Are Virtual Conferences Better Than Real-World Conferences? (fastcompany.com) 44
Fast Company's Mark Sullivan argues that cancelling this year's tech conferences could have a silver lining -- by encouraging a movement toward virtual conferences:
There are developers across the U.S. and around the world who get shut out when the conferences get sold out. Even more of them simply can't afford the admission fee (last year's WWDC was $1599) and travel expenses required to spend time in the Bay Area or Seattle. Apple uses a lottery system to pick registered developers at random, who then get the opportunity to buy a ticket for the event. "Not having a set of 5,000 people who paid to be there, and potentially millions of other people who don't get access to things exclusive to those attending, such as labs and all of the networking, but instead having everyone on the same level can be a good thing," says iOS developer Guilherme Rambo.
Even before the coronavirus came along, the major developer conferences were developing more robust online elements. Far more people stream the keynotes than watch them in person. Many conference now stream the developer sessions as well. And an increasing body of sessions from the events is archived online... With all the cancellations this year, big tech companies like Apple may get some time to really think about the value of big events in the age of live streaming. Apple, for one, might think about ways of further virtualizing WWDC.
Even before the coronavirus came along, the major developer conferences were developing more robust online elements. Far more people stream the keynotes than watch them in person. Many conference now stream the developer sessions as well. And an increasing body of sessions from the events is archived online... With all the cancellations this year, big tech companies like Apple may get some time to really think about the value of big events in the age of live streaming. Apple, for one, might think about ways of further virtualizing WWDC.
Any headline that ends in a question mark (Score:4, Insightful)
Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no
Does freax eat babies alive? (Score:2)
Sounds like rule that is easily abused to manipulate people. :)
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No (I first kill them)
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Sounds like rule that is easily abused to manipulate people. :)
Very true, but in the case of conferences, there is a lot of value in networking with other actual people, and interactions with actual humans that you just don't get online. A drink or two at the bar with a colleague you just met can result in a lot of value exchanged.
You also get the change of scenery effect, which can jolt your mind in a positive way. I do know that I never returned from a conference without implementing something that either saved us a lot of money, or improved quality.
Turning th
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And furthermore, think of the poor hookers!
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And furthermore, think of the poor hookers!
Well, I've never partaken. But I do know both men and women who use conferences as a ummm, time out from their marriages.
But it's a good point that hotels and airlines and restaurants and others make money from the attendees.
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I wasn't arguing for online conferences. (Score:2)
As you can see in my other comment.
I was merely making a meta argument.
So you're charging at an open door. :)
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Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no
Will freax ever stop dating his left hand? :-p
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... have the bandwitch available ...
Mmm ... bandwitch.
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I don't think that would be terribly difficult. Your 3D monitor requires a regular image plus depth information or, equivalently, two regular images. With reasonably intelligent compression it's less than twice the data.
I think 4K would probably be fine, but if you wanted more you could go with 8K. My home connection is definitely enough for dual 4K, probably could handle dual 8 as well.
Latency is more of an issue. You'd want to use something with some QoS capabilities.
Personally, I prefer teleconferences,
Can all headlines ending in a question marks be... (Score:2)
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That's a great rule of thumb. Rules of thumb (at least the good ones) are useful so that people who don't understand what they're doing can make decisions that exceed random chance.
Telecommuting as well (Score:3)
This really should be a test bed for telecommuting and similar do-it-from-home solutions while most of the world can agree to do the testing at the same time.
Conferences are mainly Networking events (Score:5, Insightful)
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and if everyone is online watching in their underpants, or pretending to watch while pretending that it is a benefit to their work whilst in the office.... those self-important CEOs won't be able to head out on stage and pretend to be a rock star for 5 minutes with all the mindless whooping and wowing that feeds their egos so much.
So I can't see it catching on for that reason alone.
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You win for specifying this in the comment title. (Several others pointed this out.)
For a lot of conferences, where companies present their products or products in development, it's also something that can't translate well to virtual space. No matter how cool your product might be, if people don't see it in person, and can talk to the developers directly, then you're unlikely to get much media coverage or investor interest.
Conferences tend to have private meeting rooms, panels, all sort of things beyond jus
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I went to the first four Linux Expos in NC and met Alan Cox, Linus, David S. Miller, and Jon “maddog” Hall in person. Nothing can replace those experiences.
What do you think is the point of a conference ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Two main things that you get from a conference: a) learning from the presentations; b) meeting other delegates.
You can get a lot of (a) by doing it on-line. Not entirely as you won't get some of the 'atmosphere', the buzz in the room. You will also not get to the mini exhibitions that also accompany a conference.
(b) you will lose almost completely. Attempts to recreate it via comment type web pages are not the same thing -- especially vendor driven conferences where the vendor will try to remove unfavourable comments. (b) is good for getting an understanding as to what is really happening as well as building up business contacts.
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How much of that "buzz" is auditory in nature? We have a tendency to weigh visual over auditory even though the latter is as important in creating an environment.
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c) a jolly (boondoggle in USA terms) on the corporate AMEX card.
You can get more A with timeshifted virtual (Score:2)
Two main things that you get from a conference: a) learning from the presentations; b) meeting other delegates.
You can get a lot of (a) by doing it on-line.
The main conference I attend doesn't record, and I'm constantly missing half of what I'd like to see because some sessions run concurrently.
If a multi-track virtual conference ends up with the sessions recorded and viewable time-shifted, when they otherwise would not have been, there would not be the need to chose which to miss - you could see them both
No, definitely never, and here's why: (Score:2)
You would never dare to talk to somebody or a group right in front of you the way you would to somebody or a group far far away. Not only because there are far fewer and less diirect tangible consequences. But also because you can't really.get a feel for the other side being a human.
Political and industrial leaders would never be assholes like that, if they saw people as real people in front of them.
And we'd not treat them like that either.
People aren't assholes offline like they are online.
Most wars could
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Yes, if... (Score:3)
Swing and a miss... (Score:1)
No, they are not. (Score:2)
It is a good thing to have virtual options, for people who were very interested in a particular session but could not attend in person.
Also, these sessions should REALLY be free of charge because the speaker is rarely compensated for their time (I am looking at you BlackHat/DefCon)
HOWEVER, people DO NOT just attend conferences to consume sessions. Most of the draw of conferences is the networking - on expo floors, in hallways between sessions, at coffee shops and breakfast and dinner, and after hours social
Depends what you mean by "better". (Score:4, Insightful)
The dirty little fact is: most conferences are thinly-disguised junkets.
MEETINGS are one thing; having a chance to sit in person results in a much higher-bandwidth communication, and seems to result in more positive outcomes (maybe due to more empathy for that other actual person within arm's reach than someone on a screen or a phone?).
Besides: Conferences, seminars, symposiums - they are the archaic world's effort to present information live from one person/group to many. CLEARLY in 2020 we have better tools to distribute information to many people effortlessly than hauling all their asses to some single location, putting them in hotels, and making them all trudge into vast halls and sit like zombies while someone stumbles through a presentation.
Think I'm wrong they're all junkets? For one year confine all such "conferences" to some boring unpleasant setting north of 45N lat - Bismarck, ND (I'm from MN, sorry ND but I don't think even you will argue there's much to see/do/recreate for the general public in Bismarck) for example. And let's check attendance then.
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I think the important part isn't "better/worse" but that things like pandemics may render such distinctions moot. In other words we may have little choice but to just either try, or give up.
Re:Depends what you mean by "better". (Score:4, Interesting)
The dirty little fact is: most conferences are thinly-disguised junkets.
Kind depends on what you use them for. We had a couple ladies who went to a lot of conference/continued education events. They were caught using them for company paid shopping trip junkets. What got them caught was that they never stopped off at the conference centers, and one called to see why they didn't pick up their on site materials that they had to have before being allowed in.
Myself, I took a lot of classes, visited a lot of booths and networked with a lot of people. The value added was way beyond the price paid to sent me there. Yes, there is down time that can and should be used. A little like a working vacation. It is related to the Retreat concept. We had a once a year offsite meeting to jolt the senses, to get us out of our ruts. It was sometimes a few miles away, sometimes at a more distant location. Aside from work, there would be something completely unrelated via presentation.
As for location, my favorite story there was how my supervisor at the time would not allow me to go to Las Vegas to a conference. He did okay one in New York City.
What a case of projection! He would have loved to go to Vegas because he enjoyed gambling, and like a lot of people were a little fearful of New York.
Me? I prefer NYC to Vegas any day, so I guess we both won. The odd thing was, I had picked the Vegas Conference because it was cheaper.
What interests me however is the reluctance of some folks in here to think that the human interaction is a positive thing.
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Me? I prefer NYC to Vegas any day, so I guess we both won. The odd thing was, I had picked the Vegas Conference because it was cheaper.
I have heard this NYC preference from conference attendees from many different companies and organizations I have known who plan conferences. All of the conferences have gone to Vegas or Phoenix because of cost. It's not the more costly hotel rooms or meals that have been the sticking point either, but the costs that were related to the conference venue itself.
To set up in Vegas, exhibitors wheel in their cases of equipment from the garage, uncrate it, erect their display booths, pliug in their gear, order
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Me? I prefer NYC to Vegas any day, so I guess we both won. The odd thing was, I had picked the Vegas Conference because it was cheaper.
I have heard this NYC preference from conference attendees from many different companies and organizations I have known who plan conferences. All of the conferences have gone to Vegas or Phoenix because of cost. It's not the more costly hotel rooms or meals that have been the sticking point either, but the costs that were related to the conference venue itself.
To set up in Vegas, exhibitors wheel in their cases of equipment from the garage, uncrate it, erect their display booths, pliug in their gear, order food, set out their swag, and they're off and running. In New York, each of these activities must be carried out by a very specific union contracted to do that task alone. Plugging a projector in yourself in the Big Apple is considered to be like performing surgery without a license..
Yup, pretty much the case. The Times I've been in Las Vegas, I've looked at the lights, but the only fun part was driving out to Hoover Dam and hanging at Lake Mead. Gambling at places designed to take your money is such a suckers game. My wife could have really cleaned up though.
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I disagree. The physics conferences I've gone to are almost all business - including over lunch and dinner. Poster sessions are extremely valuable because you can walk around and notice some work that relates to something you are interested in, and immediately have a conversation with the person presenting it.
The unplanned one-on-one interactions are so far very difficult to do through electronics means. Not entirely clear to me why its so difficult, but online meetings just don't work the same way.
Is a website really a virtual conference? (Score:2)
I think most of us could agree that having the conference in VR would be a virtual conference. But is just putting up a website with some comment sections and maybe chat rooms really a virtual conference? And where do you draw the line between what is and isn't? Avatars? Teledildonics?
Sure! (Score:2)
The booze is better, because I know the procurer personally.
Betteridge: No. (Score:2)
Access can be improved, sure... but quality follows a different metric. I speak at a conference every year, and it will be interesting to see what happens. The conference should just be canceled, but it is used as an incentive, and the primary value for attendees is face-to-face networking. My session is mediocre at best, due to the politics of it all, and without the discussion it prompts it would be a complete waste of time.
If there is a better way to have a virtual beer with people, then maybe it can w
Network Test (Score:2)
How many conferences will have to relocate to the web before the conferencing providers run out of capacity (cloud or no cloud) and start 1) failing connections; and/or 2) raising prices?
Per diem = party money. (Score:2)
So "no". Necessary interaction COULD be made to work online but people actively resent making online systems better or they would BE better.
Junkets on the corporate (or government) dime are much more fun. It would take more than a mere pandemic to break people from giant parties with like-minded techies.
How do we get SWAG? (Score:1)
Networking and SWAG are two big benefits of an in-person conference. Can't duplicate that as well online.