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The Energetic Materials Group

January 2008

What are the responsibilities of the Speakers and Authors at the EMG annual meeting?

This summary provides a few of the institutional, professional and social rules and etiquette responsibilities of the speakers and authors. Since the EMG Annual Meeting is a professional/technical international meeting, speakers are expected to be mature, professional, and practice proper social etiquette. For 90% of the authors, this is nothing new, and they adhere to these simple norms with excellence. I want to thank you for your hard work, practice, and professional demeanor. I look forward to future presentation.

Sometimes, life happens and a speaker must cancel. It is that speaker’s responsibility to arrange for an alternate speaker to present the paper at the EMG Annual Meeting. It is also the responsibility of the speaker to notify the session chair or co-chair about the change, immediately. The range of solutions is only limited to the imagination, innovativeness and agreements among the speakers, alternate speakers, session chairs and co-chairs. This greatly helps the chairs in planning the sessions and ensures a smooth flow of papers at the assigned times in the sessions. If an alternate speaker cannot be found to present at the EMG Annual Meeting, or the alternate speaker cannot present the paper, and the presentation must be cancelled, it is the responsibility of the speaker to notify the session chair/co-chair immediately. This is absolutely necessary so the session chair can make the necessary changes to the session. This needs to be done weeks or months prior to the session.

Now onto the hard part of this summary. If a speaker fails to notify the session chair of the cancellation in a timely manner, or just does not show up, then this adversely affects the session, leaving gaps in the presentations, disrupting the schedule of presentations, greatly disappoints the attendees who travel to hear the speaker, and greatly upsets the other speakers, chair/co-chair, and officers of the EMG, Particle Technology forum, and the AIChE. The author has violated institutional, professional and social rules and etiquette responsibilities. It reflects poorly on the author’s character, and is noticed by everyone in the session and the EMG annual meeting. Needless to say, the EMG is willing to work with the speaker/authors to avoid this incident and resulting embarrassment.

The EMG greatly appreciates the authors and speakers who operate in a professional manner.

Bruce Cranford
Charles Painter
Dilhan Kalyon
Chester Clark

1/22/2008