[Linux-aus] LCA2014 update

[Russell Coker]

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012, Chris Neugebauer <chrisjrn at gmail.com> wrote:
> Could we perhaps scale back the scope of LCA -- for instance, do we
> need a PDNS?  Open Day is something that has rightly been jettisoned
> as of LCA2012 - is there more cruft that we can get rid of here?
> 
> Are we running too many streams? Dealing with a 5-stream conference is
> much more work than dealing with a four-stream conference at most
> venues I'm familiar with.
> 
> Are miniconfs the right model for the first two days of the conference?

As a delegate I think that the PDNS isn't value for money.  The sausage sizzle 
that Chris arranged this year for the UPDNS was great.  I think it would be 
best to let delegates arrange such things.

Open Day was really fun the one time I attended.  But probably much of the 
benefit could be obtained by allocating more time for BoFs, someone could have 
a "look at my new creation" BoF.

I think that 5 streams is too much.  If there are 3 sessions on at the same 
time and none of them are appealing then you can just hang out and talk to 
people.  Also some conferences have speeches repeated.  If we had a smaller 
number of speakers and every non-keynote speaker gave their lecture twice then 
there would be more opportunity to see every session that is interesting.

I think that miniconfs are really important.  One significant benefit IMHO is 
that it gives an opportunity to people who have less confidence at public 
speaking.  There are people who have important things to say but who lack 
confidence and it's a good opportunity for people with less experience to 
improve their skills.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012, John Ferlito <johnf at inodes.org> wrote:
> * Drop all the extra curricular activities like dinner, PDNS, speakers
>   dinnet etc
> * Have no schwag
> * Make accommodation the attendees problem

If the conference is in a major city then accommodation is best arranged by 
the delegates, they can use Wotif.com etc to find a suitable deal.  Schwag 
other than a t-shirt isn't much use IMHO, while it's useful when sunscreen and 
deodorant is offered those things would probably be better provided in a big 
tub so anyone who wants to use it can take some.

Delegates can arrange their own extra-curricular activities.  It's not hard to 
use a Wiki to coordinate things as has been demonstrated.

On Tue, 28 Aug 2012, Chris Neugebauer <chrisjrn at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 4:48 PM, Steve Dalton <steve at refactor.com.au> wrote:
> > It does seems a little big. Why not jettison mini-confs, but have the
> > venue available the day before for people to run their own
> > OpenSpace/Barcamp type conferences?
> 
> It seems to me like that's the original point of Miniconfs, it's just
> that they're determined on merit by the conference organisers.  Can we
> lurch back towards this model of miniconf?

I had the impression that the organisers usually decline some requests for 
miniconfs due to lack of space.  As long as this is the case someone needs to 
decide who misses out and that has to be the organisers.

Is it difficult to select which miniconfs seem most useful?

-- 
My Main Blog         http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog    http://doc.coker.com.au/