2 minute poster talk at international conference in usa

Question

Could anyone please tell me what a 2-minute video of presenting a poster is?I am presenting a poster at an international conference in the USA. Should I set up a Zoom call, share my poster screen, and present my findings in a concise manner? Can I start like this? Have you imagined? Or do you know? Then my methodology and the gist of my results. Please suggest.

Answer 1

I had this same question from a local PhD student who was equally confused. They asked: "Why should I send a video of something I'm going to do on video live?", and "What do they want me to do, I cannot understand?" etc., and "Doing this once is stressful enough, without doing it twice for the same conference!"

The actual answer, which probably applies in your case, is that conference organisers have discovered that live online presentations which are as short as two minutes can be incredibly unreliable due to technical issues with the internet and with the equipment at either end, user difficulties not-withstanding! To ensure the conference goes smoothly it is sensible to have "backup" videos on file that were sent in advance by the presenter and used in the event of a malfunction on the day.

They are asking you to make such a backup video of the presentation you plan to make live using zoom. The back-up video would not be made using zoom. You can make it using facilities locally at your institution or on your own computer. I suggested to our student that they used the OBS Studio as it is a freeware, open source video application and quite simple to use, but your campus may have a licenced professional solution available to make teaching videos. You may want to check.

Of course you can ask the conference organisers what they mean, but in the case I cite, the conference organisers were equally confused by the multiple confused questions from our student and did not give coherent replies!