EAGs can turn into a long weekend of 1on1s for some people.
I think this is probably happening more to senior EAs.
See actual message:
Thoughts:
I guess that senior EAs (gatekeepers) tend to be more locked up in 1on1s. People not in these 1on1s—everyone else in the conference—is in a different pool of “leftovers”. Maybe the “leftovers” are missing both senior people as well as ambitious, junior people. This (completely innocent) process might lead to some sort of “adverse selection”/”attractor state” story, as more people realize that the pool of people has changed. As a result, “speed meetings” might not fix things.
It’s common to advise a new EA to prioritize meeting people over going to events (sometimes the senior people also mention that they don’t attend events at all). This raises issues: if this advice is so dominant, we should signpost it for everyone—but then we need clarity about what the scheduled events are supposed to be.
A valid perspective is that a 1on1 fest is optimal. But if this is true, maybe we can lean into it and set up another format of conference?
You could write a lot about this, but a weekend of 30 minute 1on1s has different value than a meetup. I think the openness, flexibility and dense concentration of people in a conference creates valuable interactions.
Overall, I’m not sure this is a defect, but there is probably something going on related to scaling. There is an opportunity to make things work better.
If you believed thought some of the above was happening and you wanted to edit EAG to address it, it would require care and moderate actions. Maybe we could nudge people into open events, or develop 1:2 or 1:3 formats.
This takes some coordination, so for next steps, we probably want to hear from others.
This closely matches my personal experience of EAG. I typically have back-to-back meetings throughout the entire conference, including throughout all talks. At the most recent EAG London, I and a more senior person in my field mutually wanted to meet, and exchanged many messages like the one in the screenshot above—“I just had a spot open up in 15 minutes if you’re free?”, “Are you taking a lunch break tomorrow?”, etc. (We ultimately were not able to find mutual availability, and met on zoom a couple of weeks later.)
Like Charles, I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing. However, if this is the primary intent of the conference, it could be improved somewhat to make small meetings easier (and possibly to include more events like the speaker reception, where people who spend the rest of the conference in prearranged 1:1s can casually chat).
I personally would be very excited about a conference app that allowed people to book small group (1:2) or (1:3) meetings. I find that many people I speak to ask the same questions, and that I am frustratingly unable to accommodate everyone who wants to have a 1:1. I sometimes hold group zoom calls (1:3 or 1:5) afterward for people who I wasn’t able to meet during the conference, and this format seems to work well.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience! I think your suggestions are excellent. We’re exploring ways to support group meetings and shorter meeting times at EA Global.
Thanks so much for taking the time to write up these thoughts. Lots of people seem to be having this experience, so I really appreciate that you brought it up.
We have in fact been prioritizing one-on-one meetings, as attendees have been reporting that they get a lot of value from them. And we’re always looking for ways to improve our approach, so we would love ideas on how to better support those meetings.
It sounds like you are pointing out the following things: 1) Some of the most engaged attendees are in one-on-one meetings for most of the conference, which makes attendees at other parts of the event (e.g. speed meetings) less able to share experiences— which in turn may even lead to some kind of feedback loop, where people stop going to anything but one-on-ones. 2) It’s not clear who and what the other sessions are meant for. 3) We should find more ways to support a meetings-first conference.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, because these points are super interesting and helpful to hear.
This was a very thoughtful response, yes, I am saying 1, 2 and 3.
I also think Kirsten and Rachel’s experiences are valuable (maybe they have distinct ideas that are less directly expressed).
For next steps (?) I don’t know if or how these points should be addressed. I guess this requires involvement by the event organizers at a high level, and is interwoven with other considerations that might be difficult for a user like myself to be aware of.
While taking into account the above, maybe we could brainstorm some more lower-level systems (e.g. to facilitate for 1:2 or 1:3 matching) if CEA decides this is useful?
EAGs can turn into a long weekend of 1on1s for some people.
I think this is probably happening more to senior EAs.
See actual message:
Thoughts:
I guess that senior EAs (gatekeepers) tend to be more locked up in 1on1s. People not in these 1on1s—everyone else in the conference—is in a different pool of “leftovers”. Maybe the “leftovers” are missing both senior people as well as ambitious, junior people. This (completely innocent) process might lead to some sort of “adverse selection”/”attractor state” story, as more people realize that the pool of people has changed. As a result, “speed meetings” might not fix things.
It’s common to advise a new EA to prioritize meeting people over going to events (sometimes the senior people also mention that they don’t attend events at all). This raises issues: if this advice is so dominant, we should signpost it for everyone—but then we need clarity about what the scheduled events are supposed to be.
A valid perspective is that a 1on1 fest is optimal. But if this is true, maybe we can lean into it and set up another format of conference?
You could write a lot about this, but a weekend of 30 minute 1on1s has different value than a meetup. I think the openness, flexibility and dense concentration of people in a conference creates valuable interactions.
Overall, I’m not sure this is a defect, but there is probably something going on related to scaling. There is an opportunity to make things work better.
If you believed thought some of the above was happening and you wanted to edit EAG to address it, it would require care and moderate actions. Maybe we could nudge people into open events, or develop 1:2 or 1:3 formats.
This takes some coordination, so for next steps, we probably want to hear from others.
This closely matches my personal experience of EAG. I typically have back-to-back meetings throughout the entire conference, including throughout all talks. At the most recent EAG London, I and a more senior person in my field mutually wanted to meet, and exchanged many messages like the one in the screenshot above—“I just had a spot open up in 15 minutes if you’re free?”, “Are you taking a lunch break tomorrow?”, etc. (We ultimately were not able to find mutual availability, and met on zoom a couple of weeks later.)
Like Charles, I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing. However, if this is the primary intent of the conference, it could be improved somewhat to make small meetings easier (and possibly to include more events like the speaker reception, where people who spend the rest of the conference in prearranged 1:1s can casually chat).
I personally would be very excited about a conference app that allowed people to book small group (1:2) or (1:3) meetings. I find that many people I speak to ask the same questions, and that I am frustratingly unable to accommodate everyone who wants to have a 1:1. I sometimes hold group zoom calls (1:3 or 1:5) afterward for people who I wasn’t able to meet during the conference, and this format seems to work well.
Thanks so much for sharing your experience! I think your suggestions are excellent. We’re exploring ways to support group meetings and shorter meeting times at EA Global.
This is a great comment! EAG has really encouraged people to focus almost exclusively on 1:1s for several years now, but it’s not set up for that
It would be nice to see a wider variety of ways to build connection and/or a different conference format that’s really designed for 1:1s first
Thanks for this comment, and for boosting Charles’ message!
Thanks so much for taking the time to write up these thoughts. Lots of people seem to be having this experience, so I really appreciate that you brought it up.
We have in fact been prioritizing one-on-one meetings, as attendees have been reporting that they get a lot of value from them. And we’re always looking for ways to improve our approach, so we would love ideas on how to better support those meetings.
It sounds like you are pointing out the following things: 1) Some of the most engaged attendees are in one-on-one meetings for most of the conference, which makes attendees at other parts of the event (e.g. speed meetings) less able to share experiences— which in turn may even lead to some kind of feedback loop, where people stop going to anything but one-on-ones. 2) It’s not clear who and what the other sessions are meant for. 3) We should find more ways to support a meetings-first conference.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, because these points are super interesting and helpful to hear.
This was a very thoughtful response, yes, I am saying 1, 2 and 3.
I also think Kirsten and Rachel’s experiences are valuable (maybe they have distinct ideas that are less directly expressed).
For next steps (?) I don’t know if or how these points should be addressed. I guess this requires involvement by the event organizers at a high level, and is interwoven with other considerations that might be difficult for a user like myself to be aware of.
While taking into account the above, maybe we could brainstorm some more lower-level systems (e.g. to facilitate for 1:2 or 1:3 matching) if CEA decides this is useful?