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?
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Oy, worst one I ever went to was in a room that was about half the size it needed to be... and about 10 degrees too warm! Add to that, the size of the individual posters was atypical, with portrait-format (3 feet wide, as high as you like) rather than landscape-format (6-feet wide, 4 feet high) space. So you had way too many sweaty scientists crammed together looking at posters, a significant portion of which were overlapping the poster next to them because academics can't be bothered to read instructions.
I strongly recommend the poster seesion at Cold Spring harbor in the Summer. Many high quality posters, too many people, split into different buildings, hot and humid (good chance of drenching downpours, which makes it difficult to change buildings and stay dry), but did I mention the excellent science?
Poster sessions for me these days are either Neuroscience - 20K posters over six days! - or the ADA, which does them well but has (i) fewer - maybe only 3K? - and alas (ii) very few people attending because it's so clinically focussed. Both have a decent handle on spacing, I think, but have few (no) breaks in the long lines, so that a crowd at one can cause both blockages and inability to see those adjacent. For N'Sci, probably unavoidable, just because of volume, but that's why I'm trying to hit smaller conferences - which also tend to be better at fitting in my slightly oddball research foci into sessions that make at least some sense. Over the past couple of years I've been scheduled *really* oddly a couple of times at the big conferences :(.
Poster sessions seem to always be designed rather well, until you put in the people.
New twist here at the Rochester meeting. Serious lack of push pins, but the real fun was the poster boards were a bunch of smaller ones put together into a 20 yard sheet, and they were on WHEELS. Push the pin, push the poster board into the presenter behind you......Oh yeah, and last week they emailed us and told us the poster size had changed, to favor a vertical format. Luckily there seemed to be enough room, as nobody had reprinted things.
Also, don't laminate your posters. Print shop lady convinced me too, only a buck, it'll protect it blah blah blah. After you roll one of those up for travel, its like a damn spring. I needed about 5 pins/tacks on each corner plus various other ones, for a 3' x 4" poster.
The American Geophysical Union does poster sessions as well as could be expected for a meeting its size. Availablilty of beer in the afternoon helps.
The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) has sponsored some of the worst poster sessions I've seen--drawing a poster in that meeting is comparable to being sent to Siberia. There is often no dedicated time for poster viewing, and locations are awkward. Last July in Beijing (which has a similar climate to Washington DC and smog to rival LA at its worst) the poster session was scattered over four floors (the corresponding oral sessions were on floors one and two) in hallways that had neither air conditioning nor adequate ventilation. I tried twice to look at some posters on the fourth floor, and both times I bailed out within five minutes. Six years earlier in Warsaw, at least the posters were on the same floor as some of the oral sessions, but they were scattered through the hallways of the venue.
Does DAMOP set aside time for poster sessions at least? Even though the layout is fine, I think the APS March Meeting poster session is the worst ever, because it overlaps with the roughly 40 parallel sessions going on all the time. So even though there are 8000 or so physicists at the meeting, I'd bet there are some posters that do not get a single serious visitor. And much of the work presented in 10 minute talks would be much better done in a poster, if there could be time for people to look at the posters.
Down the hall and around the cornor from the drinks would never fly at AAPG or GSA. Both of them, in my limited experience, had the posters at one end of the exhibt hall, making acess easy. The AAPG one I presented in (several years ago) was laid out really well with the posters (up to 3 8'x4' sheets) in groups of 4 back up to each other (making a X of sorts). This made it easy to get around and easy see the posters. GSA last year was laid out in slightly too narrow rows with not enough breaks to jump rows. There also was almost no space between the poster boards - a gaggle at on poster made it hard to see the ones next to them. At least GSA does have time before and/or after the oral sessions when the posters are still up.
I don't think I'd like a vertical/portrait layout. It would be very hard to read. While officially you may be able to go up to 8' tall, no one would ever look at the top. Plus, any poster that needs to go from one conference to the next wouldn't fit.
Push pins? You were provided push pins. I had to check mine and hope my luggage didn't get lost. This year's AAPG was velcro only. Do you know how many strips of velco it takes to secure a poster? You will find out.