After taking Denver, Blueprints and the National Center for School Engagement by storm, I've headed east to New York for this year’s American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference.

You may be wondering how I get to spend all this time swanning around? Well, as a renowned researcher nearing the end of a not undistinguished professional career, my university sponsors in England have sent me away, probably as reward for my years of unflinching service.

They said they wanted to allow others to have the good fortune of hearing my wise words. - So unselfish of them.

Anyway, like the city and like the people, this conference is B-I-G. It’s strewn across 21 hotels downtown. The program is over 500 pages long – I kid you not – and the print is so small my varifocals can’t cope. There were 12,000 paper submissions (and, by the weight of it, at least 11,999 passed the entrance exam).

So this is my first problem. So much to do; so little time!

The typical set-up is an hour-and-a-half slot with four or five speakers. Each gets about 15 minutes to waffle on and to wait in vain for thunderous applause from the other three or four people in the audience, before handing over to the next speaker (one of the same sad crew).

One minute I'm listening to Dr A talking about the latest goal-orientated motivational theory, the next Prof B setting forth developments in technology aiding math comprehension. And, while any one of these dissertations is being offered up, another 50 or 60 are happening in other hotel conference rooms around town.

I tell you, no two people are talking the same language. This is not just true of the conference per se, but the whole field of educational and child development research. Everyone is an expert on something, but no one is expert at connecting the parts. Oh, have my card by the way; that's me in the picture running.