Final Thoughts

Coming to the end of the Conference, I thought that I would be in a better position to give an overall impression o the past four days, in terms of the conference was concerned. The single word review would have been - "efficient". First of all, let me be clear here, I would not be discussing the educational value of what I learned here in this entry. That would be boring.

First of all, the talks were cut into 25 minutes chunks in a symposium format around a single topic. The whole symposium was 90 minutes max, with the speakers taking questions at the end. There were up to eight session running concurrently, so one can pick their topic of interest and turn up at the assigned hall. The 25 minutes really kept my focus - that was how long my concentration level was. I dis not have time to fall asleep. Everything just snapped past really fast.

The venue was huge, but well signed and very well staffed. All the staffs there wore bright uniforms for easy identification and they always knew the answer of what we wanted to know. There were plenty of then around as well to direct the delegates. The signs started from where we alight the train to come to the venue, not just at the venue.

Since the pace of the meeting was fast, there were no such thing as long introduction of the speakers. It helped when they were world-renowned. Tree was no ceremonial speech prior, even during the opening ceremony. The opening was essentially a welcoming speech by the Congress President. It was done in 15 minutes. At the end, there were no such things as gifts or survenir. Quick in, quick out. All was done. In Malaysia, we had to welcome the VIPs, corsages included of course. Then give them a huge take-aways to thank them for turning up, as if they contributes to science! A waste of time.

Next, there was plenty of space! There were cafe everywhere, so getting yourself filled up, was never an issue. There was free, superfast internet for anyone with a device as well as free terminal available for everyone else. This time around, following the FDA cutback on gifts from the Pharma company, none of the Pharma booth were giving away freebies. There were free coffees though, served by proper barristas.

Unfortunately, for such a modern place the AV system at the venue was actually rather backwards. Slides were blurry, and sometimes, the speakers were having issues getting the right slides or advancing them. one of the speakers actually brought his own Mac, and it took about 5 minutes of fiddling before he could start his lecture. The system only work well if the slides were pre-loaded. Some of the rooms were too small for concurrent sessions. The organisers prepared an overflow area for live cast of the talk, but there were often lag and interference. They could have definitely done better here. Find a big enough venue for the concurrent sessions for a start.

Lunch was a typical western affair, sandwiches, crisps and yoghurt. You just bring your lunch pack into the lecture rooms for the lynch debate, so all the time, there were hardly a break in terms of educational program. There was a common prayer room, but no place for wudhu'.

All in all, we still have much to catch up in terms of optimising a packed program such as this. We can definitely do it as we had venues and equipment. The problem usually lies in underestimating the task of organising such event. We must do without the pomp and the habit of long unnecessary speech by the obligatory VIPs, as well as having a budget just for their survenirs, let alone giving them away.

Day 2

We finally concluded the Conference program just after 5.30 pm. I have to confess that the last hour or so was an absolute agony. Some of the lectures were right over my head, and I can see delegates around me booting up their laptop to surf, or just simply nodded off. I caught up with today's notes and tried to decipher them, failing miserably. Enough brain wave for the I thought. Next plan, get dinner.

It was still bright outside when we caught the taxi back to the hotel. The non-Moslems decided to venture into Chinatown for a proper dinner. Myself and the other Malays in the group went for a kebab at Bayswater, and I decided to split up right after.

Sat in front of me was THE Jeff Szer, a prominent transplanter from Melbourne.Alone, I went to the Apple Store at Regent Street to get the iPhone sleeves Anita ordered. Lucky for me, I managed to get some. There you go. I made history of shopping at an actual Apple Store and being served by an actual Apple Genius!

Unfortunately, it started to drizzle outside. So I had to cut short my planned evening stroll around West End. There would always be tomorrow night of course.

Day 1

So, the first order of business today was to get the registration out of the way. Luckily, after woken up in the middle of the night last night, I was able to get back to sleep after a couple of hours. Woke up this morning, and was full of energy. Unpacked, got the ironing done, answered the emails and headed down for breakfast.

After congregating with the rest of the group, we took a cab to the exhibition centre, 10 minutes away.

The exhibition centre, dubbed the ExCel, was a typical converted warehouse building, impressively big and was more than suitable as a venue with its huge hangar-like hall. Walking from one hall to another took a good 5-10 minutes, but the good thing was everything was under one roof and we did not need to go outdoors at hall.

The registration included discount cards for travel to Central London, as well as a delegate bag which included the abstract book which weighed easily 2 kg. It has a companion CD ROM dual as well, so the 2 kg documentation package would head straight to the bin.

The rest of today would be filled with satellite symposium. I planned to stay until luck, before heading back to the hotel to leave the bags and Mac Air. I would then head to Central London to do some shopping as I was not able to yesterday or the rest of the week. Will blog later then.

And yes, we get free fast Internet at the Conference Center as well!