One of the few glitches in the DAMOP meeting program was the way the poster sessions were run. For those from regions of academia that don’t do poster sessions, it’s pretty much what the name implies: rather than delivering short talks about their work, the presenters in the session prepare posters describing their work, and then stand near the poster to explain the results to people who wander by.
The problem with this specific poster session wasn’t so much a program issue as a space issue– the room the posters were in for the first two days had a large aspect ratio, being very long and narrow. It was actually sort of intimidating to look down the long line of poster boards, and it was extremely difficult to navigate the narrow space between posters, particularly when a crowd would gather around an especially interesting one.
On the third day, they moved into a different space, which was basically a warren of tiny little rooms. This was not an improvement– in fact, it may have been slightly worse, as it was down the hall and around the corner from the drinks, so a lot of people never even made it to the poster space.
The best space arrangement I’ve seen for a poster presentation was probably NCUR earlier this year, where they set the posters up not on long lines of parallel bulletin boards, but on a set of boards arranged into triangles, which were then placed in a regular array taking up most of the school gym. That allowed plenty of space for people to move around, and even when a crowd would form, there was still room to get past without having to physically shove people out of the way.
Of course, they screwed it up by distributing posters more or less at random, with no regard for the topic, making it really difficult to find anything. That’s not much good, either.
If you go to meetings with poster sessions, what are the best and worst poster experiences you’ve had?