We are currently at the 4th International Conference on e-Social Science in Manchester listening to a talk by Alex Voss entitled ‘Widening Uptake of e-Infrastructure Services’. The worrying thing is that the majority of the people in the room are using their laptops to check email/surf the web/write blog posts (like us) rather than listen to the presentation.
This poses the questions whether laptops should be banned from such conferences during presentations? It would mean less blog posts etc but as a presenter myself it can be disheartening to look up only to view a sea of laptops and people typing.
Ok time to stop typing and to listen….
I know what you mean. A similar issue crops up with "Crack"berries — in meetings or talks, you see people busy fiddling with them instead of focusing on the here and now.
If the meeting is worth having, or talk worth listening to, then isn’t it also worth paying attention? I think so.
I think a lot of people are using their laptops to take down notes, which is more efficient than transcribing paper notes at a later date.
I’m fairly relaxed about people using laptops during talks. People have a right to divert their attention wherever they like as long as it doesn’t disturb others.
How typically Blairite: If you don’t like something, ban it.
Heaven forbid someone should actually, you know, give a good seminar.
Here here rpg
If a talk isn’t good, you can always leave and do something more interesting.
If a meeting is so useless that everyone does other stuff on their BBs, isn’t the meeting pointless, and everyone could be doing something more interesting?
But it’s a rare talk that’s interesting all the way through. Why not tune in to the bits that are most relevant to you and write emails interstitially?
I’ll be keeping an eye on you in August, Matt Brown.
I’ll be keeping an eye on you in August, Matt Brown.
I’ll be too busy facebooking.
I think a lot of people are using their laptops to take down notes, which is more efficient than transcribing paper notes at a later date.
That’s just about bearable, but at an event I was at recently, the constant taptaptapping of the laptopper behind me almost made me want to stick his laptop where the tap don’t run.
Behaviour is key to acceptability I think – if you’re laughing away to some email you got, that’s bad.
Should Laptops be Banned at Conferences?
No.
How about iPhones? My laptop battery just died so had to swap…
On a more serious note I think laptops make people improve their presentations – a poor powerpoint = increase in people checking email / facebook . We have ditched powerpoint as its too restrictive for engaging presentations.I confirm that some people at least take notes during talks on their laptops. I was regretting not doing it myself last week. I saw someone entering it directly into his lab management wiki software. Then anyone from the group could do a keyword search in his contribution. I love the idea. Conference/seminar notes have a notoriously short half-life.
I’ve come across this question repeatedly. I too am for allowing laptop use. I personally don’t use it to take notes, but to look up references mentioned in the talk, or maybe the speaker’s CV. On the conferences I go to, most of the people seem to use their laptop to prepare their own talks, or just do the daily work that needs to be done (including answering emails and so on). I think that’s fine as long as it doesn’t disturb others.
In general, I think people perform better when they expect to have your full attention and you give them your full attention. They seem to know.
How typically Blairite
He’s gone, mate. Yesterday’s man. Vanished.
Hoorah!
Anyway, I was at a conference 18 months ago (I don’t get out much) with my laptop. Well, Kate’s laptop, but that’s not the point. I remember one guy talking about a phosphorylation database, and he gave the WWW address.
So I called it up, plugged in my protein, found an answer. Right there in the talk.
I thought that was pretty cool.
I’m a bit conflicted about this. On the one hand it’s an etiquette thing. I hate it when Gee Minima starts to fiddle and fret when I’m trying to read her another exciting episode of Harry Potter and the Release of Calcium from Intracellular Stores. As Bronwen says, “I think people perform better when they expect to have your full attention and you give them your full attention.”
On the other hand, could this be a sign that the long-outmoded mode of discourse, the platform presentation, is either dying, or being forced to evolve into something more interesting?
Richard’s story about the database he looked up, in real time, is instructive. I reckon lecturers are going to have to go with the flow on this one: expecting people to be sitting with laptops, presenters will feed them useful urls, and these could even be part of the lecture. Boring lectures become interesting, interactive seminars.
On the conferences I go to, most of the people seem to use their laptop to prepare their own talks, or just do the daily work that needs to be done (including answering emails and so on). I think that’s fine as long as it doesn’t disturb others.
So is there any point in going to the conference?
What if the speaker just checked her email during the q and a session?
On the other hand, could this be a sign that the long-outmoded mode of discourse, the platform presentation, is either dying, or being forced to evolve into something more interesting?
Yes.
Richard, you have just gladdened my heart (you see, you can do it!). You write:
I called it up, plugged in my protein, found an answer. Right there in the talk.
One of my “little” projects, just completed
at great personal costwith ease and aplomb was to integrate the 3D view JMol into Nature papers, so that people sitting listening to talks can easily pull up the 3D structure being talked about.Hmm, I think I may be changing sides. Not about the BBs, though.
Hasty PS — we didn’t integrate the 3D view only for the “looking at it during talks” reason, but this was one obvious benefit of doing it.
And, lest I am being too Nature-centric, I should say that Nature Structural Biology has been offering this service for a while, and we copied the idea for Nature.
That’s a fantastic little project, Maxine. I heartily approve.