Re: GUADEC 2017: Length and Format

Benjamin Berg <[email protected]> Mon, 01 Aug 2016 11:20:10 +0200
Newsgroups	gmane.comp.gnome.guadec
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
Hi,

a few comments.

I don't have a strong opinion on the two vs. three core days. My guess
is that two days could work for GUADEC as it has happened in the last
couple of years.

For the workshops my suggestion is to either market them more
aggressively to third parties. They will be poorly visited this year,
so my guess is that the experiment in the current form didn't quite
work.
Personally I placed them on the day before so that:
 * Attendees
wouldn't be blocked from BoFs
 * Newcomers have it as a way to be
introduced to the community
Remember that the workshops as we do them
this year are training sessions.


Structuring the BoF days a bit more might work and we could even try some stuff this year, if anyone is up to organize it. There is a lecture hall very close by which the department may open for us.

It doesn't feel to me like it will make a large difference for long term community members though because the sessions are too independent of each other.


With regard to length, it really doesn't make much of a difference from
an organizational point of view. Most tasks require a fixed effort
which is exactly the same whether it is only a single day or four days.

I can see that it saves money for rentals/accommodation, at the same
time if there are proper hacking sessions then the cost to fly people
in drops in relation to the work that will happen.


In general, I would suggest co-hosting or co-locating GUADEC with
another conference of a similar size (either Akademy or anything else
really). This would give both conferences a larger visibility and would
probably attract more attendees who wouldn't come to either event. And
a wider audience of attendees/speakers means new ideas coming into the
GNOME community.

My guess it is too late for this for GUADEC 2017, but personally I
would love to see a Desktop Summit again or co-locating with e.g.
GStreamer, systemd.conf, or anything else really.

Benjamin


On Di, 2016-07-26 at 10:04 +0100, Allan Day wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Yes, you heard me right: 2017. :)
> 
> The location of next year's conference has yet to be officially
> decided,
> but with only one bid on the table and a requirement to book the
> venue
> soon, we are being forced into some forward planning.
> 
> Last November there was an interesting discussion about the length of
> GUADEC [1]. I would like to pick that up again and make a tentative
> proposal for GUADEC 2017. This is as follows:
> 
>    - Switch to two days of talks and two days of "hack days".
>    - Advertise the conference as a four day event. The fact that the
> first
>    two days are talks would be a minor footnote only; when people say
> they
>    want to come, we give them the dates for the four days.
>    - Maximize the inclusiveness and activity of the hack days. There
> are
>    lots of possibilities here, including:
>    - Holding the workshops during the hack days rather than the day
> before
>       the conference.
>       - Making sure that there's space for people to hack and talk.
>       - Having some kind of led session on the morning of the first
> hack
>       day, which will help people to form groups to work on the same
> things.
>       - Having a space where people can do impromptu lighting talks.
>       - Setting up areas for particular kinds of activity, like an
> "apps
>       zone" or an "engagement zone".
>       - Providing spaces where people can hold meetings and BoFs
> without
>       needing to book or plan them in advance.
>       - Having wrap-up sessions at the end of each day, where groups
> can
>       feed back what they have done that day.
> 
> The key goals/advantages of this proposal are:
> 
>    - Maximise interaction between attendees: give them more time to
> talk
>    and hold discussions.
>    - Be more inclusive. One of the problems of the current format is
> that
>    there's a lot of ambiguity: there are two sets of dates, newcomers
> don't
>    really know whether the BoF days are for them, or how to get
> involved. A
>    primary goal therefore is to encourage people to stay for the full
> event
>    and to provide opportunities for them to fully participate
> throughout.
>    - Get more stuff done, and give the conference more of a hackfest
> feel.
>    - Reduce costs, reduce stress. Fewer days would place less of a
> demand
>    on the local team. It would also reduce the cost of venue hire.
> 
> The main disadvantage of this approach is that it gives less time for
> talks. After the discussion last time around, I'm confident that we
> could
> have around 22 talks. However, we'd lose at least one keynote and
> we'd lose
> the lightning talks (we'd keen the interns lightning talks). There
> are
> possibilities for juggling things a little, of course: we could lose
> all
> the keynotes and reinstate the lightning talks, or we could introduce
> a
> mixture of short and long talk slots.
> 
> Any thoughts or opinions? We might not have long to book the venue
> (following the Board's final decision about where the conference will
> be
> held), so it would be good to have reactions sooner rather than
> later.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Allan
> 
> [1] https://mail.gnome.org/archives/guadec-list/2015-November/msg0000
> 1.html
> _______________________________________________
> guadec-list mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list

_______________________________________________
guadec-list mailing list
[email protected]
https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/guadec-list
signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, 819 B)