The great conference call checklist

To travel is to be free. It is to seek out like-minded scientists and share in their expertise… unless the lab’s travel budget is cut – in which case you’ll have to make do with the dreaded conference call. But fear not, Matthew Partridge has a few tips to liven up this often awkward process…

Research budgets are being squeezed everywhere. We are all suffering cutbacks in vital areas such as capital equipment spending, salaries and the quality of office biscuits.

Often the target of the cut back is determined by the age old management technique of cutting the thing that management is most confused by. But some things are nearly universal targets for cuts ­­– one of the first things to get squeezed is travel.

Travel in research has many purposes from meetings with collaborators, attending conferences, even travelling very quickly away from a place that you fear may be about to be spread very thinly over a wide area. And it's very easy to cut these travel expenses and see immediate savings both in staff travel time and in some cases the number of surviving staff.

Of course these meetings often still need to happen. Science is very very hard to conduct without talking to peers or suppliers. In most cases the simple solution to this is to move meetings from the real to the virtual with the use of conference calls. And like it or not conference calling is rapidly growing as way of running projects and meeting potential collaborators.

But, as horrible as this trend is, I think it's important to take the time to focus on some of the positives of conference calls so that we can all embrace this rising trend in 'communication'.

Telecommunitips First off, we have the technology. Right now on my computer I have 4 separate conference call software packages installed while I sit here with a mobile phone in my pocket and a lab phone next to me. They all have their issues, software tends system have compatibility issues, mobile phones have reception based on wind direction and landline phones suffer from squirrels. But starting a conference call by spending 10 minutes waiting for everyone to coax their squirrel of the wiring and a further 10 minutes trying to get one person's microphone to work is an important part of the experience – lets call it an ice breaking exercise.

Secondly, all this technology allows new and exciting possibilities during a conference call. Mid meeting you can hit the mute button and happily munch on some cake. Or if you're with a colleague you can use the mute button to add mad-libs to some of the things other people are saying. As they talk, hit the mute button and add you own sarky remark much the amusement of your colleague. A variant of this is where you only pretend to hit the mute button and let you colleague say something sarky to entire call. It's not very enjoyable for them but everyone else will love it.

Thirdly, I think it's important to remember that face to face meetings have a hidden cost, clothing. In real life meetings you have to look presentable and after some awkward meetings I've discovered that charity shop Hawaiian shirts don't fulfil that. Conference calls (which are often audio only) allow you more freedom to dress how you want, free of the anxiety of having to 'dress up'. Embrace this and attend your next conference call dressed up as a Disney princes and you'll be amazed how relaxed about it you'll feel.

Finally, I think one big advantage with conference calls is that you can always sound much more knowledgeable than at regular meetings. Being able to say "sorry didn't catch that" three times is perfect for buying enough time to google the answer and then read out the wikipedia page, which is to be honest exactly what I'd do after the meeting anyway.

[caption id="attachment_39565" align="alignnone" width="200"] Dr Matthew Partridge is a senior Research Fellow at the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton but describes himself as a biochemist who has accidentally ended up working with optical sensor systems.[/caption]