Zoom honoraria?

[bento]

What is a decent respectful amount of $$ to pay as honorarium for a Zoom talk?

We have a small endowment that, in normal times, pays for two "distinguished scholar" multi-day visits per year.  Those visits would be keynote, teach a class, go to dinners, lunch with grad students, etc. and the honorarium was usually $1500/2000, depending on the earnings of the fund that year.

In Zoom times, what makes sense?  We'd like to do more talks now that visits are out.  Possibly a mini-conference.

Any suggestions appreciated.

[Ruralguy]

If it's just a talk,  I'd say 1000 at most, but speakers bureaus aren't cutting their prices at all.

[Parasaurolophus]

I would think that 400-500 would be plenty, and perfectly acceptable. That's what we give keynotes at our divisional conferences, plus travel and lodging. But maybe we're cheaper than people in your field.

[spork]

I'll do it for $250.

[polly_mer]

What are you asking the speakers to do?  Still having multiple small group direct interactions over a day or two in addition to a formal seminar is different than asking for canned seminar #3 delivered.

How distinguished is distinguished?  Are these people in the professional network or are they really distinguished through the speaker bureau so that a mere $2000+expenses was already essentially volunteer work for the speakers?

[Katrina Gulliver]

I'll do it for $250.

$225

[bento]

What are you asking the speakers to do?  Still having multiple small group direct interactions over a day or two in addition to a formal seminar is different than asking for canned seminar #3 delivered.

How distinguished is distinguished?  Are these people in the professional network or are they really distinguished through the speaker bureau so that a mere $2000+expenses was already essentially volunteer work for the speakers?

We've actually discussed "distinguished" - it's in the name of the endowment, but we don't agree on what it means.  To me it has always meant "super interesting work".  We are not talking speaker bureau necessarily - just someone we think our students and ourselves would benefit from.

And we are thinking just a talk and discussion. We are classicists and philosophers, so the norm is a presentation and questions after.  But now that you mention it, there's no reason why they couldn't also meet with a Zoom class.

[TreadingLife]

I'll do it for $250.

$225

I am going to go with $1.

And remember folks, always spay or neuter your pets.

[lightning]

I'll do it for $250.

$225

I am going to go with $1.

And remember folks, always spay or neuter your pets.

I'll do it for zero. I need to pad my CV.

[polly_mer]

What are you asking the speakers to do?  Still having multiple small group direct interactions over a day or two in addition to a formal seminar is different than asking for canned seminar #3 delivered.

How distinguished is distinguished?  Are these people in the professional network or are they really distinguished through the speaker bureau so that a mere $2000+expenses was already essentially volunteer work for the speakers?

We've actually discussed "distinguished" - it's in the name of the endowment, but we don't agree on what it means.  To me it has always meant "super interesting work".  We are not talking speaker bureau necessarily - just someone we think our students and ourselves would benefit from.

Are you then worried about any of the concerns in asking already underpaid people to undertake more work for minimal pay when normally you'd pay people much more for essentially the same tasks?

[Caracal]

Wouldn't you usually separately pay the person's travel expenses? If so, it seems like whether or not the lecture is in person or on zoom is irrelevant to how much the honorarium should be. I guess you could make the argument that the person doesn't have to deal with as many inconveniences without travel, but if the talk was in person, you wouldn't give someone a lower honorarium just because they happened to live only 20 miles from campus.

[bento]

What are you asking the speakers to do?  Still having multiple small group direct interactions over a day or two in addition to a formal seminar is different than asking for canned seminar #3 delivered.

How distinguished is distinguished?  Are these people in the professional network or are they really distinguished through the speaker bureau so that a mere $2000+expenses was already essentially volunteer work for the speakers?

We've actually discussed "distinguished" - it's in the name of the endowment, but we don't agree on what it means.  To me it has always meant "super interesting work".  We are not talking speaker bureau necessarily - just someone we think our students and ourselves would benefit from.

Are you then worried about any of the concerns in asking already underpaid people to undertake more work for minimal pay when normally you'd pay people much more for essentially the same tasks?

As I've tried to explain above, the normal scholar-visit is 4 days and includes a ton of activities.  And what we are considering is something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT:  a Zoom talk.   So I don't see your point.

[Volhiker78]

For a one hour zoom talk plus 2 other Zoom meetings with students / faculty,  I'd say 500 is reasonable for a half a day of someone's time. 

[the_geneticist]

What are you asking the speakers to do?  Still having multiple small group direct interactions over a day or two in addition to a formal seminar is different than asking for canned seminar #3 delivered.

How distinguished is distinguished?  Are these people in the professional network or are they really distinguished through the speaker bureau so that a mere $2000+expenses was already essentially volunteer work for the speakers?

We've actually discussed "distinguished" - it's in the name of the endowment, but we don't agree on what it means.  To me it has always meant "super interesting work".  We are not talking speaker bureau necessarily - just someone we think our students and ourselves would benefit from.

And we are thinking just a talk and discussion. We are classicists and philosophers, so the norm is a presentation and questions after.  But now that you mention it, there's no reason why they couldn't also meet with a Zoom class.

I don't know if what I do is "super interesting work", but for $500 I could put in an honest effort for 1/2 a day!
("Do you know if your work is super interesting?"  "Not really, but if you hum a few bars I can fake it!")

[mamselle]

What are you asking the speakers to do?  Still having multiple small group direct interactions over a day or two in addition to a formal seminar is different than asking for canned seminar #3 delivered.

How distinguished is distinguished?  Are these people in the professional network or are they really distinguished through the speaker bureau so that a mere $2000+expenses was already essentially volunteer work for the speakers?

We've actually discussed "distinguished" - it's in the name of the endowment, but we don't agree on what it means.  To me it has always meant "super interesting work".  We are not talking speaker bureau necessarily - just someone we think our students and ourselves would benefit from.

Are you then worried about any of the concerns in asking already underpaid people to undertake more work for minimal pay when normally you'd pay people much more for essentially the same tasks?

As I've tried to explain above, the normal scholar-visit is 4 days and includes a ton of activities.  And what we are considering is something ENTIRELY DIFFERENT:  a Zoom talk.   So I don't see your point.

Sounds more like the kind of consultants' visits I used to book for a wet-lab pharma with a buncha random company exec's who lived there, too.

The consultant appeared late on, say, a Tuesday, and was taken to dinner by a range of lower- to upper-level folks, trying for a good mix. The next day or two, they then visited labs, made recommendations, had 1-on-1's with the lab directors, and gave a talk over a catered lunch on the next one-two days.

Then they might give a summary of their visit the morning of the next (last) day to everyone, or just have a sort of upper-level pow-pow with the lab directors and exec's over brunch or another smaller lunch, before running off to the airport on either the Thursday or the Friday AM/early afternoon: well-fed, well-chatted-up, and probably very tired.

We covered all their food, transportation, and incidentals, either by up-front payment for the meals, or reimbursement by expense report afterwards (that was my job, besides booking it all and doing an agenda for the visit--such fun sorting out all those receipts, toting them up on the SAT forms, etc.)

For four days, then (decades ago, now), in addition to the expense coverage, I think honoraria ran about 2000.00 total. They probably did 3 full days' work if you add the half-days' travel and arrival/departure meals/meetings as one, plus a day or two of visits and talks; it tacitly covered travel time, too.

I'm going to guess an hororarium for that now would run about 3000.00-5000.00 for the same amount of time and work.

Depending on how far away they were coming (some took Acela, others had longer flights), their travel (which we sometimes also booked for them through a dedicated agency) might run 500.00, food for the dinners out (600.00 for, say 20 folks the first night and 300.00 for 10 the next), and catered breakfasts (100 or so each) and lunches (200 or so, each), might come to another 2500.00 all told: all this was within budget.

So, if that helps at all--realizing that an academic setting under current circumstances is much different, of course--I'd omit coverage for travel, still factor in the meal costs, either in advance or afterwards, and include a bit more, not less, for the talk: Zoom/Webex interactions are more intense and draining than in-person contacts, and people are getting very burnt-out on Zoom, so you might want to sweeten that pot a bit, rather than be cheap about it, if you can.

You could also have, say, 10 people meet via Zoom with meals delivered to them synchronously, I've also done that--wouldn't try it with many more, too much chance for mix-ups--just to replicate the sense of meal fellowship and conviviality with the conversation; you could also have someone set up breakout rooms if a couple folks wanted to do smaller dyadic conversations for a bit--you'd need a Zoom monitor person assigned, maybe a student or EA, for that. All the 1-on-1's and other smaller meetings would need to be coordinated by a Zoom monitor as well, to keep the agenda running smoothly.

Just if getting down to the nitty-gritty helps at all.

M.