Summer conference season is around the corner! I especially
encourage people to participate in the upcoming American Genetic Association conference in Durham, NC, on recombination.
But that aside, why do we go to conferences?
To see the talks? A
little (field dependent). A good talk is
sometimes very powerful and exciting, and it can be a great way to see exciting
work that may not come to print for another... oops, there's the problem. For another 6 months? It is nice having the "preview",
but far from essential. For many (albeit
not all) talks in my field, I'll see the print or online publication before the
next year's conference, if I haven't already even been asked to review the
associated manuscript. Obviously this isn't true across all fields of subfields. Talks also often
oversell, since they're not subject to the same sort of peer review. Caveats can be omitted, controls may not even
have been done yet, etc. They're exciting
on the one hand, but they're not "bankable" on the other the way many
publications are.
To present research? Yes,
especially for junior scientists but somewhat for all. We need to maximize routes with which we
disseminate our results, and we also can all use more practice doing it in
public forums. Presenting is a great way
to get informal feedback, too, pre-submission: much nicer to have someone
tell you that you didn't consider X alternate explanation in a meeting (so you
can address it) than to have your manuscript to Science rejected on that basis. Giving a great talk can make a postdoc more
competitive, too-- I recall many faculty meetings about job searches where
someone said, "I saw her give a talk at X meeting, and it was really
great."
For the informal interactions? Yes!
This point ties in with the feedback I mentioned above... not only do we
get feedback on what we present, but we can talk with colleagues about all sorts
of projects and ideas, potentially even forming new collaborations over coffee,
meals, or "beverages." Yes, we
could do this by phone or e-mail, but this forum provides a more "captive
audience" for a long time-period not (or less) distracted by their ongoing
college duties, and with tons of other experts around as well who can weigh in. This is, in my opinion, the single biggest
advantage of in-person conferences.
For the free goodies from vendors? ABSOLUTELY!
But I won't dwell on that one.
If I were to propose two pieces of advice:
1) Let's make as many talks/ posters as possible publicly
available. Let presenters opt-in to have
their talks videotaped and put on YouTube/ UStream. Submit your posters to F1000 Posters. These are all free. Make it so those who couldn't come to the
meeting because of cost, family obligations, or even being environmentally friendly
in avoiding needless air travel still able to see the research that was
presented. Make it so those attending can see some of the concurrent talks they missed. Obviously, opting-in would be
voluntary, but organizers can minimize the barriers to it and encourage it. I know some will decline this option for fear of being
"scooped", but some will jump at the chance of more dissemination to their colleagues and the public.
2) Don't do the freshman-dorm thing of walking around with
your labmates or buddies for the whole conference!!! If multiple people from a lab are going,
don't let them share rooms with each other... force them to room with someone
from another university. Similarly, while
it's nice to "support" your labmate by going to their talk, I'd
personally prefer my lab folks go to the concurrent talks I couldn't attend to
tell me what I missed. And most
importantly, encourage the shy but excellent junior scientists to go meet other
movers-&-shakers in their field, both senior and other junior-- their PIs
should facilitate this, but anyone can take the initiative to help.
Happy conferencing this summer, y'all! Comments welcome, as always, even if
critical.
