I am already immerse to this week’s topic, but today something happened that deserves to be mentioned. My husband is a researcher and part of his job is to attend conferences. This year, for obvious reasons, all conferences have been cancelled and I have seen him attending virtual events, making talks and recording himself.
I guess conference organisers have been trying different ways to recreate what the conference means. Panels, conference, presentations of posters, workshops, etc. But also the social space, informal conversations, networking… Because conferences are the perfect place to meet up and create connections that are beyond work. I have been lucky to attend some conference with him because he always has conferences in cool places like Japan, South Africa or Canary Island. I know this kind of conferences encourage relationships and many of them organise activities, some with family members included! So, every year these conferences are the perfect excuse to do a holiday (after the conference of course!).
Anyways, with the “new reality” conference organisation need to be creative and today my husband joined a conference in which they have created a virtual space through Gather Town that we found very cool, and I wanted to share. Who has created the place wanted to recreate all the relevant elements of a physical conference This platform, though, it has the idea of not having a super realistic environment, ideas that we learn on the article: Virtualizing the real: a virtual reality contemporary sculpture park for children. Virtual spaces are less realistic and that allows the user to fill in the gaps with creativity and imagination Turner (2016).
In this conference we can find:
– Companies stands that when your avatar goes close, it gets interactive, showing a video, linking to their website or there is a person answering the question.
– Social spaces with coffee and cookies!
– You can walk around with your camera and microphone close or open(something that we realised after a while…) When you cross with someone their camera gets visible and you can open a chat.
– Avatar can be customised and we saw some zombies and mummies walking around.
– The big hall where the main conferences happen. With microphones to make questions.
– It is a virtual space but we observed how people keep social distancing while sitting to hear the conference 😉
– Conference in action, with people presenting their posters. I have seen this face to face and I can say that the feeling was quite similar. You could walk around and listen to the conversations people have around the posters.
A funny note, one of my husband’s colleague attending to the conference has said: “I spent some time walking around without talking to anyone, and I realised that is what I do in conferences, the only difference is the free food available.”
