European BigLEM / Laserist Conference 2012

[masterpj]

Have the requirement speaking english for the EU LEM, people should speak english in public, even when not that much relevant, that way people who don't speak your language can still join in the fun and don't have a disadvantage or gets or gets a bit shoved to the side.

Incase you really don't know how to say something properly than off course you can ask an other member or say it in your langauge if the other member speaks the same
but even try to have those conversations in english too.

[Stoney3K]

arf...a conference in english..you must know it's not easy to everybody to understand english, so for a conference, it will be hard to follow..so, yes, I prefer an "anormal 'LEM' context"...where we can have a beer, discuss, exchange..
(I don't post only for me, but also for some french reader who read the forum everydays and don't post due to their english..)

There is nothing to restrict people from having a beer in the venue bar/lounge or firing up one of their projectors to tinker with in one of the 'labs' if they want. That's one of the things I planned to keep in the event from the beginning.

All central conference activities (keynotes, talks workshops) will be in English, to keep the international context of the conference up. I've been to a lot of science fiction conventions where the central presentation was in Dutch, German or (gulp!) French, which rendered some of the activities pretty much useless for people coming from the UK, North America or other English-speaking countries.

If someone wants to attend who doesn't understand or speak English, there will probably be someone to help him or her out. At FedCon we have special volunteers called 'confishes' (inspired by Douglas Adams) who have a dedicated duty of playing translator.

I've been involved in organising this conference last year, just to give an impression on the idea for the keynotes:

[masterpj]

Good solution

[mccarrot]

I prefer an "anormal 'LEM' context"...where we can have a beer, discuss, exchange..

I have to agree with Michael,

I also rather have a normal LEM context.

Also who do you think who will speak for the crowd? a hobbyist who build his first laser? I don't think so. So my guess is it will be the big companies trying to sell there stuff. I'm not interested in this.

[masterpj]

I do have to agree with that.
But for now Il just keep an eye out on the progress

[Stoney3K]

I have to agree with Michael,

I also rather have a normal LEM context.

Also who do you think who will speak for the crowd? a hobbyist who build his first laser? I don't think so. So my guess is it will be the big companies trying to sell there stuff. I'm not interested in this.

I would personally see little added value of taking a normal LEM and scaling it up to cover the entire European continent. If you scale up the LEM concept straight, you will probably create an atmosphere of anonymity instead of bringing people togetherl.

There is nothing that will keep the 'normal' LEM context from this event. When you look at the talks for HAR2009, all of them were run by the community and the entire focus is on exchange of information. The talk you did at the Eindhoven LEM yourself is a good example on what the talks for this event could be -- an introduction to laser safety, a how-to on building your first projector, tips and tricks on creating a good laser show, topics like that.

The open context means there will be a call for papers in which anyone can send in an abstract. Only on the very large conferences there will be rejected papers, and most of the time that's because of scheduling concerns, not because papers are not 'good enough'.

I'm afraid that the 'bigLEM' concept will collapse under its own weight if there are no main happenings to sustain it. People will stay away and possibly fall back to their local LEMs which are easier to organise on short notice.

[mccarrot]

I'm afraid that the 'bigLEM' concept will collapse under its own weight if there are no main happenings to sustain it. People will stay away and possibly fall back to their local LEMs which are easier to organise on short notice.

I agree with this,

But maybe we first have to look for speakers, because I think we will a hard time finding them.

You can put me on the list of speakers, I have made some nice tool to test a show for safety I can talk about.

[masterpj]

Looking forward to it.
And as a bonus I might learn alot of things from it too

[Stoney3K]

Looking forward to it.
And as a bonus I might learn alot of things from it too

I believe that's the entire point of an event like this. Social interaction is important in its own right, but not enough to warrant a large (1000-1500 visitor) conference like that.

If people get the chance to learn new things, listen to interesting talks and see some spectacular laser shows, they would be more inclined to go to the conference just for the fun of it.

[mccarrot]

[QUOTE=Stoney3K;176421.... but not enough to warrant a large (1000-1500 visitor) conference like that.....
[/QUOTE]

I think you need to get every single true laserist on this planet and beyond to get to this number.

My guess is you will have between the 50-100 people attending max.