On 02/02/2014 01:41 PM, Nick Burch wrote:
On Sun, 2 Feb 2014, Rich Bowen wrote:
Nick, can you tell me how you envision the Fast Feather track
working, from a scheduling perspective?
ie, do we just give you a day-long slot and say "go for it", or is
there more that we need to do on the scheduling side to accept
specific talks for that track? Also, is it a day, or two days - what
do you think you can fill?
In the past, it has typically been a half day, or two quarter days. We
have also done a few lunchtime sessions, which work well for more
experienced speakers talking on something new+quick. Newer presenters
are best off in a small + cozy + friendly space though!
Typically, we've opened submissions fairly close to the event, I've
picked half the talks a week out, then fill in the rest of the gaps
with last minute ideas (barcamps and hackathons are often good for
identifying these). FFT always causes a headache for the organisers,
as we need a schedule printing for the room + website updating much
much later than they generally like...
Given the compressed timescales this time, one thing that might be
good is to open submissions when speaker notifications go out. That
way, anyone who has submitted for the first time and not been accepted
for a full slot can be suggested to submit for a 20 minute FFT one.
I've spotted a few talks when reviewing which I felt were "good idea,
not enough experience", so the FFT could be a good way to help these
speakers for next time. When submissions are open, we then get others
to submit too, especially the incubator, as the incubator has lots of
interesting things from people who are new to speaking.
A whole day can be hard to fill, one afternoon or two half-afternoons
tends to be easier to get talks for + keep people interested.
Afternoons generally seem to work better than mornings. A few
lunchtime slots might be good too, maybe one day do (serious)
lightning talks at lunch, and another do some slightly longer FFT
ones? Depends on floor layouts though
Awesome. This helps. I'll try to slot it in in one of those ways, and
run it by you before we go to print.
Thanks.
--
Rich Bowen - rbo...@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
