FUDCON idea

[Paul W. Frields]

On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 05:09:55AM -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 3:17 PM, Rodrigo Padula
> <rodrigopadula at projetofedora.org> wrote:
> > On 17-07-2010 11:10, Bert Desmet wrote:
> 
> > I just got this idea, a lot of people are working on different open source
> > projects, and want to host a hack session during fudcon about that.
> > Maybe it would be a good idea to let those people present their (new?)
> > project in 10 or 15 minutes (lightning talks) before the actual hack
> > sessions start. that way the attendees will learn about new project, and it
> > will be probably easier to get new people involved with smaller or new
> > projects.
> >
> > What do you think about it?
> >
> For the past several North American FUDCons we've had "pitches" before
> the hackfests similar to the barcamp pitches.  (ie: who you are, brief
> description of what you'll hack on.)
> 
> I think that lightning talks would be a good addition but depending on
> the number of separate hackfests, we might want to do both.
> 
> I was thinking of something like this (just my thought, feel free to
> tear it apart :-)  use lightning talks to help interest people who are
> thinking about attending hackfests but not sure, that they would like
> it.  Do this by having three lightning talk sessions:
> 
> Day 1
> barcamp opening (FPL or other organizer)
> barcamp
>   - pitches
>   - voting
>   - sessions
> lightning talks
> barcamp closing (FPL or other organizer)
> 
> Day 2
> hackfest opening pitches
> lightning talks
> hackfest
> lunch
> (if ordering pizza/other food delivered) -- lightning talks
> 
> People go to fudpub
> 
> day 3
> lightning talks
> hackfest

In accordance with the feedback received at the previous FUDCon, we
are extending the technical sessions into day 2.  I'm not sure yet
whether we need to do an entire additional day, or whether we'll use
half the day for those talks.  With too much going on at once, it's
difficult for people to get to the talks they feel they need to see to
contribute effectively, so we want to narrow the tracks (instead of
running, say, 6 rooms at once, we could run 4).

> lightning talks could be five minutes or ten minutes each.  30 minutes
> to an hour seems like a good length for the lightning talk sessions.
> Probably signup in advance.

We could set length based on how many people are signing up in
advance, but I suspect given our audience we'd easily fill an hour at
5 minutes per.

> Having them on the hackfest days has the following ramifications:
>   - May encourage more people to come to the hackfests (ah, I'll go
> see what the lightning talks are in the morning... Ooh that lightning
> talk about transifex was neat and I'm already here so maybe I'll stay
> and hack on it)
>   - means, logistically, we'd need a room to hold everyone on the hackfest days.

We should be able to do this with existing space since we're going to
have the assigned classrooms for 2 days instead of just 1.  That will
include a larger space seating at least 100 (and probably holding
somewhat more).  We also have the capability of an overflow room and
*possibly* piping video there.

> Rodrigo mentioned that we were having a lightning talk session in
> FUDCon Santiago just about the time this was sent :-)  One thing I
> thought worked well was to have the count down projected on the rear
> wall (side wall where both the speakers and audience could see it
> might be even better).  A second thing that worked well was to have
> the buzzer when time expired make everyone laugh a bit.  That way if
> the speaker is going on and on, they leave the stage with people
> laughing and clapping rather than a buzzer that reminds you of getting
> a question wrong on a quiz show.

Hee hee, I like this idea.  We'll need to come up with a spectacularly
funny sound, then!

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://redhat.com/   -  -  -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
          Where open source multiplies: http://opensource.com