Copyright © 1998, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. This article was published in IEEE Intelligent Systems magazine

Delegate sensibilities

Steve Grand

I’m writing this article during the long flight back from Alife VI, the Sixth International conference on Artificial Life, which was held at UCLA. I originally thought I might share with you some of the extraordinary new developments in Artificial Life that were revealed during the conference. Unfortunately there weren’t any, and that leaves me with something of an embarrassing vacuum to fill. Instead, I think I’ll generously impart some of my immense wisdom on the subject of going to conferences, for the benefit of any newbies out there. Going to your first academic conference can be a traumatic experience, and it is the duty of magazines such as this to help the newcomer participate fully in his chosen field. Drawing on my vast experience of, ooh, very nearly half a dozen conferences, here are some pearls of wisdom to get you started.

Being a Delegate

The primary purpose of going to conferences is, of course, to get a nice little badge with your name on it. It is very important to wear your badge in a prominent position on your body – an earlobe, perhaps, or inside your back pocket. Never on any account wear a badge on your chest – let the fools guess who you are while revealing their own identities, so that you have time to remember where you last met them. If you are a woman, on the other hand, you should place your badge strategically over one breast. Then you can cultivate a suitably shocked "I’ll sue you for sexual harassment unless you’re nice to me" expression, with which to meet any male delegate’s eyes as they swivel up from the inevitable close examination of your chest, trying to find your name. Either way, the purpose of a conference badge is to put yourself at an advantage over your peers, so use it wisely.

There are three classes of delegate at most conferences: 1) the In Crowd, who know each other well and spend half their lives swanning around the world’s conference circuit; 2) Fraternity, i.e. the locals from the institution hosting the event; and 3) Foreigners. If you are new to the conference scene, you enter the hierarchy in the "Foreigners" category, regardless of your nationality. This principally means that nobody will talk to you, and you have to spend the entire week glued to some other poor unfortunate who, in normal circumstances, you’d cross the street to avoid. Fraternity, of course, get their privileges simply by happening to attend the appropriate university. Quite rightly, these privileges extend only to "the right to put out chairs" and "the right to slob around in tee-shirts displaying provocative slogans"; neither of which offers much advantage. Getting into the In Crowd category is thus highly desirable, but unfortunately requires you to have made a fool of yourself at a previous conference (otherwise known as "delivering a paper"). Nevertheless, it quickly leads to many advantages, particularly where drinking is concerned.

The big mistake that many Category 3 people make is, of course, going to talks. Talks are not there for the sake of delegates, but for the self-aggrandisement (or abject humiliation, depending on personality) of the speakers. Three-hour sessions of dull formulae, trotted out by even duller people, are not something that one should endure willingly. That’s what we have printed Proceedings for, to read on the beach in comfort. There are, naturally, a few categories of talks you should always attend: those given by your friends, for example. If you are absent from a friend’s talk, then he will be absent from yours, and your audience figures might therefore slump by up to 100%. Talks by people for whom the conference language is not their mother tongue are sometimes worth attending, in order to alleviate boredom. I remember a fascinating talk at one conference by a Frenchman who insisted on uttering the phrases "short-cycle self-reinforcement system" and "long-cycle self-reinforcement system", in monotones and without abbreviation, a total of 78 times in a twenty-minute talk. I was in stitches and treated the author to abandoned applause for his eloquence and for his undoubted courage in the face of a bad lisp.

For a newbie, some of the best talks are the keynote addresses. These are by famous people – highly experienced speakers, who even, on occasion, remember to turn up with some vague idea of what it is they want to talk about. Sadly, the keynotes are always at some unearthly hour of the morning. Once you realise that the speakers are simply going to reiterate the one-and-only good idea they ever had, which was first published over twenty years previously (and has since been comprehensively disproven), you soon learn to leave well alone.

When it comes down to it, then, the best place to spend a conference is where the real business gets done – in the bar.

Being a Speaker

If you are asked to speak at a conference or deliver a paper, your fortunes are largely dictated by when your talk is scheduled. This is down to luck or (if you have upset them) the sadism of the organising committee. There are good times and bad times. The morning of the first day is a good time: your talk will be well attended, and many of the audience may even be awake. The last day is bad if you are an extrovert but great for introverts, as nobody will turn up for it and it may even be possible not to turn up yourself. In the middle is not so good, as you will probably be jet-lagged, hung-over and/or on the beach at the appointed time. Either way, being a speaker is a Jekyll-and-Hyde affair, divided into three phases: Before your talk, you are responsible, serious and keen. Just prior to the event, you have a growing sensation of panic, a tendency to incontinence, and unaccountable hallucinations involving the SS Titanic and the hymn "nearer my God to thee". Finally, when it is all over, you suddenly feel free to heckle other speakers, attempt unaided flight from the top diving board and drink vast quantities of wine without regard for personal safety.

If you are a nervous speaker, here are some useful tips:

1. The more meticulously you make contingency plans, the more bizarre the actual circumstances will turn out to be.

2. Don’t waste time trying to psyche yourself up – you are doomed, and you might as well face up to it.

3. Memorise your opening line. It is surprisingly easy to forget your own name when confronted with a sea of expectant faces – I usually write mine on my wrist for reference, although I invariably forget which wrist, when the moment comes.

4. Try to remember what the time was when you started speaking. Strange time dilation effects exist in auditoria, and if you don’t keep track, you are likely to find the session moderator dragging you impatiently from the podium before you even get onto Slide 3.

5. Ignore Item 4 – you’ll forget to look at your watch. You know you will.

6. The most reliable thing about technology is its unreliability. Back up your laptop slides with OHP slides, your OHP slides with a flip chart and your flip chart with handouts. In emergency, be prepared to mime.

7. Humour can be a great asset. Except in Alabama. Or Japan. Or Germany. Oh, and for heaven’s sake, don’t make jokes about women, men, the previous speaker, any subsequent speaker, the session moderator, the government, or any form of sentient life whatsoever, including vegetables (in case there are any in the audience).

8. After you finish speaking you will have to endure questions from the floor. This is the moment when your deadliest rival steps forward from the gloom to take your presentation apart, sentence by sentence. The only recourse I have found to be useful is to blind your opponent with the laser pointer.

9. When the talk is over, the questions have been answered and you are returning to your chair, remember that it is now perfectly permissible to faint.

Armed with the invaluable information above, I am now ready to attend the 1st International Conference on Cybersex, in Honolulu. You, meanwhile, are assigned as the delegate to the 93rd Symposium on Exceedingly Dull Numerical Constants, to be held in Siberia. That’s what the verb "to delegate" means, after all.

Copyright © 2004 Cyberlife Research Ltd.
Last modified: 06/04/04