Fwiw I share Jack’s impression that EA retreats are substantially more valuable. In fact, I’d go much further—I think the ‘connections’ metric is inherently biased towards a events where you are encouraged to have a bunch of amiable and forgettable conversations with a large number of people.
For me the qualitative difference is extreme. I’ve been to maybe 5 EAG(x) events, and I think, after 6 months, the number of people I would actually reach out to ask for a favour has basically dropped to zero. Conversely, I went to one retreat about a decade ago, and still consider basically everyone I met there a friend—someone I would be happy to see, and pleased to be able to offer meaningful support to.
Inasmuch as you can metricify this kind of thing, I think for a fair comparison we really need both more nuance on how people should/do interpret ‘favour’ - which can mean anything from ‘give a text introduction to a mutual acquaintance’ to something out of the Godfather—and something like the integral of strength of favour you’re willing to ask over time.
Having said all of the above, I do also find EAGx Virtual distinctly good. A lot of that is the lower time/energy cost to me as a participant, but I think there are some subtle benefits like in the Gather Town careers fair (which I’m very biased on, having set up the GT), it’s much easier to openly eavesdrop on what people in front of you in the ‘queue’ are saying to each other than in a noisy room, often meaning the person at the stand can effectively answer the questions 3+ people have at once, and making the whole thing much more efficient.
I strongly suspect there’s a lot of room to play around with the online format in other ways that would similarly take advantage of it being online, rather than trying to mimic the processes you’d expect to find at a physical EAG.
Fwiw I share Jack’s impression that EA retreats are substantially more valuable. In fact, I’d go much further—I think the ‘connections’ metric is inherently biased towards a events where you are encouraged to have a bunch of amiable and forgettable conversations with a large number of people.
For me the qualitative difference is extreme. I’ve been to maybe 5 EAG(x) events, and I think, after 6 months, the number of people I would actually reach out to ask for a favour has basically dropped to zero. Conversely, I went to one retreat about a decade ago, and still consider basically everyone I met there a friend—someone I would be happy to see, and pleased to be able to offer meaningful support to.
Inasmuch as you can metricify this kind of thing, I think for a fair comparison we really need both more nuance on how people should/do interpret ‘favour’ - which can mean anything from ‘give a text introduction to a mutual acquaintance’ to something out of the Godfather—and something like the integral of strength of favour you’re willing to ask over time.
Having said all of the above, I do also find EAGx Virtual distinctly good. A lot of that is the lower time/energy cost to me as a participant, but I think there are some subtle benefits like in the Gather Town careers fair (which I’m very biased on, having set up the GT), it’s much easier to openly eavesdrop on what people in front of you in the ‘queue’ are saying to each other than in a noisy room, often meaning the person at the stand can effectively answer the questions 3+ people have at once, and making the whole thing much more efficient.
I strongly suspect there’s a lot of room to play around with the online format in other ways that would similarly take advantage of it being online, rather than trying to mimic the processes you’d expect to find at a physical EAG.