A virtual seminar I gave at the Albert Einstein Institute at Potsdam a few days ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlZlj6_Y92s
A few comments on the topic of virtual seminars, which have become the norm over the past few weeks. Michal Heller invited me to give this seminar as a virtual seminar last year, well before COVID surfaced. The AEI group was ahead of the times and they were organizing virtual seminars as standard practice. I must admit that, at the time, I was slightly skeptical :-)
This is because, virtual seminars I’ve organized and attended in pre-lockdown days have usually involved a virtual speaker but a physical audience. This certainly doesn’t work as well as a physical speaker. For instance, it is not easy to ask a question from the audience. And there is information asymmetry. The speaker can’t see the audience too clearly but the audience-members can see each other. This matters a surprising amount because the physical audience has collective dynamics that the speaker can’t respond to. For instance, if one person looks skeptical or bored, others in the audience notice but the speaker can’t take note and modulate the talk.
But, things are completely different if everyone is in front of an individual screen. In many respects this works as well as a physical talk and, in some ways, even better: the slides are certainly clearer. And, of course, a significant advantage is that people from all over the globe can attend on an equal footing. This talk, for instance, had people from Japan, India, Europe, U.S, Argentina… There is even scope for informal discussion at the end of the talk if a few people remain behind. (And yet another advantage is that if the talk is boring, you can switch to doing other things without being rude and “leaving” the virtual room :-) )
I think there is something to be said, quite seriously, for sticking to this mode of organizing seminars and conferences even when COVID is gone.