The two biggest challenges I've seen are hallway track (defined broadly) and just engagement/bandwidth. Not that people aren't distracted by their phones while they're in sessions, but it's that much worse sitting in your office watching what is effectively a webinar--assuming you've even set aside the time and bother to tune in.
I'll be involved in some virtual conference chats over the next few weeks. We'll see how it goes.
The number of drunk/hungover/obviously coding people I've seen at tech conferences makes me realize what your saying isn't much different. Your either paying attention and interested or your not. Being there doesn't help. They're just there for the drinks
If you don't set aside the time why did you sign up?
>If you don't set aside the time why did you sign up?
It seemed like it might be interesting at the time I signed up. It's not unusual for me to have 2 or even 3 low-priority things on my calendar at the same time. To say nothing of ongoing projects that seem more urgent on a given day and which I don't want to interrupt for some webinar.
There's a lot of stuff on my calendar that's either standing calls that I join if the agenda or immediate situation warrants or interesting-looking presentations that I'll listen to on a time-available basis but which aren't necessary.
Covid-19 or not, it's time to formally divorce the hallway track from the rest. We should have more event's whose explicit purpose is to discuss and collaborate, rather than it be hiding other some measurable rat-race ritual.
I got news for you, the Hallway Track is an important part of any industry conference. Like, I make comics, I go to comic cons, and while sitting on the show floor selling my stuff to whoever wanders by and looks interested is an important part of the whole thing, so’s stepping away from the table to have a meeting with a publisher, so’s dinner and events after the show floor closes.
SF cons are like this too, though “making various social connections with other people who have this niche interest” is a big part of why you’re explicitly there. Meet weirdos you don’t have to explain your weird interest to, hang out, have some activities to share but feel free to make up your own fun and games.
The organized portion of any conference is there to provide a starting point for some of the Hallway Track, and an excuse for you to leave your normal life behind for a few days to commit to being in the same place as a bunch of other people who do whatever the con’s about.
> I know it's not just an academic conference thing
Yes me too.
> an excuse for you to leave your normal life behind for a few days to commit to being in the same place as a bunch of other people who do whatever the con’s about
Exactly, I don't want an excuses. I think we should be honest with each other about the value of the hallway track alone and not need an excuse. I think that honesty will lead to better outcomes.
To make this concrete https://andreaspk.github.io/ghc-week.html was an event I was very excited to go to before Covid-19 led to its cancellation, and very much is a hallway track without the rest.
1. Pure "Collaboration" being a "soft" nice-sounding word institutions won't buy your plane tickets for.
Planes are bad and those institutions are being bad for thinking that collaboration. Do cheaper rail-accessible regional events, which also help with communication graph ossification and density, to negotiate with them better.
2. Academic rat race becoming ever more pernicious as job market grows tighter.
Academia is broken and research is yielding a lot less per cost than it used to. Academia needs to fix its shit or some right-wing goverment is going to succeed in turning off the money hose. I have zero interest in seeing status-quo-preserving procrastination on this front.
3. People that aren't qualified to partake in hallway chat are still eyeballs for marketting at industry conferences.
Let's not hitch everything good in the world to the monster than is marketing and advertising?
4. Big conferences are more glamorous
Giant hotel are is tasteless and so are people that uncritically enjoy them. But OK fine, Vegas conferences are exempt from my proposals.
It works for senior people at small scale. I attend one event in particular that has presentations on a pretty varied set of topics. But, while they tend to be very good, they're really just there to give the event a little structure and there's lots of time set aside for more informal interactions.
It's hard to do that at a big event where a lot of attendees really are there to learn the latest features of Product X. And furthermore, I imagine a lot of managers would look askance at a request to travel across the country and hang out for a few days.
Well it would be a smaller event, and there are many discussions to be had about exclusivity and what-not. I might add a lottery-random element so it doesn't get to clubby.
But these are exactly the sorts of conversions that many communities should be having anyways.
