Saturday, September 1, 2012

#VirtualAPSA2012 Recap

. Saturday, September 1, 2012



My panel went today. We had a last-minute cancelation so there was just two of us. The video is above (I start at around the 14 minute mark), and my slides are below.

It was a fun experience overall. There are a few kinks that need to be worked out, especially with the audio, but the setup was relative easy (thanks to Luke Perez and free technology).

Comments welcome. As the paper is still in draft version I haven't posted it online yet, but I'd be willing to make it available upon request.
Winecoff_2012_VirtualAPSA

6 comments:

LFC said...

The audio for your presentation (at least the first 15mins or so, which is what I listened to) was fine. Audio for some of the rest, e.g. at the very beginning, was very problematic and echo-y.

I probably just didn't listen closely enough, but what exactly are the banks etc. over-complying with? Rules about how much capital they have to keep on hand, imposed post-crisis? Sorry for such an elementary question...

Kindred Winecoff said...

Precisely. Capital adequacy requirements set at both the international and domestic levels.

I debated whether to include a more technical discussion in the talk, but I was told to keep it within 10 minutes and because I had a feeling that most folks watching would need a fairly long introduction to the technical concepts I decided to keep it fairly general. I'm not sure I did that successfully, but that's what I was trying to do.

LFC said...

No, I don't think you needed a more technical discussion in the talk. You were coherent and fairly easy to follow, which is good (better than the opposite, i.e. incoherence :)).

The context of this talk -- a 'virtual' mtg in the wake of the storm, a couple of other grad students -- encouraged and called for some informality. But I think if this had been the 'real' APSA, you might have wanted a somewhat tighter intro, not more technical but a bit more initial clarity on the precise question, etc. As it was, what I remember most was your story of entering grad school just as the financial crisis hit, which is fine for this informal setting, but at the real mtg it might have detracted if you'd led with that. You could still work it in, but maybe not right up front. Anyway, that's my two cents; other people may well disagree. (And your previous experiences w presenting may contradict this, so...)

I have some but not a huge amt of experience w conferences (don't go to them at all regularly or in recent yrs) so I can't claim to be giving expert advice, exactly. But on one of the rare occasions when I was at APSA some yrs ago, I happened to walk out of a panel at the same time as a senior scholar (whom I will not name here), who was complaining that the grad student who was presenting at the time was going on too long. (In that particular case, the senior scholar was right.)

Which leads to a last piece of (non-expert) advice: as you prob. know from experience, most people who are told to keep to 10 mins go over 10 mins and the chair ends up having to basically tell them they're done (by handing them slips of paper) or else the chair does nothing, which is worse. I think you will make yourself *very popular* if, when told to keep within 10 mins. or 12 mins., you actually do so. Keohane or someone like that can talk for as long as he wants, but a grad student's obeying the limits will be appreciated. I am not saying you ran over that much here - I didn't listen to the entire thing.

I hope I'm not sounding condescending, which is not my intent at all. Just offering some off-the-cuff advice.

Kindred Winecoff said...

Nope, points well taken. The panel I was scheduled to be on all at APSA featured folks who knew what I was talking about, so no throat-clearing and no lit review and I could've jumped into the technical stuff more quickly. So I changed it a decent bit for the sake of the changed audience.

(Also, due to contingent circumstances, I didn't have a chance to practice at all. I actually finished my slides about 5 minutes before the webcast started, and only arrived in town about 30 minutes before it started having had very little sleep. So I was winging it to some extent, although I knew what I hoped to say.)

I've had it instilled in me to keep to the 10-12 minutes, which I think I did in this talk. I've also had the experience of folks droning on too long, and I know it grates (esp if it's a grad student). At least, it grates me.

LFC said...

OK, I get it about the changed audiences.

And considering the little sleep and no practice, pretty darn good. :)

LFC said...

P.s. I have just replied to you on Vietnam at my blog. I really don't see the pt in refighting the Vietnam war but given your comment I felt, after a while, that I cd not let it stand unanswered.

#VirtualAPSA2012 Recap
 

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