| [eclipse.org-eclipsecon-program-committee] Minutes 12/2 |
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All, I decided to email the minutes rather than post on the EclipseCon wiki. Overview Each of the PC reps reviewed their respective categories providing feedback on their submission level compared to the amount of time allocated. The PC has made a lot of progress in selecting their talks, great job. We were able to review all of the categories except Web Tools, and Tools. I am hoping that we can have an email update on these categories by Thursday. As we reviewed the categories, we identified quite a few areas where the PC will need to work together to manager submissions that do not fit neatly into our categories. I did not capture each discussion, but a number of specific talks were addressed. The Plan It looks like we are on track to have the selection complete by 12/15. The plan is for each of the categories to finalize their allocated space by Tuesday next week (12/9) for the next PC meeting. Finalize means that each category will preliminary accept any talks that they want (up to their allocation) and prelim decline talks that they feel should not be in the program. High quality talks that the PC wants to accept, but can't fit in their category will be tagged as Aardvark, with a status of neutral. During next weeks call each category will report on the talks they have accepted, and then provide a rationale on why they feel their Aardvark nominations should be in the program. Please be prepared, search is (pctag~'aardvark'). In the final week (12/10 - 12/15), we will continue review of the Aardvarks through email and comments. Our goal is to reach a consensus which we will finalize during the 12/16 conference call. NOTE: If we reach consensus prior to the call, we don't have to make the call. Short Talks There was an interesting comment on talk 551, when asked to reduce the talk the presenter said: "I'm flexible :o) (More of a challenge to do it in 10, actually - so much to say, so little time...)"I think that really captures the problem with short talks. By giving out short talks we force the presenter to really think about their presentation and provide the very best material. In my opinion, that is what can make the short talks so compelling, a lot of information in a short time. If you don't like the presentation, you only lost 10 minutes. If you do like the talk, you have all kinds of options for learning more. I know it is difficult, but please continue to guide people towards the short talks. I am really not wild for the idea of converting shorts to longs, but I trust your discretion to create the best program possible. Commercial Talks We have a number of talks that look a little too much like a commercial. We have no policy against excepting commercial talks, but we need to insure that a) it is well publicized that they will discuss commercial technology, and b) the commercial technology needs to have benefit to out community. Once again it all goes back to quality, if our audience will get quality information that will make them more effective in their work, then the talk should be considered. There are a number of great opportunities to make presentations about commercial opportunities. Please encourage talks that you feel are too commercial to either a) explore the sponsorship opportunities, or b) modify their talk so that it is more about the technology and not about the product implementation. Main Stage Presentations We discussed some of the main stage presentations. Wayne came up with a great description of what constitutes a main stage presentation and he will blog about it in the next couple of days. Also, the main stage presentations will probably be presented in the auditorium, since it is such a great space. The only issue is if there is a conflict with a panel, which should also be in the auditorium. In January, I hope to see each of the category reps with a main stage presentation to blog about the talk and describe why this is going to be really good. EclipseCon Magazine Jason Weathersby asked that we provide a review of the Eclipse project space as a magazine so that attendees can come and get an idea of what the various projects are, and what they are presenting at EclipseCon. Ian has been contacted and will be leading this. Tags We have added a tagging system for the PC members. This allows the PC to mark and search for talks by various tags. At this time, I am the only person who can add tags, this was done so that we did not end up with too many tags. I have created about 160 tags (hangs head in shame). Some have expressed concern that there are too many tags. My opinion is that the tags that we have allow us to provide a lot of detail about the content of the program with out having to worry about categories. I think that the problem is more of a UI issue, and not the number of tags (too much scrolling down). When the tags are exposed as a cloud, it becomes very easy to navigate to the talks about a particular subject or technology. As you accept your talks, please review the applied tags and make sure that they make sense. If you feel that any of the tags are redundant or do not belong in the list, then send me and email and I will remove them from the system. NOTE: I have invested a fair amount of time into the tags, so I am definitely not an impartial observer. Please share your thoughts, even though I am invested, I don't want to have something that takes away from the conference. |