yes, I’m talking about the Twitteratti, but also the tablet-tossers, laptop-layabouts and the iPhone-idiots. We have a saying in our family when we spot a smartphone zombie oblivious to oncoming traffic that she/he looks like a “… spastic fingering a sandwich” (not my quote, but I am particularly fond of using it).

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Tags: conference, congress, device, iPad, iPhone, laptop, meeting, questions, scicomm, science communication, smartphone, tablet
Categories : conference, conservation, science communication, societies

Upcoming conservation, ecology and modelling conferences

7 03 2014

Our lab just put together a handy list of upcoming ecology, conservation and modelling conferences around the world in 2014. Others might also find it useful. Some of the abstract submission deadlines have already passed, but it still might be useful to know what’s on the immediate horizon if attendance only is an option.

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Conference	Dates	Venue	Call for Abstracts	Deadline
Queensland Ornithological Conference	31 May	Brisbane, Australia	Open	10 Mar
Spatial Ecology and Conservation	17 Jun	Birmingham, UK	Closed	21 Feb
Asia-Pacific Coral Reef Symposium	23 Jun	Taiwan	Closed	5 Feb
International Statistical Ecology Conference	1 Jul	Montpellier, France	Closed	13 Jan
International Institute of Fisheries Economics & Trade 2014	7 Jul	Brisbane	Closed	31 Jan
World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling	8 Jul	Vilnius, Lithuania	Open	31 Mar
Society for Conservation Biology Oceania Section	9 Jul	Suva, Fiji	Open	7 Mar Read the rest of this entry »

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Tags: 2014, conference, conservation, ecology, meeting, modelling
Categories : conference, conservation, conservation biology, ecology

How to make the most of a conference

5 09 2013

Having just attended two major international conferences back-to-back (ICCB 2013 in Baltimore, USA and INTECOL 2013 in London, UK), I thought it might be a good idea to proffer some advice for those who are relatively new to the conference carousel. Having attended some larger number raised to the power of another conferences since I started this science gig, I think I’ve figured out a few definitely do-s, and positively don’t-s.

Some might argue that the scientific conference is a thing of the past. Now with super-fast internet, Twitter, open-access, Skype and video conference calls, why would we need to travel half way around the planet to sit day after day in some stuffy room to listen to some boring snippets of half-finished research? Why indeed would I get jet-lagged, spend a sizeable chunk of my research grant and emit a bucket-load of carbon just to listen to some boring old farts tell me the same thing they’ve been doing for the last 20 years?

If that were all conferences were about, I would never attend another for the rest of my career. Thankfully, that’s not why we go.

Yes, it’s easy to go online these days and see what your colleagues are up to (and if they don’t have a good online profile, they almost don’t exist these days). It’s also easier and easier to download important papers from almost anyone and in almost any journal. So clearly conferences are not primarily about finding out what research is being done; in fact, I argue that that’s not their role at all.

The most important aspect of a conference are the social events. Yes, the social events.

That might sound like a joke, but I’m dreadfully serious. Read the rest of this entry »