[Foss4g2010] Re: Starting preparation for technology comparison presentations

Wed Apr 28 04:05:22 EDT 2010

On 04/27/2010 10:50 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:

I have expressed my opinion long ago, and I confirm that shorter talks 
are better. I agree with Helena, they are more understandable, speaker 
must be smarter and must focus on the interesting part of the topic. 
Moreover if you search the conferences all over the world, I can say 
that 80% of them are organized with 20 min talk (15 presentation + 5 
questions) and I think there is a good reason for this.

All the best,
Marco

-- 
Marco Ciolli

PhD
Assistant Professor
Laboratory of Ecology
DICA - Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
University of Trento
Via Mesiano 77 - 38123
Trento
Italy

Phone +390461282625
Fax   +390461282672

Marco.Ciolli at ing.unitn.it

> +1 to shorter talks.
>
> I'd even be supportive of reducing general presentation slots from 30
> mins down to 20 minutes. (15 mins presentation + 5 mins questions and
> handover).
>
> Definitely keep lightening talks - they were very well received at
> FOSS4G 2009.
>
> On thinking about it further, for the comparison projects (with
> exception of maybe the WMS shootout), I don't think they will have grown
> to have enough depth in one year to justify more than one standard
> presentation slot. This may change by 2011.
>
> Helena Mitasova wrote:
>> I already expressed my view on this issue many times and yes, Tyler we
>> already had this discussion and I very much agree with Tyler. I go to
>> many conferences and I must say that the shorter presentations work
>> better - on-line papers are more suitable for for delivering complex,
>> detailed information (for many reasons, especially if you are looking
>> at a lot of numbers or equations).
>>
>> Just as an example: recently I was at a conference with 30-40 min
>> presentations by highly regarded speakers in the field followed by
>> 5-10 min lightning talks highlighting some new exciting developments.
>> The general agreement after the conference was to reduce the long
>> plenaries and include more short talks, I hope we will follow similar
>> trend with this conference and give more people opportunity to speak,
>>
>> Helena
>>
>>
>> Helena Mitasova
>> Associate Professor
>> Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
>> North Carolina State University
>> 1125 Jordan Hall
>> NCSU Box 8208
>> Raleigh, NC 27695-8208
>> http://skagit.meas.ncsu.edu/~helena/
>>
>> email: hmitaso at unity.ncsu.edu
>> ph: 919-513-1327 (no voicemail)
>> fax 919 515-7802
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Apr 27, 2010, at 2:46 PM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
>>
>>> I'm not personally in favour of talks longer than 30 minutes, no
>>> matter what topic and even most of the plenaries. It encourages
>>> people to keep to their points and talk straight to the matter.
>>> That's what attendees expect and most presenters won't lament having
>>> to be succinct.
>>>
>>> Greater than 30 minutes gets boring fast (or is it just me?) and the
>>> odds are that in a plenary session there are still lots of people who
>>> really don't care about the topic, but just show up since the tracks
>>> are shut down. So mixing it up so more topics get presented (with
>>> shorter spots) helps keep more people interested and will help draw
>>> them to the plenary instead of drifting out because one topic
>>> dominates the session. If it's a topic the deserves more presentation
>>> time, then do a part #2 in the normal sessions to finish it off for
>>> the audience that really wants it.
>>>
>>> I'm not referring specifically to the WMS shootout or live dvd
>>> presentation, but I think the principles could apply well there too.
>>> Naturally, the lightning talks are very appealing since it keeps
>>> things moving, interesting and comes in chewable sized portions.
>>>
>>> Sorry if this was discussed before, but thinking of sitting through a
>>> couple 60 minutes presentations made me panic. I'll retract my
>>> position for any sponsor who needs 60 minutes to be able to fund the
>>> event though ;-)
>>>
>>> Tyler
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 04/27/2010 06:56 AM, Lorenzo Becchi wrote:
>>>> If they are really cool as the wms shootouts we can remove lightening
>>>> talks...
>>>> With Jeff we have decided to reserve one hour for the Wms benchmarks
>>>>
>>>> Lorenzo
>>>>
>>>>> On 21 Apr 2010 01:03, "Cameron Shorter" <cameron.shorter at gmail.com
>>>>> <mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Lluis,
>>>>> There was an email to the WMS Shootout benchmarking list today
>>>>> suggesting that they should start putting together tests soon if they
>>>>> are going to get presentations put together in time for foss4g.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm interested to know what comparative presentations have already
>>>>> been identified to be presented at foss4g, and which will go through
>>>>> the competitive selection process.
>>>>>
>>>>> My reasoning is that as soon as a comparative presentation has been
>>>>> selected, we are in a position to lobby people to help create the
>>>>> presentation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Am I right in understanding that the Organising Committee have already
>>>>> committed to a LiveDVD overview during the plenary session? Note, I
>>>>> think that we should only dedicate 60 minutes to this overview instead
>>>>> of 90 minutes. I would like to make it even shorter (maybe 45 mins),
>>>>> although I'm not sure if that will be possible. I'd like to keep the
>>>>> presentation very high level, and leave details to other presentations
>>>>> (like the technology comparison presentations).
>>>>>
>>>>> Also of note, it will be difficult to squeeze some of the comparative
>>>>> presentations in 30 minutes. The FOSS4G 2009 WMS shootout lasted 47
>>>>> mins. The WMS Shootout made part of the final plenary session, and if
>>>>> the other comparative projects are ranked highly enough by the
>>>>> community, you may consider making them plenary sessions too. (I
>>>>> realise this will be a difficult decision, as one plenary session
>>>>> removes 6 streamed sessions.)
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Cameron Shorter
>>>>> Geospatial Solutions Manager
>>>>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>>>>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>>>>
>>>>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>>>>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>>>>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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