In my second post on this blog, just over three years ago, I took a shot at seminars - economics seminars in particular. There's nothing there that I want to retract. I still remain bemused by the duration of economics seminars; the time that's wasted on details rather than "the big picture"; and the proportion of the allotted time that's taken up with audience "participation".
This being the case, I thought I'd update my earlier suggestion for streamlining these seminars. The focus is on seminars of an econometric nature - very occasionally we actually do have such events in my department.
Here's what I suggested in that earlier post: