As expressed by Vishnu, I would hate to miss a year of MDRS. If we hold a virtual meeting, then I am in favor of one of the other discussion questions, to have the 2021 meeting in Manchester, UK, and bump each successive meeting locale ahead by a year. Unlike Vishnu, I am certain that I am unable to organize it; if I can help, I will.
Not clear to me how it would work if it were held in real time, given the time differences. OHBM is holding its meeting virtually in Eastern US time, which will make it difficult for people outside of North America to “attend”. On the other hand, we could have people record their talks and then post them where they could be viewed whenever. Donna Addis was one of the people who did this for the Rotman Conference this year, so she could be contacted for advice on how difficult it was to set up. I know that organizing anything like this is way above my level of expertise.
I agree with Cheryl that holding it in real time is not a particularly good option. Partly because of time-zone differences and partly (as Nancy suggested in another discussion) because those with kids at home might find it difficult to participate. Pre-recorded talks are an option, but we would miss out on lively discussion that is one of the best parts of MDRS.
If the cost to organizing is low, perhaps we could have some combination of pre-recorded talks, multiple ‘catch up’ events (multiple to accommodate different time zones), and/or encouraging each member to share a PDF of a recent paper or poster from their lab.
Perhaps the easiest thing to do is to have multiple small events via Zoom (accommodating different time zones) and randomly put people in breakout rooms for small-group conversations. Each person can be encouraged to briefly share 1-2 things going on in their lab that they are excited about.
I’m not volunteering myself to lead organizing (still recovering from last year ;)) but would be happy to pitch in if someone else led the charge.
While the e-platform is a great opportunity to overcome obstacles of large-scale conferences such as SfN, it is not the case with respect to “intimate” meetings such as MDRS.
Yet, we may come with a unique take – for instance agreeing on certain themes, such as is done traditionally in MDRS, let the different teams record their symposia and upload on the conference website, enable members to watch relevant symposia together with their lab members, discuss presentation and post questions. These may be further answered either in a written manner or (preferred) orally in short time windows (20 min per symposium) that are convenient for the EU and NA hubs (morning EST = late afternoon EU = early morning PT).
Alternatively, an easier solution to keep MDRS running with lower “cost” may be as follows:members may suggest a full-hour talk (style ICOM’s key note), several such talks may be selected either by senior members/Manchester committee/ ad-hoc committee/else, recorded and posted on the MDRS website or zoomed with a short discussion in the above-mentioned time windows – WDYT?
I think it is highly unlikely that a virtual event could allow for the kind of discussion and interaction that makes the meeting so wonderful. So, before discussing the specific format to use, it might be worthwhile to consider the goal of such an event. It the goal to catch everyone else up on what is going on in our labs? To try to emulate the discussions that normally happen at the meeting? Or, to provide some minimal social interaction so we don’t feel so disconnected from one another? Seems like different formats would be appropriate for different goals.
Could it be an option to pay a company to take care of the technical side of an online conference – this is what the Experimental Psychology Society are doing with their July meeting this year.
From my experience at virtual CNS 2020, and having hosted an online conference myself in April, my sense is that pre-recorded talks don’t work well, but that people in isolation are keen to connect. At CNS Zoom posters were great – they enabled lively small-group discussions, and avoided some of the time-zone challenges, because people could visit them over the course of 3-4 hours.
For reasons stated previously and by others, I am not keen on a virtual conference. However, once or twice in the past we compiled and circulated a doc with all of our recent papers. It may be nice to do this again now. We could include recent poster citations from students in our labs as well. It would be one way of keeping up to date on each other’s work. And if any one of us wanted to reach out to learn more about said work we could read the papers or reach out to the labs to learn more.
For example, stemming from some CNS posters/online chats, my lab has plans to do a zoom lab meeting with a fellow memory lab to learn more about each others’ ongoing projects 🙂
Not ideal, I know…but it’s something.
It seems like the comments are converging on the following:
– It would be nice to have some sort of smaller-scale MDRS interaction in 2020.
– Reliance on real-time content should be limited…
– but people would like opportunities to discuss and interact with one another.
I personally like the idea of each member contributing a link to one paper, poster, or video that they’d like to highlight from their lab. At the simplest level, we could have a spreadsheet sharing all of the titles and links in one place. At a slightly more involved level, we could organize the content into themes and host an optional Zoom “open house” discussion for each theme, scheduled at times that work for most represented timezones.
I would be happy to coordinate something along these basic lines (although probably not something much more involved than this).
Maureen’s suggestion sounds like a good one to me. If we limit it to something like that, I’m happy to pitch in and help, Maureen (if you need it).
With respect to Joel’s comment above, my hope was to catch people up on the latest work and keep people connected, even minimally. Emulating the discussions that usually happen at the meeting would be nice (e.g., with small Zoom sessions), but I don’t think any of us are in a position to take on the challenge of really trying to mimic the magic of MDRS online.
MDRS Manchester
That could be a nice alternative to keep in touch. I am not volunteering though.
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I’m agnostic on this one
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I would hate to miss a year of MDRS. I would be happy to assist but am not sure I could captain the ship!
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As expressed by Vishnu, I would hate to miss a year of MDRS. If we hold a virtual meeting, then I am in favor of one of the other discussion questions, to have the 2021 meeting in Manchester, UK, and bump each successive meeting locale ahead by a year. Unlike Vishnu, I am certain that I am unable to organize it; if I can help, I will.
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Not clear to me how it would work if it were held in real time, given the time differences. OHBM is holding its meeting virtually in Eastern US time, which will make it difficult for people outside of North America to “attend”. On the other hand, we could have people record their talks and then post them where they could be viewed whenever. Donna Addis was one of the people who did this for the Rotman Conference this year, so she could be contacted for advice on how difficult it was to set up. I know that organizing anything like this is way above my level of expertise.
LikeLike
I agree with Cheryl that holding it in real time is not a particularly good option. Partly because of time-zone differences and partly (as Nancy suggested in another discussion) because those with kids at home might find it difficult to participate. Pre-recorded talks are an option, but we would miss out on lively discussion that is one of the best parts of MDRS.
If the cost to organizing is low, perhaps we could have some combination of pre-recorded talks, multiple ‘catch up’ events (multiple to accommodate different time zones), and/or encouraging each member to share a PDF of a recent paper or poster from their lab.
Perhaps the easiest thing to do is to have multiple small events via Zoom (accommodating different time zones) and randomly put people in breakout rooms for small-group conversations. Each person can be encouraged to briefly share 1-2 things going on in their lab that they are excited about.
I’m not volunteering myself to lead organizing (still recovering from last year ;)) but would be happy to pitch in if someone else led the charge.
LikeLike
While the e-platform is a great opportunity to overcome obstacles of large-scale conferences such as SfN, it is not the case with respect to “intimate” meetings such as MDRS.
Yet, we may come with a unique take – for instance agreeing on certain themes, such as is done traditionally in MDRS, let the different teams record their symposia and upload on the conference website, enable members to watch relevant symposia together with their lab members, discuss presentation and post questions. These may be further answered either in a written manner or (preferred) orally in short time windows (20 min per symposium) that are convenient for the EU and NA hubs (morning EST = late afternoon EU = early morning PT).
Alternatively, an easier solution to keep MDRS running with lower “cost” may be as follows:members may suggest a full-hour talk (style ICOM’s key note), several such talks may be selected either by senior members/Manchester committee/ ad-hoc committee/else, recorded and posted on the MDRS website or zoomed with a short discussion in the above-mentioned time windows – WDYT?
LikeLike
I think it is highly unlikely that a virtual event could allow for the kind of discussion and interaction that makes the meeting so wonderful. So, before discussing the specific format to use, it might be worthwhile to consider the goal of such an event. It the goal to catch everyone else up on what is going on in our labs? To try to emulate the discussions that normally happen at the meeting? Or, to provide some minimal social interaction so we don’t feel so disconnected from one another? Seems like different formats would be appropriate for different goals.
LikeLike
Could it be an option to pay a company to take care of the technical side of an online conference – this is what the Experimental Psychology Society are doing with their July meeting this year.
From my experience at virtual CNS 2020, and having hosted an online conference myself in April, my sense is that pre-recorded talks don’t work well, but that people in isolation are keen to connect. At CNS Zoom posters were great – they enabled lively small-group discussions, and avoided some of the time-zone challenges, because people could visit them over the course of 3-4 hours.
LikeLike
For reasons stated previously and by others, I am not keen on a virtual conference. However, once or twice in the past we compiled and circulated a doc with all of our recent papers. It may be nice to do this again now. We could include recent poster citations from students in our labs as well. It would be one way of keeping up to date on each other’s work. And if any one of us wanted to reach out to learn more about said work we could read the papers or reach out to the labs to learn more.
For example, stemming from some CNS posters/online chats, my lab has plans to do a zoom lab meeting with a fellow memory lab to learn more about each others’ ongoing projects 🙂
Not ideal, I know…but it’s something.
LikeLike
It seems like the comments are converging on the following:
– It would be nice to have some sort of smaller-scale MDRS interaction in 2020.
– Reliance on real-time content should be limited…
– but people would like opportunities to discuss and interact with one another.
I personally like the idea of each member contributing a link to one paper, poster, or video that they’d like to highlight from their lab. At the simplest level, we could have a spreadsheet sharing all of the titles and links in one place. At a slightly more involved level, we could organize the content into themes and host an optional Zoom “open house” discussion for each theme, scheduled at times that work for most represented timezones.
I would be happy to coordinate something along these basic lines (although probably not something much more involved than this).
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Maureen’s suggestion sounds like a good one to me. If we limit it to something like that, I’m happy to pitch in and help, Maureen (if you need it).
With respect to Joel’s comment above, my hope was to catch people up on the latest work and keep people connected, even minimally. Emulating the discussions that usually happen at the meeting would be nice (e.g., with small Zoom sessions), but I don’t think any of us are in a position to take on the challenge of really trying to mimic the magic of MDRS online.
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