next »

[neutralname]

At a conference I went to recently, I saw a new annoying trend.  Attendees hold up their phones or iPads or other tablets and photograph each of the Powerpoint slides.  Often they hold these devices above their heads.  If they are using a tablet, then everyone behind them gets to see the image being photographed on the screen.  It is quite distracting. 

Normally, professors lag behind students in annoying uses of technology, but in this case they seem ahead of the curve.  I wonder whether they will really look at those slides when they get home, or whether they will just post them on Facebook. 

[mountainguy]

This reminds me of a friend who takes high-resolution photos of display signs in museums so that he can "read them later." To me, that defeats the point of going to a museum in the first place, but to each their own. With regard to conferences, my inclination would be to make an announcement at the beginning of the presentation along the lines of "I will email the PowerPoint slides to anyone who requests them. My contact info is mg@whatever.com."

[lerasmus]

Perhaps the distraction during the moment of the presentation is considerable, but if you anticipate this sort of engagement with your material, might as well "co-brand" all of your slides - put your name and the presentation date on every slide, and take advantage of the "free publicity."

Eek, this night seems to be the night when my prior "corporate life" is creeping back into my current "academic identity." Warning: Tom Peters quotes may ensue.

[seniorscholar]

Perhaps the distraction during the moment of the presentation is considerable, but if you anticipate this sort of engagement with your material, might as well "co-brand" all of your slides - put your name and the presentation date on every slide, and take advantage of the "free publicity."

Or at least dilute the plagiarized use of the slides.

[charlottchen]

Normally, professors lag behind students in annoying uses of technology, but in this case they seem ahead of the curve.  I wonder whether they will really look at those slides when they get home, or whether they will just post them on Facebook.

Taking pictures of slides happens a lot at the conferences I usually attend. The reason is simple: if person X listens to a talk and he remembers that colleague Y also works on an issue related to the talk, he simply takes a picture, sends it to his colleague and if the colleague is interested, he goes and finds out the author and the paper.

I have never seen audience members taking pictures of every single slide though (that is unnecessary anyway, since the sldes are made available as PDFs).

[testingthewaters]

whether they will just post them on Facebook. 

I had this happen at a conference I was at. I'd have never known, but the person who did so told me he'd posted one of the slides I presented on a sensitive subject to his Facebook page. No, I'm not kidding. Yes, I was seriously ticked off and asked him to remove it NOW.

While I realize at some point everything is available on the internet, I don't feel there is a need for other professionals to take something that sensitive out of context and post it on social media.

[sea_and_ski]

At a conference I went to recently, I saw a new annoying trend.  Attendees hold up their phones or iPads or other tablets and photograph each of the Powerpoint slides.  Often they hold these devices above their heads.  If they are using a tablet, then everyone behind them gets to see the image being photographed on the screen.  It is quite distracting... 

In my field (life sciences) this is expressly forbidden at most of our meetings.  In fact, at a meeting I attended last week the organizer called out an individual who was surreptitiously photographing a talk, much to the latter's embarrassment.  (This was a meeting attended by academic and industrial types, and unpublished data of potential commercial value was being shown.)

What I'll typically say at the beginning of my talk (if it's a large or mixed audience) is to send me an e-mail if you want a copy of the slides.  (I'll then send a pdf, perhaps removing some that aren't ready for broad circulation)  There are some individuals, particularly non-native English speakers, that have trouble rapidly assimilating a talk and this can be helpful for them.  I will send moderate quality pdf's to avoid "rearranging" or re-using data that could be possible from the original Powerpoint.

[tee_bee]

I've not seen this happen much in my field. When it starts, I suspect it might be because most of my colleagues in my social science discipline still--even though they know better--will post at least one slide with all the coefficients of five logit models, all set in 10 point Arial Narrow, and will laugh and say "I know you can't read this...." It would be good if a few of these were photographed and analyzed to show that the number of coefficients and models is usually inversely proportionate to the magnitude of the observed effects. Photographing and posting the most egregious of these would be a boon, particularly when they show that, for all the fancy numbers, they still fail to explain what the dependent variable is.

/rant

Alas, this won't happen. I like the idea of handing out or emailing PDFs instead of PPT files, and will adopt this. But I wonder if people are shooting pix of slides because they'd be easier to read later.

[untenured]

This reminds me of a friend who takes high-resolution photos of display signs in museums so that he can "read them later."

I do this. Along with photos of the actual item on display, the signs help me remember the importance of the item.

[totoro]

It might well be about trying to read the slides...

[larryc]

I haven't seen this at history conferences. Probably because no one pays attention to the papers.

[helpful]

This sounds like it would be horribly distracting to everyone else at the session. Definitely bad manners if they are not asking for permission from both the presenter and the rest of the audience.

[spork]

I haven't seen this at history conferences. Probably because no one pays attention to the papers.

One of the disadvantages of a field that contains so many hot chicks.