Thursday, May 28, 2015

NGS2015: Final Conference Thoughts

It's been almost two weeks since the conference. Reflecting, the conference was a lot of fun, and educational. It's a shame that there are so many good sessions to choose from, and one can't go to all of them. However, I am thankful for the syllabus. Every presenter provided two or four pages of material for their presentation - often outlines and additional resources. The combined material encompasses over 500 pages. There is, of course, a lot of information in a presentation that isn't included in the syllabus, but I am hopeful as I go through it I will find a lot of good resources and research advice from sessions I missed.

One idea for future conferences:

During the conference, I saw the masses of genealogists and wondered: Is there anybody here whose research intersects with mine? It was stated in the opening session that there were 2100 pre-registered attendees. What if: Pre-registered attendees were given the opportunity to enter surnames and locations of interest into an online computer application, which would then email those with matches? This shouldn't be difficult to code. Attendees would know beforehand that there was somebody they wanted to get together with and share notes.

(I checked the NGS website, and it appears this matching service isn't included in the benefits to NGS membership, which would be a nice benefit for members as well as conference attendees.)

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