Category Archives: presentation

To video, or not to video?

“That is the question.”

(Apologies to anyone who has studied English Literature, at any level!)

With nearly everyone participating in more and move video calls, “to share video or not to share video” is, indeed, the question. When participating in an online conference, should the audience members share their video?

We have all attended loads of video conferencing calls over the last 15 months, and I’ve been no expectation to this. I attended two conferences recently, and one thing that struck me was whether the audience members have their cameras on.

When I’m running a training course or presenting, I really love to be able to see people’s faces – so I can see who I am talking to. Of course, I realise this isn’t always possible or something the participants want to do (either because of bandwidth limitations, not having a suitable home environment [although this is less of an issue with virtual backgrounds now] or many other reasons). Therefore when I am running a course I explicitly say at the beginning:
“If you can have your video on and would like to, please do. I really like to be able to see people. However if you have limited bandwidth, or another reason why you don’t want to share your video, that is fine as well.”
With this approach 9 out of 10 people usually put their video on and it makes it a much better experience for me (and, I think for them).

Participants in one of my training courses sharing their videos

I recently attended two conferences (AGILE 2021 and Coding in the Open), where only the people presenting shared their video, and the attendees did not. There have been many conferences like this, and at some conferences attendees do not have a choice (e.g. if you are using Zoom Webinar, the audience can not share their video).

However for these conferences, there was a choice (AGILE used a standard Zoom room, and Coding in the Open used Bluejeans). For AGILE, the organisers asked participants to turn on their cameras for a group photo! About two-thirds or so of people did turn their cameras on the for photo. However as soon as the photo was done, people turned their cameras off again.

Our AGILE group photo (1 of 2).

There seems to be an unwritten rule that the audience have their cameras off, and I have seen this is many other conferences as well.

The blank boxes (with names and initials removed)

Personally, I don’t really like this, as all you get to see of the other people on the call are black boxes. Yes, you can turn off the blank boxes, but if I am presenting, I like to be able to see who I am presenting to, and if I am in the audience, I also like to see who the audience are.

The other conference I attended was Coding in the Open, and this was run on Bluejeans. Here the attendees were asked to turn of their video because of bandwidth. This is often a worrying concern, and here around 150 had signed up for the free conference, and the organisers were very worried that 150 people joining the call with video might stretch the limits of the platform. In the end, typically we had 40-50 people in each session, so wouldn’t have been an issue.

This is a very common concern for organisers, and compounded by the fact that for free events, often only one third or one half of the people who sign up actually appear. The question then is how much capacity do you need for this event, with additional capacity often costing more money. This is a discussion for another time though.

I did a rough show of hands in the session, and it seems most people would prefer to see the audience, whether they are in the audience or the presenter. Additionally, most programs have the option of hiding the video of other participants, if that is what you prefer.

As an aside, it is worth mentioning that you can turn your own video off in most platforms, and apparently this has been shown to reduce tiredness. I’m not sure it makes a lot of different for me, but for some people it clearly does:

So if you think it might help you, give it a try!

I guess as we work out what the ‘new normal’ is, we will be creating new social rules and expectations for how we work, including in video calls. I would say please do share your video if you can – whether you are in a call of 2, class of 25 or lecture hall of 200. I think it makes all the difference to the person presenting!

Do share your experiences in the comments below and let me know what you think.

ESRC Research Methods Festival 2018

During the amazingly sunny weather a few weeks ago, I managed to spend a couple of days indoors, hiding from the sun at the ESRC Research Methods Festival at the University of Bath. Every 2 years, the National Centre for Research Methods have organised this conference to showcase unique and new methods from across the social sciences. The conference covered everything from ‘Multi-scale measures of segregation data’ and ‘Quantitative methods pedagogy’ to ‘Do participatory visual methods give ‘voice’?’ and ‘Comics as a research method’.

It was also fantastic to meet a range of academics and researchers who I would not normally meet. I met a number of people who I had communicated regularly with on Twitter, but never met in person before!

I was presenting in a session on ‘Multiscale measures of segregation data‘, where we were discussing different approaches to how deprivation can be measured across different locations. One of the major characteristics of grouped spatial data is the MAUP (Modifiable Areal Unit Problem), where the method used to group your data will have an impact on the results of any analysis. The session was a great collection of presentations, all of us looking at similar issues but often taking quite different methods to approach them.

I showed how using variograms based on the PopChange data set to look at spatial segregation can help avoid some of the impacts of imposing scales on the data, and instead use the data to tell us at what scales the variations are taking place.

Across the whole conference there was a range of content using scripting languages, and R and Python featured significantly across the board, to the surprise of some of the participants, including me:

Like most conferences, there were so many interesting sessions and it was often difficult to choose which track to attend! The keynotes were all thought provoking. Danny Dorling presented a range of interesting information on current levels of inequality in the UK, and warned us that it is likely to get worse before it gets better. Donna Mertens called on all of us to think about how our research can change things, and if it doesn’t, why not?

It was a great methods conference, and reminded me about how many different methods are out there. If you would like a chat about how using GIS could help with your research or work, please do give me a call on 01209 808910 or email at nick@geospatialtrainingsolutions.co.uk.

Cross-posted from http://www.geospatialtrainingsolutions.co.uk/esrc-research-methods-festival-2018/

GISRUK2015 and TravelOAC

I presented my work on TravelOAC at GISRUK this year, based at Leeds. The conference was great and it was a great opportunity to meet an incredible range of people involved in GIS, from engineers, historians, social scientists, spatial information scientists (as they like to be called!), mathematicians and, of course, geographers. We had a great crowd on Twitter as well (#GISRUK2015) who kept everyone up to date on proceedings, and I’d particularly like to mention @adjturner who has made his conference notes available online at . I was also involved in the GIS for Transport Applications workshop, which Robin has written up. Next year, we are at Greenwich, so see you there!

My slides and paper are available, and I have also written a post about how I created the cartograms I used in my work.

‘Hearing In’: Philosophical perspectives on sonification

I was invited to attend ‘Hearing In’ on Friday 10th October, a workshop organised by the Centre for the Study of the Senses, Institute of Philosophy, University of London. I was speaking about my work on sonification, alongside Chris Chafe (Stanford, US) and Paul Vickers (Northumbria, UK) and the aim of the workshop was to examine some of the theoretical challenges raised by sonification, and to explore the relevance of specific examples for our philosophical understanding of auditory and music perception. (Download programme, PDF, 53KB).

Chris Chafe showed us a wide variety of examples from his work as a musician, composing sonifications in collaboration with scientists and engineers. One of the areas he is interested in is whether a computer can be programmed to create human sounding music, with the hope this can aid our understanding of the creation of music. He also showed a range of installations, including a sonification of the ripening process of tomatoes and the tides.

My presentation was of my PhD work on sonification, evaluating ways of using sound to represent spatial data. I am very interested in how we combine sound with vision to represent additional spatial data, rather than using sound as a replacement for visual display of spatial data. The presentation is available below, and includes my PhD work with specific reference to my second case study on the UKCP09 (UK Climate Projections 2009) data set and how we could use sound to represent the uncertainty within this data set. I also discussed the conceptual model I have developed based on the results of my PhD, which is currently under consideration for publication. (Download presentation with multimedia, PowerPoint, 50MB).

Paul Vickers presented his work on the theory of sonification, considering how sonification compares with visualisation as a way of representing data. He adopted an approach of considering the semantics of the terms involved, highlighting the importance of the intent of the sonification designer and whether they wish the sonification to be a form of data communication, or a piece of work in itself (for example, as an art installation).

After each presentation and at the end of the workshop we had a wide ranging discussion of the issues mentioned by the presenters. It highlighted to me how much there is still to be done in understanding the theoretical side of sonification, including things such as the specific definition of what a sonification is, what it is not, and what the differences are between sonification and music. I believe Chris, Paul and I gave a fair overview of sonification to the Philosophy community, and that this is the beginning of a fruitful relationship between our communities.

Many thanks to Ophelia Deory for organising this event, to Barry Smith, Matthew Nudds and Emily Caddick for providing comments on our presentations, and to all the attendees to the workshop for providing a interesting and through provoking discussion.