Of Skype and Long Distance Presentations

Way back when, I submitted a paper to the 2012 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM  2012) conference. The major reason for this is that my advisor was on the organizing committee, and he wanted to go to Turkey. I submitted the paper, and while it was not accepted to the main conference, it was accepted to the First International Workshop on Semantic Social Network Analysis and Design (SSNAD). My advisor was invited to give the keynote presentation for the workshop and agreed to present our paper. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, my advisor came down with a stomach virus and was not able to attend the workshop in person. But the workshop organizers graciously agreed to allow him to present his keynote by Skype. At the same time, they agreed to allow me to present our paper the same way. My advisor created a Camtasia movie of his keynote in case the Skype connection wasn’t adequate.The downside is that the workshop is at 1:30 PM Istanbul time, which equates to 6:30 AM Sunday for those of us on the eastern seaboard of the US. I’m listening to teh keynote as I write this.

Skype is working, but they can’t get the audio to work on the Istanbul end. But they have established a good audio connection. The Camtasia move has come in handy. I’m not sure how my presentation will go, but I supposed we’ll see. If nothing else, it will be an interesting experience.