12 October 2024

Presenting to a pigeon

Poster session with pigeon walking near someone presenting a poster.
 

In big convention centers, it’s not unusual to find an interloper. Ben Filio wrote:

You’ve heard of presenting your research to a general audience now get ready for… pigeon #sfn2024

Little did he know.

 

This guy presenting his poster to a pigeon just won the whole conference #SfN2024

The photo is a screenshot I spotted from Doc Becca on Instagram, but I think the original “presenting to a pigeon” video might be from Jiaxin Cindy Tu. Watch with sound up!

Additional, October 14, 2024: The presenter has been identified

Thanks to Billy Wade, an undergraduate with Dr. Stephanie Grella at Loyola Chicago. Thank you, Billy, for giving us something to smile about!

03 October 2024

Palm-sized poster

Handouts of posters at conferences are not new. But handouts that are hand-sized, well... I haven’t seen that before.

Jake Wintermute shared this image, and wrote:

(T)his image makes me want to go to a conference where people exchange tiny posters with QR codes on the back to the full poster

While this might not be a viable conference format, I do think this could be a great networking tool. Most people make handouts the size of standard letter page. That’s still not very portable. Something like this – a bit bigger than a business card – is far more easily stashed in a purse, wallet, or pocket.

If you give it out before your poster session, it might be better than a business card because you are providing the potential viewer with a visual cue that will make it easier to remember as they walk through the aisles of the session.