A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always decisions, is the primary purpose of conferences. The term derives from the word confer.
The first known use of "conference" appears in 1527, meaning "a meeting of two or more persons for discussing matters of common concern". [1] It came from the word confer, which means "to compare views or take counsel". [2] However the idea of a conference far predates the word. Arguably, as long as there have been people, there have been meetings and discussions between people. Evidence of ancient forms of conference can be seen in archaeological ruins of common areas where people would gather to discuss shared interests such as "hunting plans, wartime activities, negotiations for peace or the organisation of tribal celebrations". [3]
Since the 1960s, conferences have become a lucrative sector of the tourism industry and have evolved into hundred billion Pound per year industry on a global scale. [4] The growth around the world, including in Great Britain, Germany, Philippines, United States and Australia, has led to conferences themselves becoming an industry with buyers, suppliers, marketing, branding and conference facilities. [4]
Modern conferences can be held to discuss a variety of topics, from politics, to science or sport. Many conferences are held on a regular periodic basis, such as annually, biannually (twice per year), or biennially (every other year).
With the development of communications technology, conference holders have the choice of replacing the physical meeting space with a telephonic or virtual form of meeting. This has resulted in terms such as a conference call or video conference.
Conferences can have various formats, topics and intentions.
A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure. Merriam-Webster's definition excludes legislatures.
Jargon or technical language is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a particular occupation, but any ingroup can have jargon. The key characteristic that distinguishes jargon from the rest of a language is its specialized vocabulary, which includes terms and definitions of words that are unique to the context, and terms used in a narrower and more exact sense than when used in colloquial language. This can lead outgroups to misunderstand communication attempts. Jargon is sometimes understood as a form of technical slang and then distinguished from the official terminology used in a particular field of activity.
A meeting is when two or more people come together to discuss one or more topics, often in a formal or business setting, but meetings also occur in a variety of other environments. Meetings can be used as form of group decision making.
An interview is a structured conversation where one participant asks questions, and the other provides answers. In common parlance, the word "interview" refers to a one-on-one conversation between an interviewer and an interviewee. The interviewer asks questions to which the interviewee responds, usually providing information. That information may be used or provided to other audiences immediately or later. This feature is common to many types of interviews – a job interview or interview with a witness to an event may have no other audience present at the time, but the answers will be later provided to others in the employment or investigative process. An interview may also transfer information in both directions.
A caucus is a meeting or grouping of supporters or members of a specific political party or movement. The exact definition varies between different countries and political cultures.
A contronym, contranym or autantonym is a word with two meanings that are opposite each other. For example, the word cleave can mean "to cut apart" or "to bind together". This phenomenon is called enantiosemy, enantionymy, antilogy or autantonymy. An enantiosemic term is by definition polysemic.
A concourse is a place where pathways or roads meet, such as in a hotel, a convention center, a railway station, an airport terminal, a hall, or other space.
Videotelephony is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real-time communication. A videophone is a telephone with a video camera and video display, capable of simultaneous video and audio communication. Videoconferencing implies the use of this technology for a group or organizational meeting rather than for individuals, in a videoconference. Telepresence may refer either to a high-quality videotelephony system or to meetup technology, which can go beyond video into robotics. Videoconferencing has also been called visual collaboration and is a type of groupware.
An academic conference or scientific conference is an event for researchers to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic or scientific journals and preprint archives, conferences provide an important channel for exchange of information between researchers. Further benefits of participating in academic conferences include learning effects in terms of presentation skills and “academic habitus”, receiving feedback from peers for one's own research, the possibility to engage in informal communication with peers about work opportunities and collaborations, and getting an overview of current research in one or more disciplines.
An unconference is a participant-driven meeting. The term "unconference" has been applied, or self-applied, to a wide range of gatherings that try to avoid hierarchical aspects of a conventional conference, such as sponsored presentations and top-down organization.
The chairman, also chairperson, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the group or organisation, presides over meetings of the group, and conducts the group's business in an orderly fashion.
Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to deliberate duplicity or propaganda intended to sway opinions.
In the lineal kinship system used in the English-speaking world, a niece or nephew is a child of an individual's sibling or sibling-in-law. A niece is female and a nephew is male, and they would call their parents' siblings aunt or uncle. The gender-neutral term nibling has been used in place of the common terms, especially in specialist literature.
In parliamentary procedure, the verb to table has the opposite meaning in the United States from that of the rest of the world:
In English, a curriculum vitae is a short written summary of a person's career, qualifications, and education. This is the most common usage in British English. In North America, the term résumé is used, referring to a short career summary.
The Cooperative Web or Co-Web refers to a browser-based platform that promises to replicate the power of face-to-face communications via web-touch without sacrificing the quality of human interactions. A Co-Web enabled situational application exploits direct high-definition video mixed with web based telepresence to further increase conversational productivity. The objective of the Cooperative Web is to enrich collaborative web meetings with a browser metaphor that supports simultaneous interactions between meeting participants.
A panel discussion, or simply a panel, involves a group of people gathered to discuss a topic in front of an audience, typically at scientific, business, or academic conferences, fan conventions, and on television shows. Panels usually include a moderator who guides the discussion and sometimes elicits audience questions, with the goal of being informative and entertaining. Film panels at fan conventions have been credited with boosting box office returns by generating advance buzz.
Sealioning is a type of trolling or harassment that consists of pursuing people with relentless requests for evidence, often tangential or previously addressed, while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity, and feigning ignorance of the subject matter. It may take the form of "incessant, bad-faith invitations to engage in debate", and has been likened to a denial-of-service attack targeted at human beings. The term originated with a 2014 strip of the webcomic Wondermark by David Malki, which The Independent called "the most apt description of Twitter you'll ever see".
Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online. In 2019, a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that doomscrolling can be linked to a decline in mental and physical health.