Conference presentations v. invited talks and reducing conference activity?

[futureapppsy2]

This thread is brought to you by the fact that proposals for a conference that I've attended before are due today, and I'm still debating whether to submit some or not, heh. Lately, I've just felt a bit burned out on the conference game, probably due to a year and a half of them being online (which is wonderful for finance and accessibility; meh for social and entertainment value) and because I've somehow ended up getting a good number of invited speaker invites over the past 12 months or so (I have 5 or so scheduled for Fall), which are nice because, well, they usually pay actual money. I'm at the stage of my career where a lot of conference presentations just seem like more trouble than they're worth, unless it's my "professional home organization" conference where I have a ton of professional friends and colleagues or this other once-every-two-years conference where it's more of a good justification to see two colleagues who are also close personal friends. Is there a point where you can just kind of gently nope out of the conference game, outside of a select one or two, especially if you are still publishing?

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[PsychPhDone]

This thread is brought to you by the fact that proposals for a conference that I've attended before are due today, and I'm still debating whether to submit some or not, heh. Lately, I've just felt a bit burned out on the conference game, probably due to a year and a half of them being online (which is wonderful for finance and accessibility; meh for social and entertainment value) and because I've somehow ended up getting a good number of invited speaker invites over the past 12 months or so (I have 5 or so scheduled for Fall), which are nice because, well, they usually pay actual money. I'm at the stage of my career where a lot of conference presentations just seem like more trouble than they're worth, unless it's my "professional home organization" conference where I have a ton of professional friends and colleagues or this other once-every-two-years conference where it's more of a good justification to see two colleagues who are also close personal friends. Is there a point where you can just kind of gently nope out of the conference game, outside of a select one or two, especially if you are still publishing?

I've barely attended conferences since I had my child due to the hassles of travel with newborn/breastfeeding and then covid. I've also decided that due to climate change I'm not going to travel for conferences more than twice per year. Nobody seems to care. I'm soft money though.

 

[Spydra]

You're an established professional so unless I'm missing something I don't get why you need to gently nope out of anything. You can simply say 'no thank you' and that should really be the end of it.

 

[Ollie123]

No one really cares about conference-anything beyond graduate school. I mean, if you never went to any conferences it would look weird but 1-2 a year with some invited speaker stuff is still going to be well above average for an assistant prof where invited speaker stuff isn't super common. Take on <some> role in them and you should be fine. I sometimes do more but that was 95% driven by "Oooo, XYZ society is meeting in Hawaii this year" and only 5% professional (if that). Once you make tenure if you want to literally never go to conferences that's fine. I know several folks who loathe travel who did just that.

Online conferences are pointless. I believe they exist solely so: 1) Everyone can continue padding their CVs; and 2) Society that depend on them for generating ongoing operating costs (i.e. most of them) can continue to exist. If those factors weren't around, I think there is a fair chance we would have all collectively said "Screw it, we'll conference again in 3 years or whenever we can".

 

[futureapppsy2]

Online conferences are pointless. I believe they exist solely so: 1) Everyone can continue padding their CVs; and 2) Society that depend on them for generating ongoing operating costs (i.e. most of them) can continue to exist. If those factors weren't around, I think there is a fair chance we would have all collectively said "Screw it, we'll conference again in 3 years or whenever we can".

I will say that some of them served as decent CEU harvesting activities.

But yeah, travel is generally harder and more expensive for me than most people due the physical inaccessibility (ask me how many ADA hotel rooms are a joke in terms of actually being accessible!), and I’m increasingly just like “yeah, unless my friends are there, this isn’t worth it.” Except the one time we had a conference in Disney World, and Disney World fanatic that I am, I hyper-planned all the dining. That was A++++.

 

[Ollie123]

I will say that some of them served as decent CEU harvesting activities.

But yeah, travel is generally harder and more expensive for me than most people due the physical inaccessibility (ask me how many ADA hotel rooms are a joke in terms of actually being accessible!), and I’m increasingly just like “yeah, unless my friends are there, this isn’t worth it.” Except the one time we had a conference in Disney World, and Disney World fanatic that I am, I hyper-planned all the dining. That was A++++.

I've genuinely always wondered if that was the case with ADA hotel rooms. From what I can tell it usually just means there is no tub and "maybe" there is a grab bar by the toilet. Didn't have a tape measure with but have definitely stayed in a few where I'm pretty sure the doors didn't even meet standards to fit a wheelchair.

Lucky you that your conferences offer CEUs. Very few of mine do (for psychologists anyways).

 

[futureapppsy2]

I've genuinely always wondered if that was the case with ADA hotel rooms. From what I can tell it usually just means there is no tub and "maybe" there is a grab bar by the toilet. Didn't have a tape measure with but have definitely stayed in a few where I'm pretty sure the doors didn't even meet standards to fit a wheelchair.

Lucky you that your conferences offer CEUs. Very few of mine do (for psychologists anyways).

In my experience, most don't even have a shower, just a few more bars by the tub. One had an accessible shower but no bars by the toilet or sink. It's a very, very "interesting" interpretation of accessibility.