Posters, post-mix and post-keynote analysis

Straight after keynote came welcome reception and posters. I actually like the idea of the evening keynote leading straight into social/posters/exhibition, I just think you need the keynote to be something that really energises the event. Sure this one sparked a lot of post-keynote analysis but about the thing itself rather than the content. My patented keynote quality assessment measure - "if the only person talking to the keynote speaker at the social event is the person who introduced them....."

Anyway the posters and the exhibition were pretty good, the layout of the room required people to walk past the posters in order to get to exhibition and so they were really busy. All the posters were good, I found them useful, Peninsula College poster is one of the best ones I've seen in years. I took a pretty shaky picture of it with my phone, hope it is still there today and I'll try to get a better one. A little bit of time in the exhibition which is of course tiny but chatted to a few people. This is my first post merger european conference and it is still a little odd to be bumping into people from Sheffield, Oxford Brookes etc - but in a good way.

After the social, we went to dinner at the midland hotel with Demetra, Andy McGinn, Paul Grist, Louise (PR person), a really nice woman from Salford (feel bad though cos I can't remember her name) and a freelance guardian journalist. Great food, great conversation - though, of course, Paul wasn't going to let me get a meal without earning it - viva on the SHU AQR.

btw for those of you who like to play the "Bb staff conference memo" game - my prediction for the three "all Bb staff must weave the following into conversations with clients" bullet points are:

• reference the keynote, as in "you're right, it was just as Colin discussed...."
• the "o" word - Outcomes (post-yaskin the Bb Outcomes System remains as incomprehensible as ever but you've got to admire their stamina)
• Gordon Freedman...usually followed by "he's very clever, you know"

ok so here is an emerging idea for a game - if we were to have a "SHU staff conference memo" what three things should we be weaving in??

also (sorry, back to keynote for a minute) - the keynote title in the programme was "Employability and Skills: The Economic Imperative of Life-long Learning", on the day it had morphed into "HE in UK: Time for Change", my suggestion for a title would be:

"From Frankenstein to Einstein: how the Industrial Revolution is driving our voyage into the 21st century" (available with US subtitles)

emerging idea for game #2 - from the blog posts we make, how about we all have a crack at alternative titles. All are fair game - so far up for grabs are conference overall title (currently "Engaging Students, Engaging Communities"), keynote, poster sessions, even dinner

emerging idea for game#3 - no, out of ideas for now but still open to suggestions from you guys.