Neuroscience Bloggers & Writers forum: topic
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Ever blog from a conference?
Ford Vox
Thursday, 17 July 2008 03:49 UTC
Have you ever gone to a scientific conference planning to blog live from the site? If so, how’d at go? If not, are you interested in doing this – why or why not?
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Interested in doing so – last few conferences I’ve done I hadn’t used a blog but was writing up emails to friends at the end of the day about the proceedings and wouldn’t think it’d be that different.
Was recently disappointed that a conference a friend went to didn’t have wireless in the conference venue, since I thought the topic of the conference could have well suited ‘live blogging’ support. Thought it would be good if one of the crew behind the conference live-blogged throughout, perhaps posting pics to hand. In the past, there was a webcam (that was rather sporadic) which went down well.
For the next conference I attend, I hope to liveblog it. -
not really… I often feel unsafe to bring a laptop to a conference venue with me. Besides Wifi at conference tends to be annoyingly slow. But I do enjoy reading other’s live blogs.
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We have an opportunity to form a neuro-conference blogging network right here. We can discuss what conferences we’d like to blog from, where we are going, and can point our readers in the direction of each other’s blogs when we’re live blogging. Does that strike anyone as worthwhile?
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I have blogged about the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meetings the last 3 years. Not all of it has been “live” though.
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I’ve “wiki’d” from a conference (can I use that as a verb??). At Nature, we provide an update for our editorial colleagues of anything interesting that happens at whatever meeting we attend.
As I tend to forget some of the interesting details, I have previously tried to update my company wiki page in lieu of taking notes while I am at the talks. I then make the information more “user-friendly” and organized upon my return.
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For big conferences where the wifi is slow or non-existant, you could try using the media room. Some places might insist on press credentials, but I’m sure many will happily let you in if you agree to send them a link to your blog posts afterwards. And, more often than not, no one checks who’s using the facilities anyway.
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I’ve live-blogged, but the easiest way for me has been to shoot short videolog-entries that also include interviews with interesting presenters. Does not require carrying the laptop around all the time, as I can just have the camera and upload the material after returning to the hotel.
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I’ve delayed-blogged from the International Society for Stem Cell Research in June – writing a summary of some of the things I heard during the day from my hotel room in the evening. Such (short) delay also helps for triage, since there are more interesting things to report on than I could cover. I agree with Matt that a conscientious blogger is more similar to a journalist than your average scientist attendee, and so thereby could probably defend blogging from the press room.
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Absolutely. And the more bloggers who try to make use of press rooms, or apply for a press pass, the more we will raise the profile of science blogging as a (usually) serious medium that can get a conference great PR.
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I would be interested and moreover I would be interested in reading blogs. From the last conference in Tucson “Toward a science of consciousness” that I attended and the one from the ASSC in June in Taipeh, which I did not attend, both I would have loved to read blogs, maybe two or three from different authors and obviously not only live blogs.
I feel this is a great topic and it should be investigated and even promoted that more people blog about conferences.
I could imagine to blog from a conference of a field that I am not a newcomer to like consciousness science, but I might be interested in blogging about the upcoming conference about medical sociology and medical psychology in Germany.
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