[EuroPython] Talk lengths

[Christian Scholz]

Hi!

Peter Bulychev wrote:
> I think that we should make the schedule more flexible. Of course, every
> speaker knows, how long is his presentation, but he doesn't know how many
> questions there will be.
> 
> I've seen the following situation on several conferences: in the high point
> of the discussion the chairman said: "Ok, let's stop, it's time for another
> presentation" :)
> 
> I think, that the power of the conferences like EuroPython is in their
> informality:
> if the topic is really interesting, it should be discussed.

I wonder if this might be good for a barcamp like part, just schedule a 
discussion for that and discuss things further. I am also wondering if 
some conference makes sense where hald a day is normal presentations and 
half a day it's unconference like. Then there would be time in the 
afternoon to catch up on topics.

Or simply provide 2 rooms or so additionally for barcamp style sessions 
during the conference.

As for length I'd go with 30 or 60 mins so that people know that e.g. 
every full hour there will be a new talk. 45 mins makes it more 
complicated to remember when the next slot will start.
As for Barcamp Ruhr we also made the experience that 30 mins has been 
too short usually for sessions (it was said afterwards though that 
people of course could have reserved two slots if they think they need 
longer). It was changed back to 60 mins then the next day.

-- Christian


> 
> 2008/4/15 John Pinner <funthyme at gmail.com>:
> 
>> On 11/04/2008, M.-A. Lemburg <mal at egenix.com> wrote:
>>> On 2008-04-01 23:12, Dinu Gherman wrote:
>>>  > M.-A. Lemburg:
>>>  >
>>>  >> The comments on talk length are interesting... 30 minutes were
>>>  >> considered too short. I found 30 minutes a bit short as well
>>>  >> last time I did a talk in Vilnius. If you want to have discussions
>>>  >> and more time switching between talks, then 45 minutes are a lot
>>>  >> better, IMHO: 30 minutes talk, 10 minutes discussion, 5 minutes
>> break
>>>  >> and switching.
>>>  >>
>>>  >> What do others think ?
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  > I assume, the average speaker likes to give longer talks and the
>>>  > average listener likes to consume shorter talks - a least for
>>>  > average talks.
>>>  >
>>>  > If you need prove that exceptional talks can be less than 20 min-
>>>  > utes have a look at ted.com, maybe starting here:
>>>  >
>>>  >    http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/92  (Hans Rosling)
>>>  >    http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/140 (Hans Rosling)
>>>  >    http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229 (Jill Bolte Taylor)
>>>  >    http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/237 (Clifford Stoll)
>>>  >
>>>  > Thanks to Laura for pointing me to Hans Rosling's videos.
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks, I like those TED talks as well, but their scope is different.
>>>
>>>  If you stick to the 30/60 schedule, please at least tell the speakers
>>>  (and the track managers) to leave 5 minutes at the end for switching.
>> Yes, we really must start enforcing this.
>>
>> And there should be no problem scheduling a mix of 30, 45 and 60 minutes
>> talks.
>>
>> John
>> --
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>>
> 
> 
> 
> 
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