Stephen Downes

In a recent project I tried and tried to convince them to not do this, but after more than two dozen episodes their onlione seminars are still academics flipping thoughtheir slide decks, the exact sort of 'deadly online seminar' Alan Levin describes. And attendance is stuck in the single digits. So I totally endorse his advice here, and underline it with the recommendation that organizers heed this advice when it's given to them. Just one quibble: dinner parties. There were no dinner parties in my youth or even my adulthood. They were something some another more well-heeled demograpic did (you know, people with nice houses with dining rooms and all that). So advice like "organize it like a dinner party" is a kind of code where 'that demographic' is speaking to itself.