Yes I am running for the SFN program committee *
* Not really
Here is my platform:
1. Submitting your poster also registers you for the conference. One easy step.
2. It also allows you to get your hotel. This in turn incentivises you to submit before the last minute (avoiding server malfunctions) and lets you do all your SFN planning in one day, rather than doing it in multiple steps across the summer.
* UPDATE * Come to think of it, why require people to get their membership in December? Why not let them do it all at the same time?? Let’s stop pretending that anyone joins the society in order to get a free subscription to Neuroscience Nexus.
3. Anti-linking groups. There are numerous reasons why you might want to have two posters be at different times. For example, I have two students who both take an interest in each other’s project, and they want to be there for the other one to answer overflow questions, go fetch water, see what questions are, learn the mechanics of poster presentation, etc.
4. 3 month window between deadline and conference. 1 month to fix the program and 2 months for attendees to browse.
5. One member wants more than one poster? That’s fine, make a check for $600 to the SFN. It’s a $-making opportunity, say I. Nothing wrong with it. Your third poster will cost you $1200.
6. Somewhere, a link to acceptance rates for nanosymposia. I mean, ideally, the submission deadline for nanosymposia is 2 weeks before the poster deadline, and they give you a thumbs up or down on that before the poster thing. That reduces the weirdly byzantine stragetizing a lot. But if it can’t be done, at least a plausible guess on acceptance rates.
7. Optional poster upload database. That way, no need to hand out copies of the poster. No need for people to try to sneak photos, etc.
8. Prominent links to good poster-design sites.
EB2012 actually did the optional poster upload thing. No idea how many took the option or how many browsed but it certainly did not stop the sneaky (or sometimes blatant) photo taking.
#4 for serious.
Still don’t quite get the picture taking thing. At my other conferences everyone shares posters via handouts or sending out by email. Are posters somehow proprietary?
I dont actually care if someone takes a picture of my poster. But so many people seem upset about it that there should be an alternative solution. And a database of posters would solve a problem I do care about, which is people running out of handouts.
The picture taking taking thing, and people’s varying stances on it, is a little weird. On the one hand, you’re putting your work out there–in doing so, you’re already sharing your ideas with the rest of the society, so what’s the objection to letting someone get it accurately? On the other hand, there is something that seems a little sneaky about taking a picture as opposed to say, taking copious notes by hand. Nobody wants to be scooped.
Re: your students’ posters–don’t you think if they were linked, and thus next to each other, they could help with each other’s traffic, water, bathroom breaks etc?
Yes, that’s true. But it would be nice to have both options.
#7 is going to happen, but not by the Society. watch http://twitter.com/figurezero for updates on progress
As for #4, the big $ for SfN comes from the vendors and the society prob wants to know how many posters there will be (a) in order to maximize vendors space and (b) be able to tell vendors how many posters there will be in each track, etc.