Hank Stommel once remarked to me that there are four major stages in the life of a meeting-goer: 1. in the early stages of one’s career, you try to attend every possible technical session and to listen to every possible paper and discussion because your goal is hitting the subject broadly, not missing anything that might indicate good research directions, and finding out who all those people are whose names you have been reading in journals; you are especially excited by those speakers and posters that show the excitement and enthusiasm of the presenter, for their attitudes are infectious;

Briscoe, M.G. 1993. Third Biennial Scientific Meeting of The Oceanography Society: A personal view. Oceanography 6(1):31-33, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1993.21.

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