[lg policy] Conference preferences survey - Final Report

Wed Jul 22 06:49:35 UTC 2015

I've prettied up my final report on the conference preferences survey and put it 
online for safe keeping. Required reading for conference organisers everywhere :)

https://www.academia.edu/14266444/

(For those reading this on BAALmail, I joined BAALmail in between the survey and the 
report, so you didn't miss the original emails below!)

Dave

--
Dr. Dave Sayers
Senior Lecturer, Dept Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University
Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University (2009-2015)
dave.sayers at cantab.net | http://shu.academia.edu/DaveSayers

On 16/07/2015 13:56, Dave Sayers wrote:
> It's taken exactly a week to get exactly 100 responses! What a nice pleasing round
> number. The results are here: https://goo.gl/NchF58. What's that? You'd like me to
> write about the responses so you don't have to go to the trouble of clicking that
> link? Oh ok...
>
> Scheduling conferences over the weekend is generally not cool, although a sizeable
> 34.4% weren't familiar with the concept of a weekend and didn't care (notably, that
> number rose over the weekend...).
>
> Over three quarters would prefer a venue with far apart well-equipped rooms to one
> with nearby less well-equipped rooms. Sociolinguists like to be well-equipped. And
> one of the free-text comments raised an important point here:
>
> "In choosing the conference venue (and the dinner venue), allow for people with
> mobility problems. Hold the conference in the meeting rooms at the accommodation
> place or else provide transport between the accommodation and the conference venue.
> If the conference must be held elsewhere, no long distances between conference rooms,
> no steps unless there is a lift, that sort of thing."
>
> Only 4% would like the poster session to be held out in the woods. This strikes me as
> remarkably unadventurous. Maybe I should have suggested in the sea, then the theme
> could be first, second and third wave - hahey! (A joke for all you variationists out
> there.) Ahem... 76.8% suggested the main foyer, not a separate room. Keep those
> shoulders rubbing.
>
> Restaurants close to conference venues will be pleased with the news that 81.8% of
> respondents favoured a conference dinner at a restaurant easily walkable from the
> venue, and only 16.2% wanted dinner at the venue itself. Convenience outweighed here
> by the desire to actually see a little bit of the city you're supposedly visiting.
> Meanwhile almost nobody (2%) wanted to be coached out to a restaurant; it's nice to
> be able to make a swift exit if needed.
>
> Turning to charitable matters, fully 100% of you said that students without funding
> should get the conference bursary. The next highest response, 80.8%, was for
> unemployed post-PhD people (if only I'd known back then!), then 67.7% for post-PhDs
> in work but without conference funding. Students with funding are not seen as
> anywhere near so needy, coming in with a minority response, 47.5%. Personally I spent
> my generous PhD conference funding attending over 30 of them during the three years;
> if I hadn't had bursaries then I might have spent more time on the thesis and less
> time trying to make Powerpoint respect my authority. So this could be good news all
> round.
>
> Next, that flurry of little extras you receive at the reception desk of the
> conference, and the other little frills laid on throughout. Who actually wants what?
> The least popular frill is a paper pad and pen: 88.9% of people couldn't care less
> about that. A hard copy of abstract book and a free bag were similarly spurned (82.8%
> and 84.8% respectively didn't want these). Perhaps surprisingly, over half (56.6%)
> didn't even care about receiving a hard copy of the timetable. Everything else
> received a minority of rejections: lunch 34.3%, wine 43.4%, tea/coffee 7.1% (a
> conference without caffeine? GAH!), and plenary speakers 13%. I emphasise that wine
> received a minority response. There should most certainly still be wine laid on at
> the reception. Without. Doubt.
>
> Moving on to the format of the conference dinner, a whopping 94.7% of you would
> happily attend a much cheaper and less lavish dinner so that more people could afford
> to come. I for one look forward to gorging myself at an all-you-can-eat buffet at
> future conferences. My slightly more out-there idea of a normal dinner where non-fee
> payers could come along with their own food was soundly rejected: 12.6% would go for
> that. In fact that was even less popular than foraging in the woods and dodging bears
> (14.7%). I take back what I said about sociolinguists being unadventurous.
>
> By this point in the survey, 20.4% considered this the most exciting thing they'd
> done all day. I hope it was also the first thing they'd done that day, otherwise
> there are some seriously bored sociolinguists out there.
>
> Now we move on to how the panel chairs exercises their dominion over presenters and
> attendees...
>
> If a presenter is unexpectedly absent, 82.8% would prefer the chair to leave a gap so
> that the timings in the original programme still applied. This seems the opposite of
> what tends to happen in practice. A big lesson here for chairs.
>
> If a presenter ignores that waving 'STOP' sign and keeps going past their allotted
> time, 11.1% would crack that whip and cut them off immediately. The biggest response
> (43.4%) was for cutting them off half way through their Q&A. 32.3% would let them
> squander their Q&A period and allow no questions (well it is their fault), while 13%
> would allow one short question for Q&A squanderers. No respondents AT ALL thought the
> chair should let the presenter stray into the next presenter's time slot. Take note
> please, chairs!
>
> Next, a conference phenomenon so widely mocked it's been made into a cartoon:
> http://goo.gl/5KCp4F. It's that 'question' which feels like it might never end, and
> might not really be a question at all. 19.8% of you would patiently allow this to go
> on (and on...) in the hope that something interesting might come up, but most people
> in that audience (62.8%) would be glaring at the chair willing them to cut in and
> invite the presenter to respond to anything so far that actually resembled a
> question. Meanwhile 16.7% would be eyeing up the nearest window and wishing the chair
> would eject this questioner out of it. (At times during this week, as the survey
> responses came in, there were decisively more window-ejecters than patient waiters.)
>
> Now we consider that kind of question which might be nice and short, but doesn't make
> the remotest scrap of sense. It might as well have been delivered using interpretive
> dance. The four survey options were for the chair to: rephrase this somehow; ask the
> questioner to try again; leave the presenter to answer on their own; or bail on this
> question altogether and suggest they discuss it in the coffee break. The responses
> were actually split pretty evenly, with a small but probably not significant lead
> (30.9%) for bailing and moving on. The lowest response (22.3%) was for the chair to
> do nothing, so that at least gives chairs a 77.7% mandate for doing something,
> anything, to help a befuddled presenter in the face of absurdity.
>
> By this point in the survey, 17.6% considered the survey to be the thrilling pinnacle
> of their week. I hope these people filled out the survey first thing on Monday.
> Otherwise I think some people need to be introduced to office tennis:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kznInnMzQss.
>
> Moving on to the wild badlands of the world wide internets... 66.7% of respondents
> felt that presenting by Skype should be allowed for a limited number of people,
> according to need (e.g. those with caring/parenting responsibilities). A much smaller
> but still notable 28.3% responded that this shouldn't be allowed at all, whilst only
> 5.1% were happy with remote presenting as a routine option. For info, here are a
> couple of links explaining how that can work: https://goo.gl/zhMuN,
> https://goo.gl/r3zBil. You can then switch to video chat for Q&A. But if this catches
> on, I would humbly suggest that Skype presenters make sure the webcam is perched
> above their face, not below. Looking up someone's nose might be a literal view of
> their mind, but it's not useful otherwise.
>
> On the question of putting plenaries and presentations online (live-streaming and/or
> hosted online afterwards) there were eight options so I won't discuss them all.
> Perhaps of most interest, no option here enjoyed majority approval: the highest
> (46.4%) was for hosting the plenaries afterwards, followed closely (45.4%) by
> live-streaming the plenaries and hosting them afterwards. The other options received
> much lower responses, and only 22.7% would be interested in seeing the foraging
> survival challenge online. No sociolinguistic bear-dodging on Youtube any time soon
> then.
>
> As for a completely online conference, this was shot right out of the water. In fact
> it was almost shot out of a cannon into the sun. A paltry 10.5% would go for that
> sort of shenanigan (e-nanigan?), with 86.3% favouring travel paperwork, airline
> bustle, getting lost in corridors, awkward shoulder-rubbing, nonsense questions,
> sweaty drudging between poorly air-conditioned rooms, and rushed breaks for
> coffee-flavoured water. Academia can be a lonely existence, and it seems we'll put up
> with a lot just to share the same air once in a while. Personally I quite like all
> the sweat and drudge, I can't deny it. I love you guys.
>
> Lastly, only 2.1% of respondents said that the wonderful, free, robust and
> authoritative Sociolinguistic Events Calendar (http://www.baal.org.uk/slxevents.html)
> is about as useful as an inflatable dartboard. All the other responses I interpret as
> various shades of gushing approval for this excellent, free, accessible,
> cross-compatible, free resource. A big round of applause to all the calendar
> moderators for their tireless efforts.
>
> The free text comments at the end of the survey came up with some gems. I strongly
> recommend having a read of them yourself. One person said I am great, another wants
> to hug me, and another nominated me for president. The rest of the comments are
> interesting but not as important as these three. Judge for yourselves:
> https://goo.gl/NchF58.
>
> Enjoy conference season everyone; hopefully see you on the circuit.
>
> Dave
>
> --
> Dr. Dave Sayers
> Senior Lecturer, Dept Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University
> Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University (2009-2015)
> dave.sayers at cantab.net | http://shu.academia.edu/DaveSayers
>
>
> On 09/07/2015 10:56, Dave Sayers wrote:
>> It's the experience you've been waiting for, whether you knew it or not! As
>> conference season is hotting up, the good people at the Sociolinguistic Events
>> Calendar (http://www.baal.org.uk/slxevents.html) have put together a survey to reveal
>> what's hot and what's not in the world of sociolinguistic conferences.
>>
>> There are two prizes available when completing this survey. Once you see the overall
>> results, you will be the guaranteed recipient of EITHER a robust and warming sense of
>> collegiality at the opinions of like-minded colleagues, OR a dizzying sense of
>> alienation at the bizarre views of the weirdos in your field. Take the survey now to
>> find out which prize is yours!
>>
>> http://goo.gl/forms/cN2jAcCciQ
>>
>> And remember to head along to http://www.baal.org.uk/slxevents.html and subscribe to
>> the Sociolinguistic Events Calendar, to enjoy the constant bewildering bombardment of
>> all the simultaneous sociolinguistic conferences and other events around the world
>> that you can't possibly attend!
>>
>> Love and hugs from everyone at the Sociolinguistic Events Calendar :)
>>
>> P.S. In case this message hasn't been spammed around quite widely enough, please feel
>> free to send it on to any other sociolinguistically minded folks!
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Dave Sayers
>> Senior Lecturer, Dept Humanities, Sheffield Hallam University
>> Honorary Research Fellow, Arts & Humanities, Swansea University (2009-2015)
>> dave.sayers at cantab.net | http://shu.academia.edu/DaveSayers
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