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ChristianKl comments on Are conferences an inefficient/terrible discussion forum (in addition to academic papers)? - Less Wrong Discussion
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A conference I recently attended was extremely helpful to my research. I met several scientific grandaddies of my research topic who started the field out years ago that collectively raised important questions that I had not been considering and subsequently addressed in my work, and drew my attention to longstanding sticking points in the field that I altered my approach towards in order to incontrovertibly put to rest. Meeting these people and others also has given me a number of new contacts working on similar topics that will not ignore cold emails and allowed me to see some of their raw data and validate my techniques.
It gave me a great idea about the state of the art in cell biological techniques and ways our lab could improve.
It also introduced me to a number of widely-flung ideas that I would not have considered on my own which I have been following A - out of interest for my own research, B - for purposes of thinking about changing tracks after I graduate, and C - out of personal fascination for the topics.
Do you attribute the main information exchange to have happened in formal discussion (things on the agenda) or to chatting more informally?
Both were important. Formal discussions and things on the agenda were great for seeing the general state of the art and how people were doing things and how our lab could improve, as well as going through the list of sessions and saying 'oh wow that looks fascinating' and getting exposed to new ideas. But my own research got the most direct benefit from unstructured talking with other researchers and people seeing my name and research on the list of posters and coming by to talk, and vice versa.