REGULAR ISSUE
TOS B i e n n i a l S c i e n t i f i c M e e t i n g M i a m i , F l o r i d a A p r i l 2-5, 2 0 0 1
Melbourne G. Briscoe TOS Secretary Eric O. Hartwig TOS President-Elect
Top Photo: Front row: Munk Award Winners Bob Spindel (left) and Rob Pinkel (right), with Walter Munk (center);
Back Row: TOS President Jim Yoder (left) and TOS Past- President Ken Brink (right).
Right Photo: Captain Dan Schwartz says, "These glasses work better than my bi-focals!"
The Oceanography Society (TOS) meetings, starting with the inaugural meeting in Monterey in 1989, have become recognized for their unique non-concurrent plenary sessions followed by contributed posters designed to highlight specific science results relevant to the plenary sessions. The plenary session talks are designed for interdisciplinary audiences to excite and interest the broad spectrum of scientific and technical expertise within the oceanographic community.
It was an article of faith in the formation of TOS in 1988 that the community would place high value on overt interdisciplinary talks designed to tutor, to synthesize, to review, and to explain the excitement of one branch of oceanography to listeners from the other
branches. In fact, this has worked out well and it is indeed being valued. But it was another article of faith that people would come to meetings to hear such talks, and then take the opportunity to talk with each other on the various interdisciplinary presentations. TOS believed that oceanographers needed an opportunity to hear major presentations on complex scientific subjects and use posters for presenting short individual research topics with plenty of "face time" available at the posters to have in depth discussions on each researcher's individual research. Thus, the generic TOS meeting format with plenary, not parallel sessions, and lots of opportunity for discussion around posters, at breaks, at meals and in the hallways.
48 Oceanogrophy • Vol. 14 • No. 2/2001
Right Photo: Ryan Sharp and his poster on Early Detection of Tropical
SeaWinds derived Vorticit~
Bottom Photo: Dana Yoer~
audience to use their 3-D g
"Deep Seafloor through the
TOS met in Miami in April in an experiment designed to hold to our f u n d a m e n t a l beliefs, b u t in a format that w o u l d b r o a d e n the scientific and technical scope of the meeting, and encourage interactions a m o n g scientists, marine engineers, and marine industrial firms. We m e t jointly with Oceanology International Americas (OIA), a n e w venture of the Oceanology International, b o r n in Brighton, England m a n y years ago. OIA has a unique business model: charge no registration fees and have a v e r y large n u m b e r of c o m m e r c i a l exhibitors. The exhibitors are promised m a n y visitors, the visitors are promised m a n y exhibits, and e v e r y b o d y wins. TOS was invited b y PGI Spearhead, Ltd., the organizers of OIA,
M | to be a part of the "Joint Ocean
~.,~ F o r u m . " The TOS Council dis- cussed this and decided it was a u n i q u e o p p o r t u n i t y for the Society. We w o u l d h a v e the m a n y exhibits w e desired for o u r meetings, we w o u l d still have our TOS scientific meeting and format and we w o u l d pro- vide additional visitors to the exhibits in accordance with the S p e a r h e a d business model.
E v e r y b o d y wins.
The T O S / O I meeting h a d 2169 people in Miami the first week in April, saw over 300 exhibits from commercial firms, agencies, universi- ties, etc., and m a n y attended the TOS sessions or the talks p u t on b y Spearhead. Great talks, super posters, fascinating exhibits, and Miami in early April. As this was the first time for Spearhead and TOS to hold such a joint conference there were growing pains, but all were easy to fix for next time. The TOS Council is working with Spearhead t o w a r d OIA 2003, and we have already agreed with them that TOS will m a n a g e the entire speakers p r o g r a m and we will have just one large, ple- n a r y program. The hotels will be nearby; we will not r u n out of coffee; there will be time to see the exhibits;
and we will still have great posters and ancillary events going on (like the National Ocean Sciences Bowl finals).
TOS is working for all aspects of oceanography; we think this n e w direction of meeting with OIA represents TOS' strong s u p p o r t and c o m m i t m e n t to the interdisci- plinary nature of oceanography, to c o m m u n i c a t i o n across all boundaries, to the connections of oceanogra- p h y with industry and education, and with the essential technologies our field is built upon.
I
tn ZOO
Oceanography • VoL 14 • No. 2/2001 49
