🚀 go-pugleaf

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   I've just returned from ICASSP-89, and there are a number of impressions
in my mind that I remember having had after previous ICASSP's as well, and I
think it's time I tried to share them with a larger audience to see how
many other people feel similarly. I would like to see this start a general
discussion which I think would fulfill one purpose of this newsgroup, and
which hopefully will reach and influence the organizers of future IEEE
conferences.

   Every year I am struck by the low quality of the presentations in the
traditional lecture sessions. Of course there are notable exceptions,
but generally I find one or more of the following: poor speaking style,
poor organization (e.g., attempting to cover the entire content of the
paper in the lecture), poor design or choice of content of vugraphs
(e.g., equations from the text of the paper), poor projection conditions
(projector too close to screen, image not in sharp focus, etc. making it
unreadable from all but the center of the first few rows), and insufficient
seating or air-conditioning capacity in the lecture room. Granted, not
all of these factors are within the control of the presenter or organizers.
In particular, at an international conference it must be expected that
many presenters will be speaking in an unaccustomed language, some coping
with pronunciation difficulties (indeed, one can only credit them with
courage in making the attempt!) and perhaps unsympathetic ambient acoustic
conditions as well. Finally, the usual question or two (time permitting)
addressed to each speaker is an travesty of the free discussion which is
supposedly the goal of any such conference, and which in fact takes place
(if it does) outside the sessions instead.

  At ICASSP-84 I attended my first poster session, and I became an instant
convert. I found I could absorb the essential points of each paper at my
own pace, in a moment, by reading the headlines on the author's posters,
and turn from one to another at will. I could get into discussions with the
authors, or eavesdrop on other ongoing discussions and thus ease into the
topic until I could put together a question of my own; etc. I have since
then participated as an author only in poster sessions, and have found the
experience extremely worthwhile. A major factor in this is knowing how to
summarize one's paper in what amounts to a graphic abstract, designed to
convince the onlooker to read the full paper in the proceedings, rather
than a visual account of the full paper. Where appropriate, it is possible
to include live demonstrations and even (I saw this at ICASSP-89) use of
a cellular radiophone to allow people to speak directly to coauthors unable
to be present.

   Given all this, the next logical step is to ask, why not an all-poster
conference? Outside of invited longer tutorial or review presentations by
eminent authors, for which the lecture format is really appropriate, why
have lecture sessions at all? This idea occurred to me during ICASSP-89,
and when I raised it with a few people active in the ASSP Society whom I met
on the floor, I found that they already felt the same way. In these conver-
sations I raised an impression I had formed at earlier ICASSP's, that
poster sessions are considered (at some level) to be less prestigious than
the lecture sessions, in the sense that the "better" papers are assigned to
lecture sessions while the poster sessions are implicitly seen as a means
to absorb the "overflow" of lesser papers. In some instances poster sessions
have been held in less accessible or otherwise less favorable locations,
e.g., on a different floor or even in a different building, or (at ICASSP-88,
which I did not attend) in a crowded corridor - all of which reinforces the
impression I mention. I was assured that, at least as far as deliberate
policies of paper selection and assignment are concerned, this was definitely
not the case, although - tradition being what it is - some such feeling
might still exist in the professional community, such that some authors might
still feel slighted at being assigned to a poster session, or affronted at
being challenged to present their work "while standing on one foot" in the
image of a well-known Talmudic story. Insofar as this is the case, my
response to it is best illustrated by relating the story itself in full:
A heathen approached the two greatest rabbis then living, Shammai and Hillel,
asking each to explain the essence of Judaism while standing on one foot.
Shammai immediately threw him out. Hillel, on the other hand, raised one foot,
cited the Golden Rule, and said, "The rest is just commentary, you can go
read it yourself" - in the conference proceedings, so to speak. This is
also, IMHO, a good recipe for what a conference presentation should be.

   One other minor pet peeve I have about conferences concerns name badges.
In most cases they can't be read from a distance, as they should be if you're
trying to meet people on the fly. Now that the technology has advanced from
Selectrics with ORATOR type balls to dot-matrix printers, it should be
possible to print in a large, clear expanded font. But even that won't help
if people don't wear their badges so they can be read.

   In any event, as I said at the top, I'd like to get a discussion going,
and hopefully this will lead to more useful conferences in the future.



dhf@linus (David H. Friedman, The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA, USA)