| RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Congratulations, and a few debriefing notes. |
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Hi David and PC, I’ve been meaning to send out a follow up email, too. I was sick
the week after EclipseCon, and then work kicked in hard. I echo the collective congratulations to the group. EclipseCon
was a great success. I’m looking forward to supporting Scott as he works to top
this year! Here is the feedback I sent to Bjorn right after the conference. Doug G Presentations / Format / Misc ·
USB sync station was a great idea! ·
I heard lots of requests for a “single download” from
eclipsecon.org to grab everything posted late. Can you implement that? ·
It was a _great_ idea to have a single price and give
people access to the tutorials. I heard many people say that they couldn’t
believe the attendance in their tutorial. ·
The Power Up lounge was too small! It was always packed. Maybe
we need one upstairs and one downstairs. ·
I liked the focus on more short talks. We definitely need to
repeat that. Clearly it didn’t hurt attendance. ·
I wonder if we could tag talks as User or Developer focused. It
seems like we tried this one year. ·
How about setting up some electronic announcement boards (big
flat-panels that are updated with information)? I think it would add to the
dynamic vibe. ·
I really liked the “other events”. I did the running every day,
and it was great. Voting ·
I liked the +1/-1 system. I heard a few folks say that they’d
like to have a 0 vote (ambivalent about talk, talk didn’t cover the material
they were interested in, etc.). I’m not so sure, though. Forcing people to make
a decision is a good idea, although I think more people just vote +1 if they’re
ambivalent. ·
Having the door monitors take a rough attendance would be really
nice. For some the larger talks (e4 was packed…as big as the keynote itself),
it won’t be possible. But it would be a second indicator of attendance behind
the voting. ·
Give away more prizes with the voting. Maybe 10 prizes or
something. That will increase the voting. They don’t all have to be pricey. Prizes and Games ·
Awesome. People love to win stuff. I really liked the card game,
although I wasn’t clear when the winning hands were going to be picked. ·
Add even more swag. I keep trying to get Ian to do something
interesting, like stuff that lights up. (That’s my personal swag weakness.) ·
People didn’t like the bag inserts. They went straight into the
trash, except for the ones that had prize entries. I think that’s the
difference between exhibitor attendees and technical program attendees. I don’t
have much data on this though. Show Floor ·
The free exhibit passes were a very good idea. The exhibit floor
seemed to have a lot more energy. There were more giveaways, and the folks from
Wind commented on how busy they were. This is the first show where the field
people from Wind have reported a positive show floor experience. ·
I actually think we should grow the show floor part of the
conference. We need to attract more non-techies to EclipseCon in order to
spread the word on eclipse products. If companies think they’re going to
generate leads, they’ll put even more effort (and money) into the conference.
Donald is up to the task! ·
Developer Days seemed like a good idea, too, although I wasn’t
able to attend. Scheduling ·
Still not quite right. I think my scheduling algorithm was good,
but we need a better way to not overlap the popular talks. ·
I stand by my grouping of related shorts. Using embedded-related
shorts as an example, I had several people come up to me and indicate how
surprised they were at the embedded content this year. The truth is that it
wasn’t much more than last year, but grouping them together created the
illusion of more content. ·
I know it’s unlikely we’d get the community participation, but
having the attendees list all the talks that they’d like to attend and feeding
that into our schedule algorithm to minimize overlap would be an interesting
experiment. ·
In lieu of this, I think the PC chair needs to get a better
review of the schedule from the Category Leads. We just need some way of
flagging when popular talks are overlapping. Perhaps if the Category Leads
could indicate which talks they think are most popular. Coding Camp ·
I didn’t attend, but I talked to a few folks about it. I don’t
think there was much coding going on. Chris A suggested that we try to schedule
project meetings more formally to better use of the space. ·
It felt disconnected from the rest of the conference, as does
pretty much anything on the Great America side of the building. Not much we can
do about that. Wireless ·
It blows my mind how well that works. It works better that most
corporate networks I’ve used. ·
I’d really like to learn more about how they set that up, just
for education. Keynotes ·
I’ve blogged about the content. In general, I was pretty happy
with them. ·
Continued funding for speakers will be key to maintaining the
caliber of the keynotes. Food ·
Tasty as usual. I didn’t like the desserts, but I’m a simple
man…dark chocolate ice cream or mousse. ·
More soft drinks though. I need to support my habit. J (I
say this to you every year. It must be expensive.) ·
How about some fruit in the morning? ·
I had a couple of folks thank me for the quality of the
vegetarian meals. I told them I’d pass it on. Overall, this was my favorite EclipseCon so far. I’m not sure if
it’s just because I was so involved or whether it was better this year. My
exposure in the community has increased quite a bit over the past year, and I
found myself meeting with a lot more people this time than ever before. I think
there is a chance we’re going to outgrow this conference space sometime in the
future, unless we (you) decide that we can use the hotel meeting rooms, too.
Bottom line, if the projects themselves keep growing, you’re going to need more
parallel space. From:
eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of David M Williams
Thanks again! |