Historically, condensed matter in the city has always encouraged interaction between the participants and the speaker and we leave a lot of time in each talk for audience questions – both throughout the talk and at the end. We aim to keep this tradition alive this year, but with the online format and more than 600 registered participants, this will only work if we all follow a few rules. These may be tweaked throughout the meeting to make sure it runs as smoothly as possible, so please watch this space!
- All registered participants will have been sent a link with the meeting link by email. Please don’t share this – if you know of somebody who hasn’t registered and would like to join the meeting, ask them to contact the organisers.
- The first time you join the meeting, you will have to enter your name and email. Please allow time for this, and also please aim to join the meeting 5-10 minutes before talks start.
- In the ‘coffee breaks’ between talks, we will send you to breakout rooms randomly. Unfortunately, the technology doesn’t allow you to move between rooms. You can use this time to meet new people. We also expect you will want to leave the computer during this time, e.g. to actually get some coffee. You can either switch your microphone/video off while you do this, or completely leave the meeting and rejoin when you return, whichever is most convenient for you.
- Please mute your microphones when not speaking to minimize background noise. And please remember to unmute when you wish to speak!
- Zoom seems to be more stable if there aren’t too many videos on at once. However it would be very helpful for the speaker for a handful of people covering the spectrum of the audience (from professors to students) to keep their video on during the talk to give some visual feedback.
- If you wish to ask a question during or after the talk, either use the ‘raise your hand’ button on zoom, or enter your question (or even just “May I ask a question”) into the chat. One of the moderators will then interrupt the speaker at a suitable moment and either ask the question for you or pass the floor to you. This is necessary to keep the meeting working smoothly. We particularly welcome questions from students, so don’t be afraid to put something in the chat.
- If you have any comments or suggestions about how this is all working, please contact the the organisers.
Many thanks for your attention, and enjoy the meeting!