RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Budget and slotallocation

["Scott Rosenbaum" <scottr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If we group the talks together, would it make any sense to have a portion of the time dedicated to a mini-panel where all the presenters come back up for Q&A about that hour’s topics?  So if reporting has four presentations about reporting.  Then there would be a general Q&A discussion on reporting with the presenters (and other experts) fielding questions.  Does this have any merit?  Does it work towards Bjorn’s goals of not keeping EclipseCon a “Rock-Star” free zone?

 

Scott

 

Ps: why would a rock-star ever want to go to a technical conference? 

 

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From: eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gaff, Doug
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 11:11 AM
To: Eclipsecon Program Committee list
Subject: RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Budget and slotallocations

 

All,

 

You know, each year we tinker with some aspect of EclipseCon trying to make it better.  This year, it’s the short talk – long talk balance.

 

I think our gut reaction to less long talks is no…we need more time to present our technology!!  But I really think we need to try this.  Short talks take less prep time, and they have a better potential to hold people’s attention.  I went to a lot of long talks last year that were just too detailed to be helpful.  If our goal is to expose the audience to as much technology as possible, then short talks are a great venue.

 

That being said, I agree with Doug S on grouping.  As we talked about once already, the plan is for the Track Lead to recommend the ordering of their talks.  This should include short talk grouping.

 

Doug

 

From: eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bjorn Freeman-Benson
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2007 11:53 AM
To: Eclipsecon Program Committee list
Subject: Re: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Budget and slot allocations

 

Chris,
Given that the cost is the same for 5 shorts versus 1 long, the Program Committee can make that trade-off.
However, I disagree with your statement that "conference goers would benefit more from more long talks". One of the main purposes of EclipseCon is to get the community together to talk to each other. EclipseCon is *not* a rock star style conference where we have the experts lecturing to the masses. One of the advantages of short talks is to provide a lot more opportunity for the community members to speak to the rest of the community members. I don't want to see a conference where we have the same N Eclipse Top-Level Project team members and the same N Web Tools team members and the same N BIRT team members talking about their work. There's a lot more going on under the Eclipse umbrella than just the core. The core is important (that's why there are long talks and tutorials) but the rest is important too.

Also note that there are effectively the same number of long talks and short talks if you note that there are 80 tutorials (very long talks) and 80 long talks (= 160) and that tutorials are free this year. So everyone gets to go to the 160 long talks and everyone gets to go to the 160 short talks.

- Bjorn

Chris Aniszczyk wrote:

How about less short talks and more long talks/tutorials? That seems like a lot of short talks where I think conference goers would benefit more from more long talks.