Terrible Conference Rant
Amazing. Un - bloody - believable!
This is easily the worst conference I've been to.
I should have known when they refused to even wave the fees for the invited speakers, never mind cover travel expenses. Well, you live and you learn.
It's a complete disaster. The schedule is jam-packed with talks, some times 5 minutes short. I am not kidding. Five minutes.
The chairpersons are rude and incompetent. One interrupted a speaker four minutes into a 10 minute talk (some invited talks are 10 minutes) saying that the speaker has 1 minute left. The speaker nearly bit the chairperson's head off - and rightly so.
When the chairpersons are not chairing, they sit in the back and loudly discuss things between themselves in Russian (the organizers of this session are Russian and most of the chairpersons as well, though not all). At one point I came to them and told them to shut the hell up - in Russian. That worked. People don't expect me to speak Russian, because I never do. Shock therapy.
Quite a number of the speakers did not show up at all. The schedule is a complete mess. There are three different versions, on the wall, on the internet, and in the book. To top it off, the chairperson for one of the sessions did not show up either!
That's not all. Really, there is more.
The organizers received money to invite the speakers. In the adjacent sessions (with normal 15 - 20 minute talks!!!), the invited speakers are paid or at least the fees are waved. I want to know what our organizers did with the bloody money.
Some of the talks - a lot of the talks - are of extremely poor quality (though it has gotten better towards the end of the meeting).
In short, they succeeded in generating A LOT of really angry speakers and attendies. I am told, not for the first time.
On the positive side, I had some really good and productive discussions with some of my colleagues - after we blew off some steam about this disasterous mishap of an organization.
This is easily the worst conference I've been to.
I should have known when they refused to even wave the fees for the invited speakers, never mind cover travel expenses. Well, you live and you learn.
It's a complete disaster. The schedule is jam-packed with talks, some times 5 minutes short. I am not kidding. Five minutes.
The chairpersons are rude and incompetent. One interrupted a speaker four minutes into a 10 minute talk (some invited talks are 10 minutes) saying that the speaker has 1 minute left. The speaker nearly bit the chairperson's head off - and rightly so.
When the chairpersons are not chairing, they sit in the back and loudly discuss things between themselves in Russian (the organizers of this session are Russian and most of the chairpersons as well, though not all). At one point I came to them and told them to shut the hell up - in Russian. That worked. People don't expect me to speak Russian, because I never do. Shock therapy.
Quite a number of the speakers did not show up at all. The schedule is a complete mess. There are three different versions, on the wall, on the internet, and in the book. To top it off, the chairperson for one of the sessions did not show up either!
That's not all. Really, there is more.
The organizers received money to invite the speakers. In the adjacent sessions (with normal 15 - 20 minute talks!!!), the invited speakers are paid or at least the fees are waved. I want to know what our organizers did with the bloody money.
Some of the talks - a lot of the talks - are of extremely poor quality (though it has gotten better towards the end of the meeting).
In short, they succeeded in generating A LOT of really angry speakers and attendies. I am told, not for the first time.
On the positive side, I had some really good and productive discussions with some of my colleagues - after we blew off some steam about this disasterous mishap of an organization.