13 Apr
2011
13 Apr
'11
00:17
On 2011-04-12 16:17:18 (-0600), Alan Clark <aclark@novell.com> wrote: > >>> On 4/8/2011 at 03:54 PM, in message <20110408215402.GF10983@hera>, Pascal > Bleser <pascal.bleser@opensuse.org> wrote: [...] > > There are always several objectives, and we all have our opinion > > and wishes on what we'd like to see happening at the conference. [...] > > 1) attract new contributors (what you're referring to as > > "newcomers") > > 2) share expertise and knowledge, make workshops, brainstorm, > > which is more of an "inwards" perspective on us, what we do, > > and what we want to do (which includes what we suck at, > > what's badly missing, cool new ideas, and gather expertise > > from the very knowledgeable people in the project) [...] > > 3) trigger collaboration with other projects and distributions [...] > > 4) get to know each other, "physically", also known as "around a > > couple of beers" :) [...] > > Going from there, let's try to think of > > * how to market/advertise/broadcast the event (1) > > * what "sort" of contributors we would like to attract (1) > > (and, hence, what topics/workshops to present) > > * hot topics (2) > > * future topics (2) > > * projects we want to collaborate with (3) > > * social events (4) [...] > Pascal, I attempted to capture your ideas onto the current > wiki page: > http://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Conference_Planning_2011#Conference_Objectives Oh great, thanks! [...] > > Yes and no. There were some, of course, but almost all of them > > were "read-only": someone presents something, then there are a > > few minutes for Q&A and then it's done. > > While it's certainly interesting, we should have most of those > > as more workshop-alike sessions, with an introductory > > presentation and then have enough time (or another session > > later) to share ideas, experience, etc... > > Doing this can create a very productive session. I've seen > this implemented in several different ways, the most > successful method requires the presenter to do as much or more > preparation than a "read only" presentation. When it works > well the presenter and audience walk away much more satisfied, > when it doesn't work well it can be a total disaster. Sure, although I don't think it requires that much more preparation. Many of us have experience, ideas, and our respective backgrounds and knowledge to bring to the table. I don't doubt that we'll get productive discussions going in most of those sessions. Presenters just need to make sure that they make 2 or 3 slides with bullet points (not more than 4 per slide! ;)) about future directions and tasks, and how people can help. And also be prepared to put a few things up for discussion. There can't be collaboration if you're not ready to share your "baby." I'd rather believe that the speaker also needs to be a bit prepared to do some moderation, if there are too many talks and ideas going on at the same time :D (Well, anyone else in the room can take the moderation role.) But the risk of ending in a total disaster isn't higher than with a "read-only" session, where the risk is at least equally high that people are frustrated because they had something to contribute or wanted more in-depth insight but couldn't, because there were just 5 minutes of Q&A in a large room :\ cheers -- -o) Pascal Bleser /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green _\_v http://fosdem.org -- we haz conf