I had a great time at EAG! The organizers kicked ass, I’m sure it was a ton of work and I was really impressed by the entire thing. Here are some quick ideas on how to make upcoming EAGs even better:
Reserve one room for low-barrier conversations. In this room, there should be a bunch of tables surrounded by a bunch of chairs. The rules are: anybody can sit in any open chair and join any conversation. This space provides a place for new people who don’t know anybody at the conference to always have “something” interesting to do, instead of waiting around awkwardly for their next talk or meeting. It also seems like a cool way to meet a bunch of people quite quickly.
Higher profile/more senior career people who get a lot of 1:1 meeting invites from junior people who they don’t have time to meet with should hold office hours. By office hours, I mean they should choose one of the chill hangout spaces, tell everybody who wants to meet with them where they are, and plant themselves there for an hour or two. This allows them to see a bunch of junior people simultaneously, as well as allows people with similar niche interests to meet each other.
At some point somebody published a spreadsheet of all the attendees, I think to get around swapcard shenanigans. I actually found the spreadsheet SUPER useful, and easier to navigate than swapcard. Maybe this spreadsheet could be made available next time too?
I had a great time at EAG! The organizers kicked ass, I’m sure it was a ton of work and I was really impressed by the entire thing. Here are some quick ideas on how to make upcoming EAGs even better:
Reserve one room for low-barrier conversations. In this room, there should be a bunch of tables surrounded by a bunch of chairs. The rules are: anybody can sit in any open chair and join any conversation. This space provides a place for new people who don’t know anybody at the conference to always have “something” interesting to do, instead of waiting around awkwardly for their next talk or meeting. It also seems like a cool way to meet a bunch of people quite quickly.
Higher profile/more senior career people who get a lot of 1:1 meeting invites from junior people who they don’t have time to meet with should hold office hours. By office hours, I mean they should choose one of the chill hangout spaces, tell everybody who wants to meet with them where they are, and plant themselves there for an hour or two. This allows them to see a bunch of junior people simultaneously, as well as allows people with similar niche interests to meet each other.
At some point somebody published a spreadsheet of all the attendees, I think to get around swapcard shenanigans. I actually found the spreadsheet SUPER useful, and easier to navigate than swapcard. Maybe this spreadsheet could be made available next time too?