Sorry, I did forget one other point.

I know that it is not always possible to find institutions willing to
provide space, but I do want to second the comments on how unsuited
hotel facilities are for the sort of presentations that are the meat
of the ARSC conferences. The Palo Alto conference showed that you can
house the attendees in a location and even hold committee meetings
there, but use first the rate lecture halls on the Stanford campus a
few minutes away. I also do not recall there being a lack of competent
AV operators, at least not at the sessions I attended.

I realize that I must know just a small slice of what goes into
managing a conference, putting together the program and all the local
arrangements, so I mean no disrespect to any of those who have chosen
to put the conferences on in hotel facilities. I just think this is
one of the issues that are worth airing at this point in time when we
seem to have a groundswell of sentiment for making some changes.

My best,

Peter Hirsch

On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 2:49 PM, Peter Hirsch <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Having attended, I believe, four ARSC conferences and presented at
> one, I have just a few marginal comments to make.
>
> I think that, unless there is only one presentation going on at a
> time, there will be people who will be frustrated by having to miss
> ones that are of interest because they are in your area(s) of
> specialty or because they are not and you are missing the opportunity
> to widen your horizons. This has been stated already and I do not know
> if it is reasonable to cut back drastically on the number of
> presentations. Still, it doesn't hurt to state the obvious fact that
> you can't be two places at one time. I am making my possibly redundant
> point because I am one of those who come to the conferences because I
> am interested in all aspects of activity that ARSC encompasses. I
> enjoy presentations that are in areas that I am at least moderately
> experienced and qualified, like collecting, history of musical
> figures, trends in the recording industry and cataloging. Also, I
> equally make a point of attending the more technical presentations,
> specifically because my knowledge there is pretty sketchy and I just
> might learn from those much more expert than myself. I understand the
> pull that Tom F. and Steve S. have described between attending
> programs situated in your "power alley" to justify attending for
> professional reasons and sitting in on what sounds cool or might have
> charismatic presenters or guests, but is not related to what you do
> for a living. I do receive some financial support from my employer for
> attending ARSC conferences on some occasions, though not always and
> the amount nowadays does not cover even close to half of my expenses.
> This means that I don't feel a major compulsion to only go to
> presentations approved by them. I would be happiest with fewer events
> so that nothing is happening concurrently with something else, but
> that is only my personal take on things. I can see that a conference
> program that presents a larger menu is more likely to have something
> for everyone, though it does also open the door for those just taking
> a stab at presenting who have little to add to the common knowledge of
> ARSC.
>
> My experience presenting in Seattle (I believe I had half an hour) was
> pretty educational for me and hope at least a little for the audience.
> I echo the pleas that you prepare and run through your presentation as
> many times as you have to (who could disagree?). I was shocked to see
> that, what looked like a few hundred words on the page could take me
> so long to enunciate out loud. I cut and slashed and worked on
> developing a decent rhythm to the way I spoke. As it turned out, I
> read mostly, but also was able to inject comments as they came to mind
> or in response to audiences comments. I don't think I had to do any
> truncation on the fly, but I would have really appreciated 15 or 20
> more minutes, mostly so that there could have been a better Q & A at
> the end.
>
> Regarding the use of visuals. All I can say is that when I announced
> that there was no multi-media component, just monomedia me talking,
> the audience cheered. I have the recording of my presentation that
> documents how little the audience wanted to sit through another
> PowerPoint lecture. I have seen some good slide shows and obviously we
> in ARSC like to listen to things, but I have never liked it when I
> felt that the visual was either there to remind the speaker where he
> was. I don't mind looking at them afterwards if they are printed out,
> but I could do without them while I am trying to listen. As mentioned
> a few times, some presenters put the entire content of their talk,
> sometimes verbatim. This ought to be specifically forbidden by the
> program committee if they are at all interested in assuring a decent
> level of quality.
>
> I have trimmed out some of the previous comments in this thread simply
> to condense things. It is not that I wish to ignore them, since they
> all made pretty good points.
>
> Looking forward to seeing you in KC,
>
> Peter Hirsch
>