 Hey there fellow astronomers, if you've watched any of my videos over the last couple of years hopefully you know that the theme of this channel is Science is people that astronomy and being an astronomer is about being part of a community And that's what entrances me about the double AS meetings every year the big winter meetings Especially that is the biggest form of community within the American astronomical community That comes together to celebrate and to share and to collaborate So there's an impetus for the community i.e. you and me the members who are going to this meeting and sharing our science It's on us to participate and to be part of making this meeting happen But just as important and something that I think doesn't get talked about or appreciated enough is the hard-working people who make these meetings happen so I am really grateful and Really excited to share with you a short chat that I had with Debbie Kowalski Who is one of the main people who makes the meetings happen? And I hope what really comes through is that Debbie represents one of a ton of people who've been working tirelessly Super hard for months to make this event happen. So with all that in mind, here's a chat with Debbie Kowalski from the double AS Hi, I'm Debbie Kowalski and I'm the director of exhibits and development at the American Astronomical Society and I've been working with the AAS since the early 90s Is this the most? Difficult meeting you've ever I mean you've been involved in a lot of winter meetings And I know this is like the big event you guys do every year Although you do a lot of things is not just the winter meeting, but is this is this the the most difficult? I wouldn't say it's the most difficult. It's every meeting has its own challenges This is this is definitely been this year has definitely been a challenge. I think the last summer meeting was difficult because we were completely thrown Into the unknown and we had to very quickly figure out what to do We almost canceled and I said no don't do that of a group of us that we're gonna find the solution and we Researched really quickly for some solutions that were out there. They were they were not a lot We came across some of you. We Found a platform called v-fairs. We were really impressed with it. They were using it for many Solutions for job fairs career fairs College fairs that kind of thing and they had just come into the virtual meetings Conferences. Yeah. Yeah, and it's something it's like a lifeline, right? Like Instead of just canceling. Yeah, so great. It was great for June and that was really good and Over the summer we did the DDA meeting But we learned a lot from these three meetings people were concerned about the networking wasn't happening Working as much The exhibitors didn't feel like they were being visited. I'm always so impressed with like how put together the exhibitor hall is like how Immersive and entertaining. I've been really enjoying the advancements of like I like the live stage that we have for like the iPoster Plus Last year. I thought that was really cool. I think there's even more things we could do You know to make that space more engaging and so I'm so and that's my favorite space in the whole meeting And so it's it's the piece that I'm gonna miss the most is like it's the it's the wander and chat And so I'm really curious. How do you envision, you know, five days of this meeting? How do you envision people like me getting up my my wander on and my chat? How am I gonna interact with these booths? What's that experience gonna be like? Sure So what we've done is we have given the exhibitors every tool They could possibly want to use to engage sure now it's a matter of people have to come You can chat with them over just a text chat in a group You can do a one-on-one chatting and then you can go into a video chat if you want with them Is that all through v-fairs? That's all through v-fairs and that is a that's their proprietary system Okay, and that was that's something we had in In the summer, but one of the other things that we've given every single exhibitor has a zoom room their own zoom account So it's always live their staff will be in there now They're not there from 11 in the morning until 6 30 at night They're gonna be designated exhibitor exhibit hall hours. Okay, so look at the block schedule figure out what when those are they're in the afternoons and everybody Those are the times to go to the exhibit hall and and you're gonna have they're gonna be fully staffed then So you can go into the zoom rooms. They're doing demos. They have breakout rooms within their zoom rooms They're doing meet and grease They have VIP sections So they'll have there'll be a daily schedule of all the activities that are going on all the booths Some some of the publishers have discounts some their contests going on star torielis is giving every single exhibitor a $25 gift card Um as a prize. So every exhibitor is going to be doing some sort of contest Um, and can I break can I break that news on this? Can I can I share that? Okay? Yeah, awesome. Yeah I'm not a torielis. That's great And um, so it's we're really trying to increase the traffic So you will be able to meet go into these zoom rooms and have conversations with with The exhibitors just like you would if you were on the floor and then we also have slack the slack channels are there So that there's conversation going on Whether you're you've left a session and you want more questions to the speakers or your Questions to the exhibitors or the exhibitors are posing questions to the attendees So it's a great way to do some of that networking and talking and Those just random conversations that people would have as they're walking out of a session to continue Um the topic that was going on Now I know we're trying to bend slack to our will like it's not the perfect tool for this scenario It's right. I mean like we're trying to use tools that we have and that are available and that people can download On all the different platforms that they're using but it strikes me as like an actual real opportunity that like Now there's a chat room that we I know we had the app before and there was some chat capabilities But it was pretty underused the chat capabilities of the app Now we've got a platform that almost everybody is familiar with or has seen or heard And it has like, you know a quarter of the entire double s membership or whatever is like in that slack channel Is that something that the double s is considering? Continuing moving forward into the back into the physical meetings. Hopefully next year Um, it can we expect this this slack channel to stay persistent like it's not just going to disappear in a month and all those conversations and those Those ideas that sparked aren't just going to evaporate well, we are definitely going to be taking a lot of the things that we've learned from the virtual platforms and um integrating them into the face-to-face meetings And we're also going to take some of the virtual the things that we've done in the virtual world and Do them on off times. Maybe we'll have workshops The reason we do so much at the winter meeting is because oh, we've got captive audience So let's do workshops. Let's do employment stuff. Let's do the career center. Let's do the grad school thing Which we're trying to do everything and people are just always overwhelmed. Yeah, and even it even at this virtual meeting We're doing I think at one point we have 28 parallel sessions. Wow. The good thing is though Everything's recorded. Yes. You don't have to say. Oh my god. I want to go to the session over here It's okay. You can still see the recorded Talks you can still participate in the conversation over slack See the questions that were asked and continue to ask questions to the author So the answer to your question is yes, we will take some of the components whether it's slack or some other chat pool Um, we will definitely do that. But of course everything comes with a cost. Yeah, right so, you know People love the idea that we'll be able to have a face-to-face meeting and there could be a virtual component of it I think the idea of recording it And making like a chat platform available seems really cool I'm really excited about that about trying to think about how the hack day for example integrates into the in-person meeting When it has a persistent slack channel or whatever For the whole week and maybe for the whole year Yeah, I agree. I think I think it's great. We can have conversations about while we're planning the meeting Yeah, as things are going on if we were all on slack. So I agree with you I think it's it's great. We'll take some of those ideas and And keep them going to to go back for a minute and go back to the exhibitor hall One of the other things that I think I mentioned this on the phone to you that really strikes me about what I love About double s and the exhibitor hall I've been to a few other meetings and like some comic book conventions and things And the exhibitor hall in a lot of other meetings is really focused on Selling things and like people do sell stuff. We have start toilet sales clothes Publishers sell books, but that's about it. There's not that much sales And I'm always struck at our meetings how You know, it's the observatories who are giving out pens and mouse pads and I mean right here Here's my nasa mouse pad from two years ago that's still sitting right here That's something that I really appreciate and I didn't appreciate it as much until I went to this other meeting that was all by our stuff by our books by our Whatever's and it's something that you know, it makes me doubly want to get people to engage with the exhibitors because they're not in it to sell you T-shirts, you know, I I'm really glad to have somebody from the double s have you to talk to And I really appreciate that point that these these exhibitors Um, these aren't just salespeople that these are these are part of our community I appreciate you saying all that because One of the things that is so important Um, is that they're scientists and they're scientists who want to talk to to the scientists And ask them what do you need? What do you need from our observatory? What do you need from our lab? What do you need from our missions? What can we do for you? They're there to serve our community So please take the time to go in and have these conversations with them go to their town halls There are 71 Exhibitor webinars. This is something newly started in june I wanted to give the exhibitors another venue to talk and what's really interesting especially for Undergrads and graduate students who are listening to this Um, the exhibitor webinars are a higher level talk So what's what's the distinction between a webinar and a town hall because I know some of the booths are going to have You know, like nasa is going to have various town halls and nsf will have a town hall So well, okay, so the town halls are agency-wide talk about everything that's going on at nasa in astrophysics It's the same idea they'd be talking about ast division the exhibitor webinars They have come up with specific topics. It could be Careers at aura had a right proposal for James Webb telescope that might be one of the ones that space telescope decided that they want to hold so in the in the itinerary planner Um, the schedule you can browse through them and you'll see that they're listed there They're only half an hour long They're 15 minute presentations and then there's 15 minutes q&a and they're supposed to be You know more informal. Can I ask about swag? Is there is there any thoughts for I mean, we can't just mail everybody They're a little bag of stuff. I guess, um, is that is there anybody doing swag? Like that's something else that I guess, you know, I'm not going to get my mouse pad this year Well, if if you register before december 1st You actually got a nasa the nasa calendar mail to you some of the exhibitors have Digital swag. Okay. So, you know ebooks or digital music or I know some of them have zoom backgrounds Things like that um, some of them are actually arranging and mailing swag to people So you definitely want to go and get contests, you know, enter whatever they're they're doing Some of them have giveaways Things like that. So you definitely want to stop by so that's how they're they're handling swag This go around one of the events that I the first events that we're going to be hosting are is the graduate school fair Right. Yes. I want to talk about that for sure because that's usually an event that I go and Uh, have to talk for two hours in front of all these people and it's it's such a a rushed thing But I notice you guys have a longer fare this year Yeah, we do have a long affair and we're actually This is one of the events that we are actually considering doing virtually Moving forward and doing it multiple times in the year. We have 42 Graduate schools and r.u programs represented. That's great. And um, they the Reps will be there. You can make appointments to meet with them for that sunday or any time during the week They also have the video chatting capabilities and applications and docs and videos and everything are in their booth Well, this goes back to I think what the one of the hidden benefits of having the slack, right is that now if you run into somebody quickly at the at the At the grad school fair, then you can interact for the rest of the week You can have that iPoster chat and then as the Faculty who are looking for new students and trying to recruit I don't have to rely on that one scrap of paper that might have gotten passed around people who written their names on it To express interest. I've got that chat history right on the slack. What are your hopes? What is going to be a success for you? What how or is this going to be like a How are you going to judge this as a success versus like, uh, we really missed it What do you think is going to be the the thing that's going to give you satisfaction? I think I will be satisfied if I hear from the exhibitors that people came and visited them and talked to them I would rather I don't want to hear that 2,000 people came by their booth. I want to hear that they had You know 200 people came by and they and they Had good questions. They have good leads. They're going to follow up with them and and New collaborations were formed. Okay people. There you go. Don't let Debbie down This is what this is all she wants is just go to the booths and have good conversations. That's all this is about go do it It really is. I mean, you know, they're there for you You know, even our publishers, they're not there to sell books. They're there to find authors ADS is there. They want to teach you how to use their tools They want you know, there there are to be there for the community. So Take advantage of them while you have a shot That is that is a great sentiment. That's what this meeting is supposed to be about Right. It's about the community. So Well, thank you very much. It was good to talk to you. See you soon