April 30, 2005

What should I improve for a next conference ?

Posted at 20:51 in Conferences, lesblogs | | 9 Comments

Capture006-5
The queue at 9AM to get in the Senate, courtesy of Rodrigo.

Here are the points I have heard I should improve for the next conference, please add yours in comments if you like (I don't promise I fix everything but the coffee, sure !).

  • get a room big enough for everybody who wants to join to join (ok, how much is that ?)
  • make sure everybody can get in fast (not in 45 minutes like this time)
  • provide coffee at every break (and possibly croissants in the morning)
  • show Hugh's drawings on the main screen
  • show the bloggers blogs or sites as they talk about them on a second screen
  • add french (or more) translation
  • better prepare the panels
  • allow time for a two day conference with so may speakers
  • create discussion sessions, not only panels
  • do not exceed 6 - 7 hours of conference per day, you made everybody die last time (9AM to 7PM...)
  • price. What do you think ?. Higher price means better organization but less people can join. Lower price is impossible. 120 euro last time barely covered the lunch and the evening buffet. Many people told me conferences like this run for 3 to 8 times this price.

What do you think I should improve for the next conference ?

(other feedback on the wiki)

You should definitely make it more day's with this amount of speakers.
My idea would be to make the first day all about speeches where the speakers can introduce themselves and share their vision. The second day you put those speakers together in panels.
For me it got a stuck in introductions and their was no time to really get into matters. The asian part was the best example of too little time and fatigue of the audience.

Not that it wasn't good. This conference gave an overview of what is happening and the thoughts at the moment. I'll be there next time! Thanks Loic.

(will make the content available before Thursday 5th of May)

erik, April 30, 2005 at 22:13

Events with you participating have the tendency to be on short notice - which is bad. Announce it enough in advance and make sure, people hear it.

Not everyone is able to jump with a three week notice ahead. Even though I love blogging, it still is not my dayjob *g*

Having more than one day is probably a good idea, because most stuff happens in the evening / at informal meetings.

I do like the reboot modell - probably we will have some meetings on thursday everning, starting of at friday with saturday as the time to have the conference - and as most of the people will not be from DK, we will have sunday morning as breakfast morning and open enough for more talks.

Nicole Simon, April 30, 2005 at 22:25

Loic, you forgot to mention

1. enough power plugs + enough bandwidth for everyone ...

2. wifi setup that works before we get in

3. a better chat system (IRC? there are web versions available) that allows us to resize the window

4. pre-selected people to podcast / videocast the conference (otherwise everyone tries to, waste of resources ;)

5. a networking event on the night/day before for participants (not the speakers), and maybe for the day after

6. streaming feed for those who can't attend in person

I'm only mentionning them here because you asked :)

Rodrigo A. Sepúlveda Schulz, May 01, 2005 at 00:07

Loïc, it would be just great to be able to download the speaker's slides. Even better, creating wiki pages / blog posts for each panel, so that discussions being initiated during the conference / Q&As can be prolounged online.

Similarly (and especially for those without laptops), having an updated online list of the websites and sources mentionned during the sessions would help when digging later on the same topics.

Oh, and a LinkedIn group as well to keep up with the conference's spirit.

But still, the coffee comes first on the wishlist :-p

Ludovic Copéré, May 01, 2005 at 00:51

A few suggestions:
- Make the conference at a day and a half, or two days.
- Mix panels, keynotes and BOF sessions.
- Ludovic's idea of offering a wiki per session in advance is great on paper, but in real life it is never used (and this is sad).
- I don't think you want to bother with translations, the infrastructure required to do that would get your cost to shoot through the roof.
- Have finger food style lunches (which are great to move around and meet with a lot of people) and a seated dinner with themed tables, and (sponsored) drinks afterwards.
- Offer half a day of tutorials before the conference on technology and concept basics. This will allow subsequent sessions to go "deeper" in certain issues without losing half of the audience.
- On the price, O'Reilly's Web 2.0 or eTech cost around $1,500 for a 3-day event. Even if you don't plan to make any margin on Les Blogs, increasing the size of the attendance will require a lot of logistics support that costs a lot of money. Offering a live webcast of the main sessions and a standard IRC backchannel will enable people who can't afford the conference fee to "attend".
- Organize a cheap pre-conference dinner like the one we went to at SuperNova where anybody can come, so that non attendees can mingle with speakers.

Jeff Clavier, May 01, 2005 at 02:57

Oh, and even if Geraldine and you did a wonderful job, you might want to outsource all the logistics to a conference organization co, like Marc and I did for the last edition of SoftEdge in 2003. We partnered with Pulver.com , and focused on the content of the event (with 55+ speakers).

Jeff Clavier, May 01, 2005 at 03:23

Ludovic's LinkedIn group is a great idea. Maybe OpenBC as well.

My overall suggestion would be on the event structure - no panels. No one small group talking at another larger group. This event had a lot of smart people there. What's needed is someone to facilitate a conversation, give everyone an opportunity to participate and say what they think. So each 'session' would be a discussion, not a one-way presentation.

Involve everyone.

Oh, and I gotta mention the coffee...

Neville Hobson, May 01, 2005 at 13:18

Hi all !
- Lasting the event with an extra day, keeping the same rate of participants and triple the price (ex: 300 EUR) : this should improve the logistic and the organization. Making it more expensive won't give sense and snoble the event.
- Agree with JEFF for the translation.
- Discussion on technology's trends (always about BLOGS & SOCIAL SOFTWARE) & new innovations.
- Create the longest BLOG in the shortest time during the 2 days event. ONE BLOG, 200 authors =)) : I am sure sponsors will pay to appear up there ! That will help to finance the coffee.

My others suggestions has been enumerated already ...

Good luck for the next edition !

Mickael UNG, May 02, 2005 at 23:36

let's all remember that this event started as a get tegether and balooned into a 'must-go' for leaders in the blogging and social-software services.

i am glad we all agree that it was great, but making it bigger means that someone else will have to run the whole thing.

in any case, there needs to a be a follow-up conference on this, maybe in 18 months (too big for yearly). also, i'd like to see some concrete things come out of it rather than all sitting down and getting an update - all those folks in one room is a great opportunity to create something together.

yes, loïc, you showed some real wasabi.

tchau,

charlie

charlie, May 08, 2005 at 07:11

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