[I found this in my email drafts folder; thought I'd sent it long ago. Hopefully it isn't stale ;-) ] Hi all, I had a great time in Bangalore, and I was impressed by the size & scope of PyCon India in only its second year. I have some suggestions based on my experience organizing the US PyCon over the years. Some have already been mentioned here (I know I heard some discussed). * You should add time between talks, 5 or 10 minutes. Attendees need time for moving between rooms, and the next speakers need time to set up their laptops. * At PyCon US, we have "time remaining" signs: 10 minutes, 5 minutes, STOP. These are very useful for the session chair (MC), who can be sitting in or near the front row and watching a clock. * Speakers should be encouraged (required) to repeat any questions they are asked. Often the people on the other side of the room cannot hear the questions. The recordings rarely pick up the questions. * Speakers and MC's should feel free to defer questions to the end of a talk, especially if the questioner is insistent. * Speakers should not run off immediately after a talk, but move swiftly to the hallway and answer any after-talk questions. * As you grow, you may choose to add parallel features (e.g. open space) and secondary events (e.g. development sprints, tutorials). You already had the FOSSEE sessions for beginners, a great idea! But take it slowly, and don't add anything before you're ready. * I noticed some audio feedback when people were speaking. This can be reduced by placing the microphone closer to the speaker's mouth. The further away, the higher the gain must be, and the more likely feedback becomes. Something to tell your speakers. * These kinds of instructions for speakers can be printed up ahead of time, and given to speakers and MCs. If you're interested, I can get the instruction sheet from US PyCon. * A "green room" is very useful: a room for speakers with a spare projector (to test laptop connections), wired network connections, a printer, water, etc. This can double as a conference office. * WiFi at conferences is always an issue. 802.11 was not designed for such high user densities. In a nutshell, at PyCon US we deploy lots of real APs (not laptops!), at low power (important!) on alternating channels, to reduce interference. We are lucky to have Sean Reifschneider, a sysadmin and networking guru who has effectively deployed wireless for many years. Sean has written reports about PyCon's wireless here: http://www.tummy.com/Community/Articles/pycon2010-network/ (with links to earlier years). * Pre-printed badges with icons for speakers (and anything else you want to track) are a good way to see at a glance who is missing. * It's best to avoid staggered starting times. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but try hard! * One way to handle the lunch/break rush is to stagger the *ends* of talks just before lunch/breaks. For example, some talks can end 15 minutes later than others. * Lightning talks are particularly popular at US PyCon, to the point where it was unfair to schedule other talks against them, so we made them plenary. * For North American conferences, as you grow in attendance, costs go up per-person (you have to move from free space to hotels or conference centers). If this is true in India as well, you may consider holding multiple regional conferences instead of one national conference. It's not ideal, but it's one way to keep costs down. * I noticed a large drop-off in attendance between Saturday and Sunday. It seems to have happened last year as well. Why is that? Most importantly: notwithstanding any of the above, please don't imitate any other conference too closely. It would be a shame to lose the unique character of PyCon India. -- David Goodger <http://python.net/~goodger>
On Tue, Feb 22 2011, David Goodger wrote: [...]
* WiFi at conferences is always an issue. 802.11 was not designed for such high user densities. In a nutshell, at PyCon US we deploy lots of real APs (not laptops!), at low power (important!) on alternating channels, to reduce interference. We are lucky to have Sean Reifschneider, a sysadmin and networking guru who has effectively deployed wireless for many years. Sean has written reports about PyCon's wireless here: http://www.tummy.com/Community/Articles/pycon2010-network/ (with links to earlier years).
[...] This is super important. Does anyone here have contacts at some internet service provider that we can ask to sponsor wifi? It would be super awesome if that could be managed. -- ~noufal http://nibrahim.net.in
On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 22:16, David Goodger <goodger@python.org> wrote:
[I found this in my email drafts folder; thought I'd sent it long ago. Hopefully it isn't stale ;-) ]
Hi all,
I had a great time in Bangalore, and I was impressed by the size & scope of PyCon India in only its second year. I have some suggestions based on my experience organizing the US PyCon over the years. Some have already been mentioned here (I know I heard some discussed).
Thanks for the same.
* Speakers and MC's should feel free to defer questions to the end of a talk, especially if the questioner is insistent.
True, when the speakers encourage questions in the middle of his/her talk, it encourages tangential discussions (or even trolls) which prevents the speaker from completing their talk, or rushing through the remaining bits and/or borrowing a few moments from the next talk. Any of these will throw the schedule out of gear and the audience feels cheated out of listening to a technical talk. I'd suggest the hall marshall/oderators (folks managing the hall?) should have powers to enforce some discipline incase they notice that the speaker is unable to manage the audience, enforce time limits. Another alternative is to keep one mike in the middle of the hall, all the audience members with questions can stand in a queue to get their queries cleared. This will hopefully reduce one person hogging the speaker all to themselves.
* These kinds of instructions for speakers can be printed up ahead of time, and given to speakers and MCs. If you're interested, I can get the instruction sheet from US PyCon.
Could they be added to the pycon wiki or on wiki.python.org? I can help if needed.
* For North American conferences, as you grow in attendance, costs go up per-person (you have to move from free space to hotels or conference centers). If this is true in India as well, you may consider holding multiple regional conferences instead of one national conference. It's not ideal, but it's one way to keep costs down.
Commercial spaces are very expensive in India too. Smaller confs/unconf distributed around the year makes more fiscal sense and increases the people reach for those folks who may be busy and/or cannot travel to a main conf in the metros.
* I noticed a large drop-off in attendance between Saturday and Sunday. It seems to have happened last year as well. Why is that?
Not sure why exactly but this is something I've seen happen at bangalore-barcamp (a free unconf) too. Saturdays is a workday so people tend to go out more(?). -- vid ॥ http://svaksha.com ॥
On Mon, 2011-02-21 at 17:16 -0500, David Goodger wrote:
* I noticed a large drop-off in attendance between Saturday and Sunday. It seems to have happened last year as well. Why is that?
it is a common feature in India. Saturday is usually a working day for students and they troop in. Sunday is a holiday and only the hard core people and those from outside turn up. In many conferences you see a huge crowd in the morning until lunch - then lots of people vanish. This is specially true for government organised conferences - but the attitude has spilt over even to LUG conferences. The main reason seems to be that in most of these conferences the delegates spend little or no money, and so their commitment to the conference is less. -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves http://lawgon.livejournal.com/
be frankly, I get a bitter experience last pycon at Bangalore first day only I feel it, that's why I dropped the second day may be I am normal guy.most of the people are student I expect a lot of coding and rebate. better than this I can discuss my thoughts with my old sir or read a book of my choice or read a blog. every presentation give some half knowledge and it is not worthy also. I am a old guy my time is gone.... do something good for the new generation in stead of living in jeopardize... http://www.skorks.com/2011/02/algorithms-a-dropbox-challenge-and-dynamic-pro... how simply he wrote it. sorry if I wrote something wrong.... Pradeep Kumar. On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 2:16 AM, David Goodger <goodger@python.org> wrote:
[I found this in my email drafts folder; thought I'd sent it long ago. Hopefully it isn't stale ;-) ]
Hi all,
I had a great time in Bangalore, and I was impressed by the size & scope of PyCon India in only its second year. I have some suggestions based on my experience organizing the US PyCon over the years. Some have already been mentioned here (I know I heard some discussed).
* You should add time between talks, 5 or 10 minutes. Attendees need time for moving between rooms, and the next speakers need time to set up their laptops.
* At PyCon US, we have "time remaining" signs: 10 minutes, 5 minutes, STOP. These are very useful for the session chair (MC), who can be sitting in or near the front row and watching a clock.
* Speakers should be encouraged (required) to repeat any questions they are asked. Often the people on the other side of the room cannot hear the questions. The recordings rarely pick up the questions.
* Speakers and MC's should feel free to defer questions to the end of a talk, especially if the questioner is insistent.
* Speakers should not run off immediately after a talk, but move swiftly to the hallway and answer any after-talk questions.
* As you grow, you may choose to add parallel features (e.g. open space) and secondary events (e.g. development sprints, tutorials). You already had the FOSSEE sessions for beginners, a great idea! But take it slowly, and don't add anything before you're ready.
* I noticed some audio feedback when people were speaking. This can be reduced by placing the microphone closer to the speaker's mouth. The further away, the higher the gain must be, and the more likely feedback becomes. Something to tell your speakers.
* These kinds of instructions for speakers can be printed up ahead of time, and given to speakers and MCs. If you're interested, I can get the instruction sheet from US PyCon.
* A "green room" is very useful: a room for speakers with a spare projector (to test laptop connections), wired network connections, a printer, water, etc. This can double as a conference office.
* WiFi at conferences is always an issue. 802.11 was not designed for such high user densities. In a nutshell, at PyCon US we deploy lots of real APs (not laptops!), at low power (important!) on alternating channels, to reduce interference. We are lucky to have Sean Reifschneider, a sysadmin and networking guru who has effectively deployed wireless for many years. Sean has written reports about PyCon's wireless here: http://www.tummy.com/Community/Articles/pycon2010-network/ (with links to earlier years).
* Pre-printed badges with icons for speakers (and anything else you want to track) are a good way to see at a glance who is missing.
* It's best to avoid staggered starting times. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but try hard!
* One way to handle the lunch/break rush is to stagger the *ends* of talks just before lunch/breaks. For example, some talks can end 15 minutes later than others.
* Lightning talks are particularly popular at US PyCon, to the point where it was unfair to schedule other talks against them, so we made them plenary.
* For North American conferences, as you grow in attendance, costs go up per-person (you have to move from free space to hotels or conference centers). If this is true in India as well, you may consider holding multiple regional conferences instead of one national conference. It's not ideal, but it's one way to keep costs down.
* I noticed a large drop-off in attendance between Saturday and Sunday. It seems to have happened last year as well. Why is that?
Most importantly: notwithstanding any of the above, please don't imitate any other conference too closely. It would be a shame to lose the unique character of PyCon India.
-- David Goodger <http://python.net/~goodger>
_______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon
On Wed, Mar 02 2011, Pradeep Kumar wrote:
be frankly, I get a bitter experience last pycon at Bangalore first day only I feel it, that's why I dropped the second day may be I am normal guy.most of the people are student I expect a lot of coding and rebate. better than this I can discuss my thoughts with my old sir or read a book of my choice or read a blog. every presentation give some half knowledge and it is not worthy also.
I am a old guy my time is gone.... do something good for the new generation in stead of living in jeopardize...
http://www.skorks.com/2011/02/algorithms-a-dropbox-challenge-and-dynamic-pro... how simply he wrote it.
[...] Point taken. WE should really think of ways to attract the experienced folk rather than just students and newbies. -- ~noufal http://nibrahim.net.in
On Wed, 2011-03-02 at 10:00 +0530, Noufal Ibrahim wrote:
Point taken. WE should really think of ways to attract the experienced folk rather than just students and newbies.
were the talks all that bad? I only attended a few, and they seemed up to the mark (except for one where the speakers seemed to have mugged up the topic without really understanding it) -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves http://lawgon.livejournal.com/
On Wed, Mar 02 2011, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Wed, 2011-03-02 at 10:00 +0530, Noufal Ibrahim wrote:
Point taken. WE should really think of ways to attract the experienced folk rather than just students and newbies.
were the talks all that bad? I only attended a few, and they seemed up to the mark (except for one where the speakers seemed to have mugged up the topic without really understanding it)
Not the talks really as much as the atmosphere that a large number of first timers, newbies creates. -- ~noufal http://nibrahim.net.in
Noufal, The conference was just two year old last year, and probably our community has a long way to go. So I guess if we have the patience to see through the next three-four years we will have much more experienced crowd coming. On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 1:53 PM, Noufal Ibrahim <noufal@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Mar 02 2011, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Wed, 2011-03-02 at 10:00 +0530, Noufal Ibrahim wrote:
Point taken. WE should really think of ways to attract the experienced folk rather than just students and newbies.
were the talks all that bad? I only attended a few, and they seemed up to the mark (except for one where the speakers seemed to have mugged up the topic without really understanding it)
Not the talks really as much as the atmosphere that a large number of first timers, newbies creates.
-- ~noufal http://nibrahim.net.in _______________________________________________ Inpycon mailing list Inpycon@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/inpycon
-- Thanks, Diptanu Choudhury Mobile - +919686602153 Web - www.linkedin.com/in/diptanu Twitter - @diptanu <http://twitter.com/diptanu>
On Wed, Mar 2, 2011 at 12:40 AM, Pradeep Kumar <ranpra@gmail.com> wrote:
be frankly, I get a bitter experience last pycon at Bangalore first day only I feel it, that's why I dropped the second day may be I am normal guy.most of the people are student I expect a lot of coding and rebate. better than this I can discuss my thoughts with my old sir or read a book of my choice or read a blog. every presentation give some half knowledge and it is not worthy also.
I am a old guy my time is gone.... do something good for the new generation in stead of living in jeopardize...
http://www.skorks.com/2011/02/algorithms-a-dropbox-challenge-and-dynamic-pro... how simply he wrote it.
sorry if I wrote something wrong....
Pradeep Kumar.
I believe some talks are also meant to get the audience interested in a subdomain (related to Python). In that case a speaker may choose to expose a few basics, a few possibilities and discuss related issues in 45 minutes. The talk might not go in-depth so as to cover all aspects of this subdomain, but this is good enough to make people go back home and explore deeper on their own. Or in other words, set the audience in motion. In that sense, I wouldn't consider the half-knowledge as half-knowledge in real sense.
participants (7)
-
Abhishek Mishra -
David Goodger -
Diptanu Choudhury -
Kenneth Gonsalves -
Noufal Ibrahim -
Pradeep Kumar -
॥ स्वक्ष ॥