A Short Rant: Elsevier Webcasts

One of the things I recognise I should do is watch more webcasts. There is loads of interesting stuff streaming out there, but unfortunately webcasts always get put to the back of my very long to-do list. Therefore, when I do make room to watch one live, it would be nice if I could watch it!

As I type this there is a webcast being streamed that I want to watch:

Research Leadership Redefined… Measuring Performance in a Multidisciplinary Landscape

Admittedly not everyone's cup of tea, but squarely in the area of my more traditional academic research interests.

After the sign-up process I am informed that the log-in details will be sent half-an-hour before the streaming starts. Why they don't send the details straight away I don't know. Did they fear a sudden black market in log-in details to such a generalist webcast? Or are [my opinion] they idiots who didn't take into account the fact that emails often go missing or on a walkabout for a couple of hours and a half-an-hour window was always asking for trouble?

When nothing had arrived by 4 o'clock I emailed saying I hadn't received my log-in details. They replied very promptly:

My appologies, you are on the list but the registration has been closed now and I have been told by the organizers that I cannot log you in any more.

It will be available for download later, but at that point it is one of a million webcasts I can watch. If I don't watch these things live they will probably never be watched.

Thanks Elsevier.