Some people – especially the ones who attended lots of conferences – may consider these activities as ‘activities in which people with the same interest come together, and some people talk about some topic of this interest – in some depth -, which may make it worthwhile to listen or not, but usually not a ‘game changer’. After repetitive experiences at several conferences, these activities may turn out to be ‘social network’ environments in that most participants and/or speakers know each other instead of knowledge/experience sharing environments, which could also establish social network settings. In addition to these facts, most speakers have common attributes that cause a feeling of ‘wind tunnel effect’ similarities. The others know or have heard of this person as a knowledgeable person on the subject up to a level and should have the charisma or some charm that would attract the audience, otherwise they wouldn’t listen to the person according to a communication rule that says, whatever one says, it is as much as the other ones takes. As it is not so difficult to see that, there is no place for the nerds in this picture.
One of the other complaints or concerns we learned from conference audiences during our conversations was about the communication gaps between academics and field personnel. XXX