Re: [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Short talk concerns and l

[Bjorn Freeman-Benson <bjorn.freeman-benson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ed (and everyone),
Thanks for the questions - here are a few answers:

1. Currently there are only 39 submissions for short talks. Where are all the 75-90 short talks going to come from?

The deadline isn't until Feb 1st, so it's not a surprise that there are not enough submissions yet.

And how on earth are we going to go through and evaluate so many talks? What do you think about just having people sign up for short talk slots (1 hour granularity) like they sign up for BOFs? No approval necessary, and no deadline. We could either do the signup on the web site ahead of time, or on a piece of paper at the conference. First come, first served.

Interesting idea. I want to have them settled in advance, and we should filter them ever so slightly, but nothing like the effort that goes into long talks.

 

2. Switching between computers can take a couple minutes, which is significant when you're only talking about a 5 minute talk. What do you think about requiring people use a shared computer for the talks? Allow them to upload any slides to the web site in a common agreed upon format. When the time comes, they would give the presentation using those slides from the web site.

I understand the concern, but I have a solution and I've used the solution before at a real conference. The solution is to have two projector setups: one is being used to talk, the other being used to set up the computer. They alternate back and forth. It works great and there is less than 10 seconds of switching time - mostly the chair saying "thanks Ms. X, now here's Mr. Y".

 

3. What about demos? I propose we say there are no demos allowed during the short talks. Too many things can go wrong with demos and if one talk goes over it will affect all the others in the hour long slot. They can just as easily use screenshots. How much can you demo in 5 minutes anyway?

When I've done this in the past, I've left it completely up to the presenter. If they want to demo something, that's their call. I was very strict about the time limit - I even turned off the projector of the one guy who ran over.

Also, we're talking about 9 or 10 minute short talks right now - so it would be possible to demo something. We could shift to 5 minute short talks (still interesting) and have fewer of the slots for them.

- Bjorn