Re: XDC 2017 feedback

[Andres Gomez <agomez@igalia.com>]

Hi,

Just chipping in to leave a couple of additional notes.

As other have said before me, I also think the organization was very
good.

Things mentioned before:

 * Tables layout: kind of agree it was not great for following the
   talks but they were also making it easier to talk with other
   attendees. I have mixed feelings.
 * I agree more power strips would have been welcome.
 * The microphones were having some small problems but it was not too
   bad.

Positive things also mentioned:

 * WiFi worked great.
 * 1 single big room and more time for hallway conversations was good.
 * Food, beverage, snacks, etc. were very good.
 * Google's facilities and staff were great: organization, catering and
   security people. I hope they pass this feedback to them ☺

Additionally:

 * In the "not so good" part; the details (timetable) of the Program
   were published very late (no more than 1 week before the
   conference). I would have liked to know way in advance at what hour
   in the morning the conference was starting. The same with regards to
   the "Social events". I only got to know that there was a "Pre-
   conference social event" the previous evening to the start of the
   conference after that had already happened, for example.

Finally, I took the freedom to complete the Program page with the
missing video links:

https://www.x.org/wiki/Events/XDC2017/Program/


I hope my comments are helpful.

Thanks again for a great conference.

Br.


On Wed, 2017-09-27 at 10:32 -0700, Miguel Angel Vico wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> In general, I think the organization was great. I agree having
> everything happen in a single room was a good point. Here's some of my
> personal feedback:
> 
>  * I didn't like the tables layout at all. I found it to be extremely
>    uncomfortable to have to look sideways in order to see the screens
>    and presenter.
> 
>  * There were a very few power strips, and not well distributed along
>    the tables.
> 
> 
> Also, this is what I've been able to gather from some of my colleagues
> here at NVIDIA::
> 
>  * Some people watching the conference remotely complained about the
>    stream quality, and the recordings wouldn't include the presenter.
> 
>    In one of the hallway conversations, Martin mentioned in XDC2016
>    they had a team of camera experts doing the job, and will try to
>    improve that part in future XDC's.
> 
>  * The microphone/audio situation wasn't great either.  I don't know
>    how practical it is with something the size of XDC, but at Khronos
>    meetings, they usually set up microphones for the audience too, with
>    tap-on/tap-off switches, and a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 for
>    microphones:people.  That makes Q&A a lot easier.  Alternatively,
>    having a question queue rather than running mics around the room can
>    speed things up, but makes cross-talk harder.
> 
>  * The table/chair layout was really cumbersome. Beyond just the
>    orientation, some people had a lot of trouble getting in/out to use
>    the restroom, grab snacks, etc.
> 
> 
> On a positive note:
> 
>  * More time for hallway conversations was in general a good thing.
>    Some of us got a ton of useful feedback talking to others.
> 
>  * The food was great, and having food on-site gave us even more time
>    for hallway-tracking.
> 
>  * Surprisingly, parking was not an issue.
> 
>  * Signage was good, and the security guards were polite/helpful. It
>    was easy to find the room and get our badges.
> 
>  * The wifi worked great in general, which is a rarity at conferences.
>    It was pretty spotty at XDC 2016.
> 
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> On Tue, 26 Sep 2017 11:49:10 -0700
> Manasi Navare<manasi.d.navare@intel.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > XDC was a really great conference and loved the fact that it was
> > in just one room which kept all the hallway conversations in that room resulting
> > into more networking.
> > But I agree with Andres that for the videos, it would be great to split the
> > huge youtube video stream per presentation and have seperate links for each
> > talk somewhere on the XDC page.
> > 
> > Regards
> > Manasi
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 01:25:15PM -0400, Andres Rodriguez wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > A small piece of feedback from those of us watching remotely. It would be
> > > nice to have a simple to access index for the long livestream videos.
> > > 
> > > I think the XDC 2017 wiki page would be a good place for this information. A
> > > brief example:
> > > 
> > > Presentation Title | Presenter Name | Link with timestamp
> > > -------------------|----------------|---------------------
> > > ...                | ...            | youtu.be/video-id?t=XhYmZs
> > > 
> > > Or alternatively, a list of hyperlinks with the presentation title as text
> > > that point to the correct timestamp in the video would also be sufficient.
> > > 
> > > Really enjoyed the talks, and would like them to be slightly easier to
> > > access and share with others.
> > > 
> > > Regards,
> > > Andres
> > > 
> > > 
> > > On 2017-09-26 12:57 PM, Daniel Vetter wrote:  
> > > > Hi all,
> > > > 
> > > > First again big thanks to Stéphane and Jennifer for organizing a great XDC.
> > > > 
> > > > Like last year we'd like to hear feedback on how this year's XDC went,
> > > > both the good (and what you'd like to see more of) and the not so
> > > > good. Talk selection, organization, location, scheduling of talks,
> > > > anything really.
> > > > 
> > > > Here's a few things we took into account from Helsinki and tried to apply:
> > > > - More breaks for more hallway track.
> > > > - Try to schedule the hot topics on the first day (did we pick the
> > > > right ones) for better hallway track.
> > > > - More lightning talk time to give all the late/rejected submissions
> > > > some place to give a quick showcase.
> > > > 
> > > > Things that didn't work out perfectly this year and that we'll try to
> > > > get better at next year:
> > > > - Lots of people missed the submission deadline and their talks were
> > > > rejected only because of that. We'll do better PR by sending out a
> > > > pile of reminders.
> > > > - Comparitively few people asked for travel assistance. No idea
> > > > whether this was a year with more budget around, or whether this isn't
> > > > all that well know and we need to make more PR in maybe the call for
> > > > papers about it.
> > > > 
> > > > But that's just the stuff we've gathered already, we'd like to hear
> > > > more feedback. Just reply to this mail or send a mail to
> > > > board@foundation.x.org if you don't want the entire world to read it.
> > > > And if you want to send at pseudonymous feedback, drop a pastebin onto
> > > > the #xf-bod channel on the OFTC irc server.
> > > > 
> > > > Thanks, Daniel
> > > >  
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > 
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> 
> 
-- 
Br,

Andres
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