[Foss4g2010] Attracting people to Barcelona 2010 event [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

[Bruce Bannerman]

IMO:

> 
> In 2007 and 2009 a public voting system provided information 
> back to the committee about the relative popularity of 
> various talks and topics. To some extent this data was used 
> to choose which papers to allocation presentation time to -- 
> however, final decisions were made by a traditional program 
> committee. It was also used very successfully to place talks 
> into suitably sized  venues. In 2010 this will be especially 
> important, since your largest venue has 10x the capacity of 
> your smallest -- making a venue allocation mistake will 
> result in unhappy attendees standing in halls and aisles, 
> and/or occasionally dramatically underused large halls.
> 

Agreed.

For non-academic papers, the public voting system was very helpful in selecting papers based on subjects and themes that people were expressing interest in. The people doing the selection still had to use their experience and knowledge to do the actual selections with the votes as a guide.

I also received feedback from some attendees that they found the voting approach refreshing from 'traditional' conferences in that it gave them the feeling that they had a hand in selecting the papers that they could go and see. This resulted in considerable 'good will'.

Ditto Paul's comments on room sizing.


Bruce