[advocacy-discuss] Tech Days Tour 2007-2008

[Jim Grisanzio]

Hey, Peter ...

Peter Karlsson wrote:
> Hi Jim
> 
> Part of the reason we go deep in our presentation during TechDays are 
> based on years of feed back from developers. The most common response 
> has been: Deeper content.......

yep, that's fine. Totally agree. And that data is valuable and Sun 
should continue fulfilling that need by delivering that content. I don't 
necessarily want to water down the technical detail or even the length 
if that's what is necessary for a given talk. But I'd just like to mix 
things up a bit (if we can and if people are interested in that, of course).

> It's a bit different if you have a day focused on only Ruby or PHP or 
> what ever, with the whole day focused on a fairly narrow topic. On a 
> Solaris day we have a broad set of complex topics to cover so I have a 
> hard time seeing how a 5 min lightning presentation on X-bow or Xen 
> would work. 

Sure, you wouldn't drill into something like that in 5 minutes, but you 
can add to the general conf flow a series of short talks based on 
personal experiences with the technology, right? For instance, during 
OpenSolaris Day, there are five or six hour-long sessions and one is 
generally set aside for some sort of "community" talk. Instead of an 
hour talking /about/ the community, why not let the community /itself/ 
talk with as many people as possible participating. Something like that.


> However I can see some sessions that easily could be done in 
> 20 - 25 min.

Yep. I agree.

Also, I think over time, we'll get more of a call for this type of 
activity anyway since there will be more people able and willing to 
speak about their experiences with the technology. As the community 
grows, it will (or should) become more interactive and self sustaining. 
Ultimately, information needs to flow from many-to-many, not from one-to 
many. But that takes time.

Jim
-- 
Jim Grisanzio http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris


> Cheers,
> Peter
> 
> 
> Jim Grisanzio wrote:
>> max at bruningsystems.com wrote:
>>
>>
>>   
>>> Hi Jim,
>>> 5 minute talks!  
>>>     
>>
>> Yep. Huge value. And great fun, too! And what better way to encourage 
>> new people to get involved in presenting? Why do all the presos have to 
>> be an hour with dozens of slides? That's far too long for the vast 
>> majority of people -- especially people who are new to the community. 
>> How about a 5 min or 10 min talk on a UG status update? How about a 10 
>> minute talk on an install experience? Or a build experience? Or whatever.
>>
>>
>>   
>>> Is this because so many people wanted to talk, or 
>>> because nobody had anything worth saying that lasted longer
>>> than 5 minutes?  
>>>     
>>
>> Judging from the massive interaction with the audience and all the 
>> applause and laughter and shouting and everyone standing up, I'd say 
>> these 5-minute gigs were pretty valuable to these guys. Keep in mind 
>> that these were Lightning talks, so they were designed to be short. Some 
>> used slides, some didn't. There may have been 10 minute talks and 5 
>> minute talks. I lost track. It was pretty wild, actually. It was 
>> rapid-fire delivery, no question. Some of them were user experiences, 
>> some technical, some organizational, etc. They were mostly in Japanese, 
>> too, so I didn't catch most of it, but I got the gist of what was going on.
>>
>> Also, the Ruby community is very active and very big in Japan (it 
>> started here). I think it was a case of a genuine community putting on a 
>> conference where active participation was extremely high. You don't see 
>> that level of activity at the Tech Days events because the Tech Days 
>> venue is closer to a traditional conference. But for OpenSolaris Day, 
>> however, there's nothing stopping us from experimenting with one of the 
>> sessions. So, perhaps we use one 50 minute slot -- maybe the community 
>> section -- for some Lightning talks or a few shorter sessions. Just an 
>> idea. Just to break it up and experiment. For the first time, I bet this 
>> is extremely challenging, though. We have to build in /community/ to the 
>>   venue and that takes time.
>>
>> Or perhaps we have some micro-talks at a reception during the evening 
>> when people are eating and drinking. That's what we do here at Sun in 
>> Japan. We hold a "Developers' Lounge" every few months at a little club 
>> in Tokyo. About 40 people from a dozen or so communities around town. 
>> Agenda is made up on the spot on a white board. No corporate signs. No 
>> stage. No canned music. Lost of food and drink and rapid fire presos. 
>> Lots of interaction. Very cool. http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/tags/lounge
>>
>>
>>   
>>> I guess if the talks are not technical, this is a way 
>>> to go.  As for a 5 minute technical talk, it would be better to just
>>> throw up a slide with a list of references and take questions...  Even 
>>> 20 minutes sounds way too short to get into any technical
>>> depth.  
>>>     
>> Sure, you can't drill down in 5 mins. That's just the point, though. You 
>> don't go into depth by design. The mistake we make with a lot of our 
>> conferences is we think every talk needs to be in depth. They don't. So, 
>> people sit through a series of 5 or 6 hour long talks and then we 
>> complain that participation is low (in terms of questions, etc). That's 
>> way too much depth and doesn't promote interaction.
>>
>>
>>   
>>> I'm curious, were the attendees at the Ruby conference 
>>> developers or managers or marketing people?
>>>     
>>
>> Developers. Vast majority. Corporate involvement was pretty much 
>> invisible to me and I didn't' see any suits. Also, I'd say that the 
>> majority of the talks were 30 mins. The whole schedule seemed to be 
>> split into sections and everything happened in one room with about 300 
>> or so people. So, section X had three 30 minute talks. Section Y had 
>> three 30 minute talks. Etc. Questions were usually taken at the end of 
>> each section, not at the end of each talk. And there were breaks between 
>> sections. There was also opening and closing keynotes for 60 mins and a 
>> bunch of lightning talks. And the whole event had a moderator or master 
>> of ceremonies or whatever the term is. Someone who managed everything 
>> from the stage. The entire two-day event distinctly lacked formality and 
>> had more participation than any tech conf I've ever seen. Oh, and the 
>> closing keynote had pretty much zero technical content. It was about 
>> "community" and "values" and it got a several /minute/ standing ovation.
>>
>> http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/entry/ruby_kaigi_2007
>>
>>
>>   
>>> In a 50 minute talk, the speaker should be able to hold the attention 
>>> span the entire time (assuming the topic is of interest to the audience).
>>>     
>>
>> Sure. I agree. But I'd argue that that's extremely rare. Far too many 
>> speakers are talking to themselves up there and don't even realize it. I 
>> find that the real information delivered at conferences happens in the 
>> hallways crunched over laptops and at night socially.
>>
>>
>>   
>>> Then again, typically at the beginning of a talk, you probably get ~80% 
>>> of people's attention.  After a short time, say 1-2 minutes,
>>> this drops off to ~10%.  Then, in the last minute or so, people realize 
>>> you are about to finish so the attention span goes back up to
>>> something like 75%.  So, in a 1 hour talk, you only really need about 5 
>>> minutes of actual information, and the rest of the time
>>> you can say just about anything, because no one is paying attention 
>>> anyway.  A little bit like this email, I suspect...
>>>
>>> Wait, I have an idea!  I am willing to do 10 5-minute talks one after 
>>> another...
>>>
>>> My impression is that some people are much more interested in the topic 
>>> being presented than can be covered in a 50 minute
>>> talk.  Of course, other people have no interest whatsoever, and should 
>>> probably take a walk or something until there is a talk they think
>>> will hold their attention.  It might be nice to somehow come up with a 
>>> way where people who are more interested can talk 1 on 1 with the 
>>> presenters after the talks are finished.
>>>     
>> I agree. To increase participation we may want to consider more 
>> non-formal activity. So, fewer hour-long talks, more shorter talks, add 
>> some lightning talks to increase the number of people who can 
>> participate, add breaks where questions can be addressed with speakers, 
>> maybe have some panel sessions, maybe some hacking sessions, have an IRC 
>> channel running throughout, and more social activity. But the social 
>> activity needs to be seen as just as valuable as the formal talks. 
>> Sometimes we think the formal hour-long talks are the only thing of 
>> value. I'd argue against this.
>>
>> We also need to be aware that different cultures react differently in 
>> different situations. Here in East Asia, you show up with a formal 
>> conference, the audience reaction will tend be formal. Breaking the 
>> formality is one way to help increase participation here. Now, in other 
>> areas, such as the US, an hour long talk may be fine.
>>
>> These are just some suggestions ... don't have to do any of 'em.
>>
>> Jim
>>   
> _______________________________________________
> advocacy-discuss mailing list
> advocacy-discuss at opensolaris.org
> http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy-discuss