The suggestions at the end were just that: suggestions on how to improve the event next year, and foster a greater sense of inclusion and community at the event.

Luke B.

I didn’t feel like my experience was representative, though. Whenever we were all milling around in the rest of the building between the talks, there was never an awkward silence, but always a loud background chatter. Some people (like Jack of Kent, above, I imagine) were always likely to enjoy a good chin-wag with scores of unfamiliar faces, whatever the circumstances, and some (like me) would always end up mostly keeping to ourselves. The environment we’re provided with is only a factor up to a point.

My remaining question, based on what has been discussed here: If we agree that the location was not ideal, and there are no better locations in central London – Does it really have to be central London?

But I really do appreciate the feedback, and will make sure that JREF has a full report of all the reported experiences, positive and less positive.

Contrary to the review, I was impressed by the amount of social interaction: I met and chatted with dozens of conference attendees, in queues and at fringe events, and made lots of new contacts. And this was with people sometimes not aware of my real name and who also approached me, rather than me them.

There were some people just standing and not talking, but there are at loads of professional and business conferences too.

But even if there were people happy in their own space and not wanting to chat, why is it assumed that this is actually a bad thing. Not everyone enjoys having conversations with complete strangers.

I think we should be careful not to over-analyse and generalise about this, especially when it plays on nerd stereotypes.

(Note, I was not one of the convention organisers and indeed only got a ticket at the last moment.)

My only gripe was a 9am start on a Saturday going through to lunch without a coffee break. This was a strange and unprecedented experience…

That’s because Tracey King WORKS for the convention, mind, and has developed ‘relationships’ with people at skeptic conventions in the past and planned that gathering at the pub. So she had no worries networking. Doesn’t address the issue adequately at all with that point.

The points I posted weren’t really my experiences, as I was there with my brother and had quite a number of great conversations with others. However, even during the looong lunch break on Sunday, about HALF the people were still standing around, not talking to each other. You’ll get loads of feedback from people talking about making new friends, etc, but the points are raised because of and on behalf of those who had a different experience.

For example, one time we sat in the corridor, and the guy next to us was playing a game on his phone. The next person was listening to his iPod, looking straight forward. The next person was reading a book. The next person was eating alone.

My brother and I noticed this, repeated over and over and over. Which is why I wanted to bring it up. I agree that 80% of this probably due to the venue and general scheduling, but I do believe it was an issue.

Specifically, my point about conflicting events could be as simple as “Listen to a lecture from Person X, or hang out in the foyer to chat about Topic Z.” The venue didn’t even allow for this though, as there were no seats anywhere!

Free fringe events are fine, but I fly over from Berlin specially for the weekend, and can’t really justify longer stays for single panels.

And the ten minute talks, you shouldn’t have to pay for those. I’m sure you can find 5 people willing to volunteer a talk about all kinds of subjects! My point was opening a forum for more people to get involved. Also, someone like Tim Minchin SHOULD be given more time, and some speakers SHOULD be given less time. It comes down to how much they have to say, and how well they can say it. There’s no reason why people should be given equal time. People aren’t equal!

“If skeptics weren’t sociable it would be rather hard to get hundreds of them to go to a large conference.”

Personally I wanted to go to see the invited speakers and to laugh at the comedy and listen to the music. The social aspect wasn’t very high on my agenda, and maybe it wasn’t high on others. I have plenty of friends already…

Either way, I really enjoyed the event, and hope to make it again next year.

Luke B.

I wasn’t going to comment as I generally am not commenting on blog reviews about the event (as there are so many!) but as JR has tweeted a link to this I really want to make sure that some of the points are addressed for those who didn’t attend and might think that your experience is representative of everyone’s.

Firstly, I couldn’t agree more about the limitations of the venue. I had made it clear to them that we needed plenty of seats etc for lunches, but the layout and size of the venue (as is the case with other central London venues) meant it was impossible for them to provide a single room for lunching with seating for all. I would have liked more tables and chairs and was frustrated at the failure to provide them. However, given that we had outgrown the venue before we’d even started, I think it’s fair to say that any future event won’t be at the Mermaid, so the point is moot (other than the necessity of apologising for the inconvenience, which I wholeheartedly do).

Regarding the socialising aspects, whilst I’ve heard some isolated feedback to that effect, I must say that the vast majority of feedback to me has been the exact opposite of your experience. People have said how overwhelmed they are by the number of new friends they’ve made, the like-minded people they got to talk to, and the joy of being in a community such as that. You just need to look at the #tamlondon posts on Twitter to see how overwhelmingly positive feedback is, from both a social and a speaker point of view, or read reviews like http://londonist.com/2009/10/the_amazing_meeting_london_skeptics.php or http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2009/10/amazing-meeting-london-2009.html which seems to reflect the majority of the comments I’ve had to me (I can’t post private emails here but I’ve had a lot, and they’re all positive regarding the social side).

I’m surprised you think that all two “skepticism nerds” would have to say to each other is…nothing. That’s not my experience at all (in fact I just came back from the pub with a lot of other skepticism nerds, many of whom I hadn’t met before, and we managed to have conversations just fine. We talked about movies, books, sex, whether Brian Cox is better looking than George Hrab, and how cool my mom is, amongst other things). I don’t really know what to say about the suggestion that it’s not easy to find common ground outside of our common non-belief in skepticism because I’ve been to many TAMs and they’re inherently social events. If skeptics weren’t sociable it would be rather hard to get hundreds of them to go to a large conference.

I must also address your guesstimates about the numbers of people there solo. I cannot, of course, give specifics about booking data, but your estimation of 90% attending alone is not accurate.

I agree about using technology. We couldn’t do anything this year because of budget limitations, but something like a Twitter wall would be great. I don’t have an issue with the text messaging myself, because I use SMS as much as I use email or Twitter, but I don’t claim to be representative of everyone. However, I do believe Richard Wiseman is on Twitter, so he probably had good reasons for using SMS instead.

We are unlikely to have conflicting events. When concurrent paper sessions were run at previous TAMs, delegates were frustrated with having to choose between two sessions when they wanted to attend both. Far better to have everyone be able to attend everything. I do agree that there should be more events that delegates can participate in, but that wasn’t possible in the two-day format. It needs a three day format really, which was, this year, outside the scope of the event. However, I must point out that we also funded many free fringe events including a panel at Conway Hall tonight with some incredible bloggers and podcasters, which was led by audience questions, backstage tours of Wellcome, Darwin Centre, etc, and there’s a forthcoming quiz this Wednesday. The fringe events were free and anyone (not just delegates) could attend, so we did attempt to ensure extra stuff was available.

It is neither possible nor desirable for the TAM format to have academic speakers for ten minute slots, although it’s a great format for a comedy event. It’s certainly unfair to have lots of ten minute talks then Tim Minchin for an hour and a half! Just from a practical point of view, if you have two, three or four times as many speakers, you have two, three, four times the expense and logistics. You also have to persuade speakers to travel to London for a ten minute talk, which to be honest is a long shot. But I am very glad you enjoyed Robin’s event.

We’d all love more Tim Minchin! But please appreciate that he’s in the middle of a national tour. He was in Bristol on Saturday night and went straight to Reading for his gig after TAM London. I for one am incredibly grateful that we got an hour, which is of course the same amount of time the other speakers got. Not even taking the food costs into account, £175 for 12 speakers is £14.58 a speaker. That’s pretty good value. What’s a ticket to a Tim gig? £25 for an hour and a half? So I think we got the good deal!

The book signing thing is something I thought about a lot. TAMs have never had scheduled book signings because the speakers mingle with the delegates, as they did at TAM London. However, the layout of the Mermaid was perhaps not ideal for that. The trouble with book signings is that they make a distinct line between the author and the ‘fan’, which is not what TAMs are about, and I really didn’t want to create a ‘them and us’ atmosphere. I think that’s one we can chalk up to ‘venue limitations’.

There were pens in every delegate pack and at the merchandise table, but I’m sorry if anyone didn’t get an autograph when they wanted one.

I think I’ve covered everything I wanted to address. I’m really grateful for your feedback, and some of your comments are spot on. The panel from tonight will be uploaded on the official TAM London youtube channel at some point, and of course the DVD will be available in time for Christmas, so if anyone didn’t attend and want to see what the fuss is about, they can do!

Tracy

My reaction was not to change TAM, but rather to experiment with conferences at the regional level, specifically to attempt to adapt BarCamp to the domain of contemporary skepticism. BarCamps are open conferences in the tech world that are community-organized, draw upon their attendees for content and emphasize interaction and discussion.

Unlike TAM/L they’re usually local or regional in scope and will typically be in the size range of 20-200 people.

Though it’s still early in the experiment (we’re still working the bugs out) there have been nine events so far (with one in the UK.) Next year we expect further growth with repeat events and other groups hosting their first event.