| RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Congratulations, and a few debriefing notes. |
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I was going to create my own reply but I ended up agreeing
with everything DougG said.
My personal favs:
- Free tutorials. Who would have thought 35 people would
want to sit through a CDT build tutorial. It set off the right tone for the
week. I'm finding that EclipseCon is now more a working technical conference,
like really a big Summit, than a go see what's happening show, which is the way
it should be.
- Voting. I saw some really bad talks and I was glad
to be able to voice that with a -1. Of course most of the others were
really good.
- Exhibits. Much more buzz this year. Which is important
for the guys who are paying the bills.
Things we still need to work on:
- User focus versus ISV focus. The traditional debate in
Eclipse carries on into EclipseCon. I ran into very few CDT users but a ton
of ISVs leveraging CDT. Good/Bad? Not sure.
Thanks to DougG, Bjorn, et al for the great
week.
DougS
From: eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Gaff, Doug Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2008 1:00 PM To: Eclipsecon Program Committee list Subject: RE: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Congratulations,and a few debriefing notes. 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!
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