FUDCon (insert name of city here) Barcamp

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 08:24:43AM -0500, Dennis Gilmore wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 08:13:39 am Paul W. Frields wrote:
> > On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 07:38:49PM -0400, Steven M. Parrish wrote:
> > > During the events FAD in Raleigh it was discussed that the next NA FUDCon
> > > should be 4 days long, up from the current 3.  1 1/2 to 2 days  for
> > > Barcamp with the balance to hackfests.
> > > 
> > > I've been thinking about the barcamps and how much time it takes out of
> > > the 1st day.  What I am thinking is this.  For the next NA FUDCon we
> > > solicit proposals in advance.  Proposals can be written in the wiki or
> > > the prefered method would be a video proposal.  All talks proposed
> > > atleast X number of days in advance would be voted on by the registered
> > > attendees before arriving at FUDCon and will comprise the talks
> > > scheduled for day 1.
> > > 
> > > After the FPLs opening remarks we can have people make proposals for day
> > > 2 talks.  We can then put up the normal grid and have people vote on the
> > > talks throughout the day and announce the following days schedule that
> > > evening. This will eliminate the hour or so voting and getting
> > > everything organized that morning.
> > > 
> > > Also since I believe day 1 would be a Friday I would suggest that the
> > > user tracks be scheduled for day 2.  That would allow locals who have to
> > > work on Friday to attend those sessions on Saturday.
> > > 
> > > Comments?
> > 
> > Greg DeKoenigsberg said that he didn't believe we were doing a real
> > BarCamp any more.  Pre-screening and scheduling talks, for example,
> > isn't a BarCamp.  His point was (IIRC) that the speakers needed to be
> > jointly responsible for creating/fixing the schedule, rather than
> > having a small group of people doing it.  Unfortunately, as our number
> > of speakers has grown it's become increasingly difficult to do that.
> > In RDU, for example, we probably had something like 25 or 30 speakers.
> > In Toronto, it was closer to 55.  At the next FUDCon, if we end up in
> > Tempe near ASU, chances are we'll have a pretty sizable bunch of
> > students and LUG folks in attendance, and I'm predicting *at least* as
> > many people in total as in Toronto, which was over 200.
> > 
> > On top of that, one of the most consistent comments people heard and
> > which was reflected in the survey was that there was too much good
> > content going at once.  In a way that's a compliment, but in a
> > practical sense we need to make very good use of the time spent at
> > FUDCon face to face.  Providing so much content at once, jammed into
> > one day where people can't attend half of what they want or need to,
> > makes FUDCon less effective.
> > 
> > Finally, we had a problem with getting people to the event on time, so
> > we were delayed in our day of talks.  We can prevent that problem with
> > better planning and advance notice to attendees.
> > 
> > At the Events FAD this past winter most people agreed on three things:
> > 
> > 1. We *really* need to consider a four-day FUDCon in North America.
> > 
> > 2. Each day should have fewer active rooms (sessions) at a time.
> > 
> > 3. We need better information for attendees, such as a welcome packet
> >    for people at the hotel.
> 
> you forgot step 4.  we really should have a simple breakfast onsite (i.e. 
> coffee and bagels/muffins) to encourage people to be there on time.  if people 
> are eating and drinking coffee offsite they are more likely to be late.

Well played!  Yes, if we can afford simple breakfast this would help a
lot.  For 200 people, though, that can easily run over $1K-1.5K.  What
can we do to bring in some sponsorships to pay for that level of cost?

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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