Our Second Live Event

Reviewed by Mike Hoye / 2022-09-26
Keywords: Lightning Talks

We've wrapped up the Never Work In Theory track at Strange Loop, just announced to be the second last Strange Loop there will be. Dr. Brittany Johnson-Matthews, the primary organizer of our part of that show, did some excellent work to get us here, including choices about who to reach out to and what they might present. You'll see the results of that when the talks start coming online on the Strange Loop YouTube channel. For my part, getting our presenters ready to talk to a practitioner audience (a very different crowd than other academics) was some the most rewarding work I've done recently.

Our presentation track was on its own a success: well attended and well received by the audience despite the stiff competition you're always find at a conference like Strange Loop (as though there are any conferences like Strange Loop). But the presentations themselves were only part of our goals: success was also kickstarting conversations to put research in the hands of practitioners who need it and give researchers a better idea of what questions to try to answer. We still need to set up a formal debriefing from our participants, but all of them talked about how strange and amazing it was to have people pulling them aside and asking them how they could follow up, how to get in touch, and how to get involved.

It will take time for these conversations to bear fruit, but I think that Never Work in Theory is a success not only as a format, but as an idea. I think we'll have to do this again soon…