Mike Prior-Jones

@drmikepj
586 Followers
972 Following
2K Posts

Glaciologist and electronic engineer at Cardiff University.
Current designer of #cryoegg. UKRI Future Leaders Fellow.

🏳️‍🌈(he,him)

Personal webpagehttps://www.randominformation.co.uk/
Work profile pagehttps://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/1439317-prior-jones-michael
Mike Prior-Jones2d ago
Show threadGuillaume Gaullier2d ago

@drmikepj Since you mention poster sessions, a few suggestions from my own experience of such events:

Allow posters to be on display for the entire duration of the conference, so people can read them at the time they choose. Some prefer more quiet times than the poster session itself.

Don't be greedy trying to pack as many posters as possible in the poster room, or the poster session will end up crowded, noisy, and difficult to navigate for everyone. If the room is full of posters, have at least two sessions and enforce that only half the presenters are there in each session (easy enough with odd/even poster numbers).

Mike Prior-Jones2d ago
Show threadDavid Weir2d ago

@drmikepj The last poster session I had input on, which was scheduled for the evening, I made sure there was proper food there: a buffet with three main course salad options (with tofu, halloumi and salmon if I recall), bread and spreads. Probably more of a thing here where restaurants stop serving earlier than in the UK, but I thought it decent to make sure everyone was well fed with more than just some sad canapés.

It kept the seniors from running away to dinner with their friends and instead got them interacting with the ECRs presenting their work (and there was no alcohol needed at all!).

Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago
oh, one corrollorary to that last one: I took the decision not to do beer and posters (we served tea and scones instead so people would have some refreshment, just not alcohol). A senior professor told me that he thought that the conference was excellent, and then complained to two of my female co-organisers that there was no beer with the posters, assuming it was them that had kyboshed it. Don't be that person.
Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago

12) a personal one this: no alcohol should be served during the "business" part of the meeting. I know some people love beer and posters but young researchers presenting their work should not be dealing with half-cut leering professors.

Serve the drinks after the session closes, so that it goes from "poster session" to "drinks reception", that's fine, but don't expect poster presenters to be entertainment that accompanies drinks.

Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago
11) Make some provision for those who are having to stay overnight before/after. Even something as simple as "one of the organisers will be in this pub at 7.30" the night before the meeting makes it much better than everyone sitting in their hotel rooms.
Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago
10) Make sure your chairs know what to do in the event of speakers overrunning, longwinded or unduly hostile questions or pontificating in lieu of questions and audience members talking audibly during presentations (this is almost always men talking over women)
Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago

8) remember that having got people together, they'll all want to talk and network. Better to explicitly allow time for this!

9) don't decide that you want a group photo right at the end just as everyone is about to go home... plan it in, because it is like herding cats. Ideally do it at the end of one of the breaks.

Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago
7) if you're doing a hybrid, actually test everything and make sure that your remote participants can speak and be heard in the meeting, rather than just listening to a livestream and sending text questions. Also, it's really good to use an extra camera (I use a webcam on a tripod with an extension lead) so the remote participants can see the speaker (or the live audience during a discussion session)
Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago
6) Make sure the AV works. Today's event was in a room with a videowall (how 90s!) and the bottom of the screen was so far too low, so the front row of chairs obscured the bottom quarter of everyone's slides
Show threadMike Prior-Jones2d ago

3) please provide name badges. Failing that, just get a roll of blank stickers and a Sharpie and people can write their own at the registration desk. At an event where 80% of the attendees know each other it's even more useful for those who are in the other 20%.

4) A ten minute break is not sufficient time for 50+ people to all go to the loo.

5) Actually keep to the session programme, especially if you break out into multiple tracks.