Conference – a meeting of representatives of any organizations, groups, states, as well as individuals, scientists to discuss certain issues.
Types of conferences
Scientific conferences
Echo conferences
Web conferences
Video conferences
Conference call
Business conferences
Press conferences
Scientific conferences – a form of organization of scientific activity, in which scientists (rarely students) gather to discuss issues related to a particular topic. By its status, the conference occupies an intermediate position between a seminar and a congress.
Types of scientific conferences:
Scientific and theoretical conference
Scientific and practical conference
Scientific and technical conference
Echo conferences (echoes) are a form of public communication of people in the Fidonet network. Fidonet is a non-profit amateur network – a mostly self-managed community in which coordination of actions and conflict resolution is carried out by elected and/or appointed coordinators in accordance with the Fidonet Policy and other documents (in this paper the structure of coordinators is considered by the author only in connection with their relationship with echo moderators).
Echoes are publicly available streams of messages of a certain subject, transmitted from system to system.
Web conferencing – technologies and tools for online meetings and real-time collaboration over the Internet. Web conferencing allows you to conduct online presentations, work together with documents and programs, synchronously view sites, video files and images. In this case, each participant is at his workplace at the computer.
Web conferences, which provide “one-way” broadcasting of the speaker and minimal feedback from the audience, are called Webinars.
Videoconferencing is a branch of information technology that provides simultaneous two-way transmission, processing, transformation and presentation of interactive information at a distance in real time using hardware and software of computers.
Conference call is a service (function, service) of communication that provides the possibility of simultaneous telephone communication of three or more subscribers (interlocutors).
Conference calls are used for group discussions, meetings or negotiations in cases where the interlocutors do not have the opportunity to meet in person, as well as in cases where one problem needs to be discussed with several telephone subscribers at once.
The use of conference calls can significantly save time resources, as a result of which this service has become widespread in the world.
Press conference – an organized meeting of journalists with representatives of companies, organizations or individuals, held in cases when there is a socially significant news, and the organization or individual famous person directly related to this news, want to give their comments on this news, which would be interesting and important for the public.
Press conferences:
are organized to provide the media with problematic information and comments;
are characterized by the possibility of obtaining first-hand information, verifying information and clarifying versions with the help of questions.
Usually during a press conference its participants answer questions of journalists directly or indirectly related to the topic of the press conference.
Business conferences are events that are organized by a non-profit association, individually, a thematic publication or a private company for its partners, for educational purposes or to discuss various business-related topics, and are characterized by a wide range of speakers.
They can also be organized by both non-profit and commercial organizations. The latter in this case are often called conference companies.
Business conferences are often held in special centers or larger hotels with conference facilities.
The corporate market of conferences can be divided into three categories: conferences of scientific nature, conferences of trade and economic nature, conferences of members of associations that unite people by different “interests”, for example, sports, clubs, etc.
When preparing a conference, it is necessary to carefully approach the choice of the place of its holding, taking into account, first of all, the motives, as well as the motives of a technical nature (place of plenary and group meetings, technical equipment and level of service – translators, protocol officers, secretaries-stenographers, etc.) An important role in the conditions of danger is played by security issues.
If the conference is held in several stages, different venues may be determined.
The complexity and multidimensionality of the tasks set before the conference, the search for ways to balance the interests of the parties participating in the conference, determine the multi-stage nature of its preparation. Preparatory work is usually carried out during multilateral or bilateral consultations. The conference is held in three stages: determination of the general objectives of the conference, preparation of documents, their discussion.