When I think about the past few months and whether I’ve noticed any improvements in my quality of life as a result of the lockdown and Covid-19 – I can’t say that my answer is all that positive. It was undoubtedly pleasant cycling on roads that were virtually free of traffic and it was convenient no longer having to make the triangular commute between work and my younger son’s school. However, these didn’t seem like great compensation for not being able to do a lot of the things that made my life enjoyable outside work and the almost overnight collapse of the commercial aerospace industry.
Also, I found some of the articles in newspapers celebrating working from home and enjoying the garden tone deaf when there were many families who were attending their loved ones funerals via live streaming.
However, one area where I have noticed a distinct improvement is in the opportunities for joining webinars, livestreams of events and virtual conferences.
During the last few weeks, I’ve joined a number of webinars hosted by the Royal Aeronautical Society and have been able to register for FIAConnect – the virtual Farnborough International Airshow. This has been useful for keeping abreast of news and ongoing developments in aerospace even whilst on furlough. It also struck me, that being able to join these sessions remotely has enabled me to listen to lectures that in normal times I wouldn’t have attended.
There are many reasons why attending lectures and conferences are useful. Continuing professional development is important for engineers at all stages in their careers and is a requirement for anyone seeking to be chartered. If, like me, your daily job involves research – then it is important to be aware of evolving themes and areas of focus in the wider industry and to see where there are breakthroughs in technology and capability. Conference participation in particular can offer a range of positive benefits. Speaking at a conference can allow you to develop your skills at writing and delivering papers and presentations to a large audience. For industrial participants, it can provide an opportunity to indicate areas and themes that are of interest for industry to academic partners.
Equally, attending presentations by PhD students and post-docs can give an insight into the areas that universities are concentrating on both in terms of research and in course content and syllabus. It can also be an opportunity to spot potential future talents.
However, for engineers who work in industry – and particularly in large companies – it is not that easy to attend conferences – and even more difficult to present at them. Intellectual property is correctly of paramount importance, so finding a topic that you can present and give an interesting talk is not straightforward. Whilst academic participants and conference organisers sometimes seem to have the impression that large industrial companies will be awash with cash – the reality is that extracurricular activities like conference attendance can be prohibitively expensive when sending more than a couple of delegates. Reductions for speakers are not that much of an incentive if the fee for attending is several hundred pounds. If the conference isn’t local, there are travel budget constraints.
Also, if you work in a large department – decisions have to be made about who should attend conferences. A revolving door policy might be fair – but will prevent people from building a relationship with other regular participants and make it difficult to join regular panels or workshops. Equally, if there is only a small clique that always attend, then it isn’t guaranteed that the knowledge and insight they gain will be shared around the wider domain and this can become a source of resentment. Balancing the need to develop future experts and project co-ordinators and to maintain the profile of existing people is not easy.
Another point to consider is overall value for money. If you’ve been to more than one big conference – you’ve probably had the experience of reaching a lull in the programme where none of the sessions really jump out at you, or noticed a drop in quality of the presentations for some sessions. Yet since your company has paid a lot for you to attend – you feel obliged to find something even if it’s of marginal benefit.
Outside of conferences – there is also the question of standalone talks, usually arranged by industrial societies or bodies like the RAeS or AIAA. Most people acknowledge that these are theoretically useful for continuous learning and widening your knowledge of topics outside of your day-to-day work. However, committing time from your evening to physically attend a talk is not so easy when you’re already juggling commitments to work, family, hobbies and exercise.
With the option to join webinars – and to replay pre-recorded sessions – a new world has been opened up. Instead of becoming another item to struggle to fit in – I’ve been able to listen to talks at times and in a location that have been convenient for me. Participation at virtual conferences for no or minimal fees means that you can dip in and out to attend the sessions that are relevant and interesting.
Also, outside of my own experiences – I’ve noticed that webinars have opened up a whole lot of experiences for children too. My younger son has enjoyed watching the TimTalksSpace series on YouTube with Major Tim Peake. He has also listened to talks on astronomy and participated in a webinar on impressionist paintings. All of this has been excellent at supplementing activities through school and homeschool – and provided experiences that probably would not have been so readily available if they’d involved physical attendance.
I’m not advocating doing away with physical conferences and lectures altogether. A major benefit of attending conferences in person is that they allow you the opportunity to meet with people from the wider industry to build relationships and discuss questions raised in presentations. Also, one of the more enjoyable elements of conference participation is when you accidentally stumble on an unexpectedly brilliant talk – often on a topic that isn’t directly related to your own field of knowledge. There is also the intangible benefit of being in the same room as keynote speakers – getting a sense of their body language and the way that they handle question and answer sessions – seeing them in person is undoubtedly more interesting and inspiring than simply watching them over a livestream.
However, I do think that it’s time to review the model of how conferences are arranged. Having smaller, shorter physical conferences would reduce the costs and hence the fees for people attending in person. Equally, by streaming the programme and introducing modest fees for access to the webinars, far more people could participate in total and could benefit from the content of the sessions. One positive of the last few months is that people have become far more proficient at developing online content and operating remote platforms for meetings and conferences. Maintaining that will democratise participation and spread knowledge – and that can only be a good thing.