Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Russell's guide to surviving conferences or research visits
Some golden rules have come out of our recent decision to send Will (the newest recruit to the Mobilearn project) to a project meeting in Italy. He's not been in the job 10 days yet, but is the only one available to attend it, so has to go on his own. Poor soul - so here is some distilled wisdom.
Key points to remember:
Some golden rules have come out of our recent decision to send Will (the newest recruit to the Mobilearn project) to a project meeting in Italy. He's not been in the job 10 days yet, but is the only one available to attend it, so has to go on his own. Poor soul - so here is some distilled wisdom.
Key points to remember:
- It's the social events that are important, not the organised bits in between
- Talk to whoever you can - they may be important to you in the future
- Be honest but not too derogatory, as it's a fairly small world in your research area, and someone is bound to know someone who you've just slagged off
- Take a piece of paper with your hotel address printed on it, so that when you're completely lost or too pissed to think, you can hail a cab and hence get home
- Use a credit card for everything
- Collect receipts. Blank ones are especially useful (cos sometimes you can't get a receipt for a different legitimate purpose)
- You can speak the language if you can order 'two beers' and be understood. Learn the phrase, wherever you happen to be. It tends to get you into and then out of all sorts of situations
- Take a few notes - you'll need them because the things you remember won't be what others were interested in
- Take email addresses - you'll ignore the point above and this becomes the only way of getting the information you need
- Feel free to skip sessions if you can be talking to interesting people instead - at a conference at least, the material will be in the proceedings anyway
(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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