J Environ Stud Sci DOI 10.1007/s13412-015-0327-8
So you think you want to run an environmental conservation meeting? Advice on the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that accompany academic conference planning E. C. M. Parsons 1
# AESS 2015
Abstract A key component of academia is the meeting. A conference or symposium is a valuable resource for academics in so many ways. However, despite their value, planning an academic meeting can be difficult, partly because of the nature of academics themselves. Planning an environmental meeting adds an extra layer of difficulty, as special attention must be taken with ensuring that the meeting is as environmentally friendly as possible. This article has been written to give those wanting to plan an academic meeting some advice, with some useful tips and warnings about pitfalls that may be encountered. Issues such as location, transportation, accommodation, catering, promotion, social media, funding, and dealing with problem delegates are covered. Importantly, issues related to reducing the environmental impact of the meeting are discussed. It is hoped that the tips contained within this article will take some of the stress out of organizing an academic meeting for those in the environmental and conservation fields. Keywords Conference planning . Academics . Meetings . Environmental sustainability . Symposium planning . Workshop planning “Allow me to explain about the conference business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.” “So what do we do?” “Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.” “How?” * E. C. M. Parsons
[email protected] 1
Department of Environmental Science & Policy, George Mason University, 4400 University drive, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA
“I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” Modified from Shakespeare in Love (1998)
Introduction A key component of academia is the meeting. A conference or symposium is a chance to be exposed to new studies and ideas, to meet leaders in the academic field or those just starting, to form collaborations, to develop new projects and build research teams, and to give or receive mentoring advice. Meetings are also places to find new positions or to recruit faculty, staff, students, or interns. They are a valuable resource for academics in so many ways, and research and researchers would stagnate without them. However, despite their value, whether they are workshops or symposiums or larger conferences with thousands of delegates, planning an academic meeting can be difficult. Academics that are recruited to plan and organize meetings often have not planned or held a meeting before (or perhaps only one, of a small scale), and PhD programs typically do not have courses on events planning. Planning a meeting is a lot different from planning a class, a field trip, or a committee meeting, there are far more moving parts, and issues crop up that one could not even imagine. Academic meeting planning can also be made more difficult because of…well, let’s face it, because of academics. Professional meeting planners are often shocked at the difference between an academic meeting and a trade, business, or political conference. Planning an environmental meeting adds an extra layer of difficulty, as special attention must be taken with ensuring the meeting is as environmentally friendly as possible. In fact, organizers of an environmental meeting must bend over backward to ensure that every aspect of the meeting is green, as a large delegation of impassioned environmentalists will pay a huge amount of attention to every aspect of the meeting—woe betide you if you serve unsustainable shrimp canapés at the
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icebreaker. Poor sustainability practices can undermine delegates’ impressions and respect for the meeting and the credibility of the material presented. This article has been written to give those wanting to plan an academic meeting some advice, with some useful tips and warnings about pitfalls that may be encountered. This advice is based on actively organizing five large international academic conferences (to date), over a dozen smaller meetings such as workshops, and being on advisory or steering committees for over a dozen more. It is hoped that the tips contained within will take some of the stress out of organizing an academic meeting for those in the environmental and conservation fields. Location, location, location Choosing the location for your meeting is a compromise: cost and logistical ease vs glamor. Many academics will plan a conference like a vacation—if it is the “must go to” meeting of the field, it does not really matter where the meeting is held, people will come. But for other meetings, you may be competing with other events on exactly the same, or very similar, topics and so you need to appeal to your constituents. The two locations that would likely be attractive to delegates are local (i.e., cheap and easy to get to) or glamorous (i.e., places where delegates are likely to stay longer for a holiday, their funders having paid for the expensive flight to get to the location). The former location has the risk that delegates may ditch the event at the last minute because something else comes up (or do not decide to come until the last minute, which can be a headache for calculating likely attendance numbers for activities and budgets). The latter may be more expensive, and there may be competition between delegates and tourists for hotel space, which can push prices up. Also, a consideration for the latter location is timing. An exotic location is great if your delegates have time to travel and relax after the meeting, but if your conference is planned for the middle of the semester, it becomes a very expensive and somewhat frustrating meeting, as delegates have to rush home and all they see of said glamorous destination is largely a series of hotel and meeting rooms. The choice of venue is important too. Many people thank that universities are cheaper venues, as the classrooms are less expensive to rent and that there will be cheaper on-campus accommodation. However, many universities now see conferences as money-making ventures and charge rates for rooms and accommodation comparable to hotels. Their events management services are often less professional, and their staff may have less experience with conference planning compared to a convention center. Moreover, conference rooms may be spread out on campus, making simultaneous sessions difficult for delegates, and Wi-Fi systems may have complicated logon and security procedures and limited bandwidth because they are shared with the student body. Moreover, IT staff may not be as responsive as dedicated staff at a convention center, if available at all—we once had the pleasure of finding out that
university IT technicians, who had been hired at great expense, were in fact not available on weekends, or effectively half the meeting. So, universities may not in the end be cheaper, and faster, slicker service at a convention center may be priceless in terms of reducing your stress as a meeting organizer. With environmental meetings, as noted above, sustainable practices are very important. Although there are exceptions, conference centers often have better environmental practices than universities. Conference centers are profit-making businesses run by business professionals, and energy-saving devices make good financial sense, and environmentally friendly services reflect well on the image of the conference center, especially it is trying to attract environmental business and conference clients. Having said that, universities might have the flexibility to adopt more sustainable practices if opportunities are pointed out. Many universities have environmental committees or groups that could be utilized to help make a meeting more sustainable. Transport Transport links are also important. An appealing location can quickly become unfeasible if there are no good and cheap transport links. Your mountaintop conference venue might be beautiful, but if there are only two buses, a day and each takes 5 h to get there, and even getting to the airport for most delegates will take 2 days of flying and multiple connections, there will be problems. Because of their schedules, many delegates may have to fly quickly in and out. VIP speakers in particularly may only be able to attend for a short time, so swift and direct travel to the conference destination for the majority of delegates is important. Many North Americans are used to renting cars on arriving at destinations, as public transport in the USA is often poor, but not so with many other nationalities. The thought of coming off a long international flight and having to drive in an unfamiliar area, perhaps on a different side of the road, is daunting, especially as drivers in some countries consider speed limits and road signs as mere suggestions rather than actual regulations. So, public transport connections are important. For delegates to environmental conferences, public transport connections are especially important, as it reduces the carbon footprint of the individual delegates. You can arrange for buses to collect delegates, but you are reliant on the professionalism and reliability of the bus company, which cannot always be guaranteed. I have personally found myself waiting for several hours on a shuttle bus, while the driver has hung about for the bus to be filled—which is not a great introduction to a meeting, especially after a long overnight flight. Also, many delegates will forget to book their bus connection, and that can lead to further problems as buses fill too quickly or are over-subscribed, or nonbooked delegates may have difficulty getting to the venue.
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Also, although many forms of transport in North America and Europe have provisions for the disabled, this is not true everywhere. In fact, disabled delegates may face problem in hotels and conference venues, as well as on transportation. Arranging buses and transport to connect with hotels can lead to even greater problems, which brings me to accommodation. Hotels The location of hotels or other accommodation is important. It needs to be near the venue or have good reliable public transport links. Delegates often want to move back and forth between the hotel and venue, to deposit or collect items, to change, to do some important work that has cropped up, or to have a nap to get over jet lag. Also, different people have different schedules. Some may be early birds getting to the very first sessions promptly and others may be slower to start after having a long night out with friends and colleagues. Relying on buses to shuttle delegates to and from remote accommodation is definitely not advised. There should be a variety of accommodation choices for a variety of budgets. Environmental academics often have limited funds, especially students and delegates from developing countries, so cheap and cheerful accommodation is a must. University rooms are often a good source of cheap accommodation, although sometimes they can be overpriced or lack amenities, e.g., there may only be shared bathrooms. There is nothing quite like competing with half a dozen academics for access to a shared bathroom in the morning to make delegates grumpy. For environmental delegates, ritzy 5-star hotels will offer the excess and conspicuous consumption with which an environmentally friendly meeting should not be associated. Partnering with independent hotels with good environmental practices may be a good move, especially for smaller meetings. The number of rooms is also important. There does need to be sufficient accommodation in your chosen location to accommodate all delegates. This might sound obvious, but a largish meeting of a thousand or so delegates could easily fill ten or so hotels, even if there were no other visitors. If there is another conference in the city, or a big festival or sporting event, rooms might be few and far between. Academics, let’s face it, are sometimes not known for their organizational skills, and frequently, delegates arrive at meetings expecting to find accommodation but find that there is “no room at the inn.” Hotels often assume bookings are for couples, but many conferences delegates are on their own, and in some countries, hotel prices assume double occupancy, which can be a shock to delegates on arrival, and a blow to their wallets. Also, some delegates bring family, especially if the location is one that
could be used as a springboard for a vacation, so availability of family rooms is a good idea. Moreover, the ability to put additional beds into rooms can help students, where squeezing an extra body into a room can help cut the cost substantially. Self-catering facilities can also help those on a budget, even if it is only a kettle, sink, and hotplate. Typically pre-booking large numbers of rooms can be used to negotiate free rooms and/or upgrades. These can help reduce the meeting’s costs substantially, providing free rooms for meeting organizers or more luxurious rooms for plenary speakers, major funders, or other VIPs. Even better, the hotels may have meeting rooms that can be used for free or at discounted rates to supplement those at the conference venue (e.g., for side meetings or workshops). Many larger hotels have an executive lounge, and it is worth requesting free access to this for the local organizing committee, as this can be a nice place to have working breakfasts or other impromptu planning meetings, or simply to escape for a quiet break. However, booking large blocks of rooms may come at a cost. Many hotels will charge the organizing committee a proportion of the room’s cost if it is not taken by a delegate (and this can be, as noted earlier, 80 % of the room cost). If rooms are not filled, this can be a major expense. For example, imagine 100 fewer delegates than anticipated book rooms at the 4-star hotel (normally charging $200 a night) next to the venue of your 5-day meeting. That translates to an $80,000 penalty. Some hotels will push you to book larger blocks of rooms than you need, because of these large “attrition” costs, temping you with the promise of one free extra room for that extra block of 50 booked. But, failing to fill those rooms will lead to a much bigger charge than the savings made by gaining an extra free room.
Academic program Meeting themes and plenaries Meeting themes can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, themes can attract presentations on hot topics; on the other hand, they can dissuade delegates from submitting presentations that do not match these themes. Also, there is no point in having a theme if plenary speeches and panels do not fit with that theme. Many of us have seen plenary speeches where the presenter talks about what they want to talk about and crowbars in a couple of tangential comments vaguely relevant to the conference theme. Be careful about this, as it makes your meeting look badly organized. Try to select plenary speakers with relevant topics rather than just for their fame or influence. Also, be careful that they do not present their favorite talk, because chances are they have given it before, and it will likely have been seen by many members of the audience already. A plenary where nothing is new, and the same old jokes are being
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wheeled out, can be embarrassing for the organizers and for the speaker. Make sure that other sessions are not scheduled against plenary talks, and try not to make them too long. Even the best talks are going to fall flat if they are one and a half hour long before anyone has had a chance to get a cup of coffee. Be aware of the diversity of the plenary speakers. A conference where all the speakers are old, white, bearded males will be noticed and commented upon as being inappropriate, particularly as the environmental and conservation fields involve scientists for around the world, with well more than half of these scientists being female. Presentation types Despite insistence by meeting planners to the contrary, posters are not seen as equivalent to a spoken presentation. Many universities will not fund presenters to attend meetings for a poster, or even a speed (
