Lab meetings are great. But getting people to participate can be difficult.
Conferences charge me with motivation: they provide opportunities to share data, ideas and enthusiasm. But it is easy to make the excuse that one is “too busy” to attend. It is thus with anticipation and trepidation that I am helping to organize the first annual symposium for students and postdocs at my institute.
A previous postdoc seminar series was run single-handedly by fellow postdoc Claire Canning. To get speakers, she had to send e-mails that were alternately wheedling and forceful. Even within the institute, people seemed wary of sharing unpublished data. One even demanded that we somehow guarantee presented data would not be misappropriated. Still more discouraging was the turnout: fewer than 20 people from an institute of more than 400. The poor response may have been partly due to the lack of involvement and support by lab leaders. A few students told me that their supervisors specifically instructed them to focus on their benchwork rather than participate. Claire's tenacity and valiant effort truly deserves credit, as she kept the seminars going for almost a year.
Despite her experience, I hope the forthcoming symposium will see more enthusiastic participation. This time we have the active support of our institute director. There will be food, drink, and even prizes! Hopefully we will all come away with a stronger sense of community, well-fed in both mind and body.
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Goh, A. Getting people to talk. Nature 454, 134 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7200-134c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nj7200-134c