Building More Creative and Interactive Conference Sessions

Abstract

Many industry conferences, including CSE, have gone online (or hybrid, at least) to comply with COVID-19 restrictions. Online formats necessarily have fewer session tracks, making it even harder to get a proposal accepted; combine that with Zoom fatigue and coming up with an interesting and engaging program is even more challenging. When we are mostly still working and even socializing on our computers, the last thing we may want to do is watch a long uninterrupted set of PowerPoint presentations online. How can we draw the audience in? Challenges for Programming: Online Conferences I began my publishing career as a book acquisitions editor, so my conference experience was largely in the exhibit hall, meeting with authors and looking for new projects. Whether it was a history or a library meeting, I rarely took the time to attend informational sessions, and I never gave a thought to who planned them. It wasn’t until I started attending publishing meetings that I really became aware of the volunteers that made such events go. Once I joined a program committee for the Society for Scholarly Publishing (SSP), and got involved with folks from across the industry, I was hooked. What better way to explore interesting topics than to meet the experts and craft sessions that enabled them to share their knowledge? I’m always on the lookout for topics I’ve not seen addressed before and new potential speakers. That has made the COVID transition difficult. Online conferences are hard for speakers and attendees, but I’ve […]