iEOS conference: a day in the life of a conference organizer

Sorry for the lack of posts lately-between family visits, a conference in town hosted by my boss, and travels to and from everywhere, my time for blogging has been small as of late. Now I'm back here in LPL for a whole month before jetting off again so high time to get updating on things happening in post-doc land.

Last month I helped my boss and our institute event coordinator put on a conference here in Liverpool. This meeting was for people working in environmental -omics and was a really nice group of researchers from the UK, Europe, and even some fellow North Americans. After years of SETAC meetings it was a nice change to hear some non-toxicology perspectives and to learn about some other types of science besides my own.

In addition to being a conference spectator, I was also the designated tweeter, organizer of the student presentation judging contest, presentation uploader, and crisis-solver extraordinaire. You can see the results of my live tweeting (well, myself and my cohort Louise) here. Believe me, coming up with short 140 character updates during all of the talks was exhausting, but excited with all the great feedback the page got during the meeting.

Instead of just giving an overview of the meeting (since twitter does that much better than I can) I thought I would give a sketch of my day and how things went on one of the conference days :)

Tuesday bright and early at 7:15am-up and out of bed to clean up and get ready for the day after a long day yesterday from the start of the conference

8:15-a nice day outside and with time to spare, so I walk to work instead of taking the bus

8:41-a phone call from my boss/organizer of the meeting. The first speaker wants to upload his slides. I pick up the pace to get to the conference center a bit faster.

8:50-start uploading slides, and with a break in the action grab a much needed second cup of coffee.

9:30-first session on archaeological omics. How am I supposed to tweet about this??

11:30-herd people over to the other building for the break-out group discussions and coffee. Get lost on the way there with about 50 people following me. Oopsie!

11:40-start judging posters, taking photos during the break, no time for coffee, begin herding people (once again) to their rooms for the break-out groups.

noon-first group doesn't like sharing a room so I take them back downstairs where the coffee is. more poster judging and talking about how tired I am with Louise. We decide chocolate is crucial for surviving the rest of the week.

1pm-lunch for everyone else, for me running around looking for forks and water, judging posters, taking more pictures, etc. My lunch commences at 1:30 as I swoop on the remainder of the sandwiches. Lots of carbs, uh oh, gonna be tired after this ...

1:45-back to uploading people's slides. And deeply regretting not wearing pants with belt loops. In a constant state of pulling my pants up. Classy!

2pm-Really good keynote speech on microbial phylogeny. Bonus: American accent!

3pm-afternoon break, mainly missed due to uploading presentations. But have no fear for a third coffee of the day was obtained. Next up-a complicated mix of laptop and desktop presentations. Let's see how these transitions go!

3:40-late start due to people milling around at the coffee break. Good set of talks to end the day. More tweeting and organizing presentations for the next day. And trying not to dose off ...

5:45-end of the day and time for drinks with some old and new friends. The weather is even agreeable so we can sit outside. Talk a little about science and a lot about the relative attractiveness of other nations in Europe/the incorrect spellings of American English.

7:20-get in charter bus to the palm house for a fancy sit-down dinner. Let's try not to spill on myself-or have my pants fall off. Belt loops be damned!

~8pm-lots of wine, pretty good dinner, nice atmosphere eating and drinking next to palm trees in the middle of England. Lab mate and I start making fun of our boss. Probably not a good life decision, but in the end he still seems to like us.

11-take charter bus back to city centre due to being near dead from tiredness. No night cap tonight!

11:45-made it home after a long walk from the bus drop-off. Promtly pass out in bed. All to be started again the next day...

Here's a small view of what my week looked like here at the uni during the iEOS meeting:

opening reception

posters and coffee break from above

fancy dinner at the palm house

it's not all serious business! happy to have great colleagues to make hard work well spent :)