If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a captive audience they could pitch to.
I believe that this year's Pycon organizers suffered from inexperience and naivete, because they didn't know that some vendors will ask for anything just to see how far they can push it. And that it's a negotiation, that you must push back rather than give in just because the conference might get some money for it. More importantly, that the imperative to grow Pycon does not mean "at all costs." I've already spoken to more than one vendor who was dismayed by the state of things, so we are not talking about all vendors here by any means.
At first the morning plenary sessions -- where the entire conference audience was in a single room -- just seemed a bit commercial. But then I slowly figured out that the so-called "diamond keynotes" were actually sold to vendors. It must have sounded great to some vendors: you get to pitch to everyone and nothing else is going on so the audience is trapped.
But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another way to deliver a captive audience to vendors.
What was supremely frustrating was discovering that the people wanting to give REAL lightning talks had been pushed off the end of the list by this guarantee to vendors. We didn't get to see the good stuff, the real stuff, because that time had been sold.
On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them.
In my opinion, open spaces should have had greater status and billing, with eyes-forward talks and vendor sessions offered only as possible alternatives. Especially, vendor sessions should not be presented as "keynotes" during plenary sessions. I think it took a little while for people to catch on to the idea that they could have control of their own experience through the open spaces and that the main offerings were not the only option.
The worst thing about the whole experience was the feeling that someone was trying to trick me and control me into watching these things, presenting them under the guise of real keynotes and real lightning talks. My trust has been violated. I paid a lot, in both money and time, to be at this conference just to be herded into a room and have my eyeballs sold to the highest bidder. And it's going to bug me, especially when I think about coming back next year. I'm going to need a lot of reassurance that this isn't going to happen again.
I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done. This kind of thinking leads to bad, impulsive decisions that can have long-lasting or even permanent negative impacts on the community. Maybe things don't seem to be happening fast enough in comparison with those commercial endeavors, but this is a grass-roots movement. It's never been about moving as fast as you can. It's always been about vision, not tactics. For many, it's fun and exciting and really important to "catch the wave," but the wave passes and then you've just exhausted yourself chasing a brief bump in the water. Python may not have caught any particular wave, but it's always grown, steadily.
I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming.
Bruce Eckel <lists.ec...@gmail.com> writes: > My trust has been violated. I paid a lot, in both money and time, to > be at this conference just to be herded into a room and have my > eyeballs sold to the highest bidder.
Hear hear.
Conference organisers, past and future, take note: Attention of attendees is *not* a commodity to be traded. Just because some parties will pay significant sums for that, it is *not* your place to sell it to them.
Your place as conference organisers, rather, is to provide value to paying attendees. Their trust is hard earned, and easily lost.
-- \ "Oh, I realize it's a penny here and a penny there, but look at | `\ me: I've worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme | _o__) poverty." -- Groucho Marx | Ben Finney
> But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest > and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air > time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and > we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and > entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully > commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks > into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another > way to deliver a captive audience to vendors.
This was my first time at PyCon and when I went to the Lightning Talks yesterday, I was also under the impression that they were for attendees. About half of the ones I saw were commercials. It was weird and made me wonder if they were always like that.
> On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. > I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some > good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them.
Do you mean the "official" presentations or the lightning talks? I thought both were kind of bad. Jeff Rush was great in both of the sessions I saw and the gaming presenters were also good. But I saw a lot of people who had never presented and were unprepared. In fact, one didn't have any code whatsoever to share and the other one only started showing some code during the last 10 minutes of his time.
The sponsor keynotes weren't all bad. I thought the White Oaks guy was quite sincere and it was cool to hear about Python from the business side. And the Google rep probably had the slickest presentation I've ever seen. In retrospect, I'm not sure what it had to do with Python though.
In article <5bd37c10-af5d-4254-8799-49c762673...@n58g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, Bruce Eckel <lists.ec...@gmail.com> wrote:
>If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for >me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my >favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a >captive audience they could pitch to.
Ouch. I'm probably one of the few organizers currently paying much attention to c.l.py -- because I'm also one of the few who's not at PyCon. We debated this extensively before going ahead, and we decided it was worth an experiment. If your feedback is at all representative, this won't happen again, I assure you.
I'm forwarding your post to the semi-private pycon-organizers list (pretty much anyone can join -- more volunteers are always welcome -- but you have to join to see the archives) to make sure everyone sees it.
>I believe that this year's Pycon organizers suffered from inexperience >and naivete, because they didn't know that some vendors will ask for >anything just to see how far they can push it.
Actually, it was our idea to offer something in return for the sponsorship.
>On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. >I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some >good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them.
Just to make sure, you're talking about the vendor presentations, right?
>I think a lot of people have been caught up in the idea that we need >to commercialize Python, and ride some kind of wave of publicity the >way that Java and C# and Rails seem to have done.
Not in my observation. What we were trying to do was to increase sponsorship to decrease the cost to attendees -- we have NO interest in pushing the commercialization of Python.
>I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we >needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you >have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is >between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the >conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of >my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming.
That was our intention. Apparently it didn't work for you. I'll wait for more feedback before I make up my mind about whether your experience was common.
And no, we don't need the money so badly that we can't afford to turn away sponsors who demand this particular benefit. -- Aahz (a...@pythoncraft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/
"It is easier to optimize correct code than to correct optimized code." --Bill Harlan
> In my opinion, open spaces should have had greater status and billing, > with eyes-forward talks and vendor sessions offered only as possible > alternatives. Especially, vendor sessions should not be presented as > "keynotes" during plenary sessions. I think it took a little while > for people to catch on to the idea that they could have control of > their own experience through the open spaces and that the main > offerings were not the only option.
This is an excellent suggestion and observation. Sold sponsorships are fine as long as they are billed as such. Labels on the vendor speeches indicated they were sold as ad space would be great, as well as more strongly emphasizing the ad hoc discussion spaces.
On Mar 16, 11:10 am, Bruce Eckel <lists.ec...@gmail.com> wrote: [snip..]
> But it gets worse. The lightning talks, traditionally the best, newest > and edgiest part of the conference, were also sold like commercial air > time. Vendors were guaranteed first pick on lightning talk slots, and > we in the audience, expectantly looking forward to interesting and > entertaining content, again started to feel like things were awfully > commercial. And what seemed like a good idea, moving lightning talks > into plenary sessions with no competition, began to look like another > way to deliver a captive audience to vendors. > coming.
I have a conflict of interests - coming to PyCon from a sponsor company and having given a lightning talk. But I *kind* of agree with you. Most of the sponsor lightning talks were pretty dull. I *hope* mine was one of the exceptions. (Resolver One demo.) ;-)
This isn't new though. Last year (my only other PyCon) all the sponsors gave lightning talks. The difference is that there were more sponsors this year I guess...
Personally I think 'sponsor keynotes' was a mistake. Not a huge mistake, but nonetheless...
> In article <5bd37c10-af5d-4254-8799-49c762673...@n58g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, > Bruce Eckel <lists.ec...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >If the following seems unnecessarily harsh, it was even more harsh for > >me to discover that the time and money I had spent to get to my > >favorite conference had been sold to vendors, presenting me as a > >captive audience they could pitch to.
> Ouch. I'm probably one of the few organizers currently paying much > attention to c.l.py -- because I'm also one of the few who's not at > PyCon. We debated this extensively before going ahead, and we decided > it was worth an experiment. If your feedback is at all representative, > this won't happen again, I assure you. [...] > >I believe that this year's Pycon organizers suffered from inexperience > >and naivete, because they didn't know that some vendors will ask for > >anything just to see how far they can push it.
> Actually, it was our idea to offer something in return for the > sponsorship.
[...] Ashz, thanks for offering some explanation. It is my sincere hope that the organizers will look upon the aforementioned experiment as a failed one. I shared the same perception as Bruce; most "keynotes" and lightning talks were anemic vendor pitches that really gutted the spirit of what I experienced last year. In meeting new people this year, I have had more than one first-time attendee ask me if PyCon lightning talks "are always like that." I have also heard from a couple of folks I would consider PyCon elders who were not happy with what lightning talks became this year.
I was one of the 15 or so persons who had a lightning talk that ended up in overflow for the Saturday talks. At the end of the regular time, we were all brought forward to be told that we would not do overflow talks. Standing there in the huddle, I looked around, and it appeared that we were mostly non-vendors. It was pretty crummy to see that real PyCon lightning talks had been sacrificed in favor of subjecting Pythonistas to rather dry vendor presentations. Some of the vendor presenters even had a tone that sounded like "my boss is making me do this." PyCon lightning talks are the stuff of legend; I implore the organizers to learn well from this costly experiment, and let's not go there again. Ever.
> >On top of that, the quality of the presentations was unusually low. > >I'd say that 80% were not worth going to -- there were definitely some > >good ones, but it was a lot of pain to discover them.
> Just to make sure, you're talking about the vendor presentations, right?
[...] I'll step out and say that some of the non-vendor talks were quite weak. The most severe was a talk on Stackless where the original speaker was unable to be here and someone got up and clicked through the slide deck at a very fast pace. I thought the person had stepped in at the last minute, but later learned that he had volunteered with a couple of weeks' notice. Additionally, the original speaker had Andrew Dalke's *exact* slide deck from his Stackless talk last year. One first-time attendee told me over lunch that he was going to recommend to his employer that they not pay to send their programmers to PyCon next year based on what he had seen in this year's talks. I know that's an unpleasant message, but in the interest of preserving PyCon's quality, I'm willing to be the jerk of a messenger.
> >I know what the argument for the results of Pycon 2008 will be: we > >needed the money. My answer: it's not worth it. If this is what you > >have to do to grow the conference, then don't. If the choice is > >between selling my experience to vendors and reducing the size of the > >conference, then cut the size of the conference. Keep the quality of > >my experience as the primary decision criteria, or I'll stop coming.
> That was our intention. Apparently it didn't work for you. I'll wait > for more feedback before I make up my mind about whether your experience > was common.
[...] Hopefully the surveys and this thread will be filled with feedback from the participants. Also, check http://twitter.com/pycon for some further anecdotal evidence.
On Mar 16, 9:59 am, Fuzzyman <fuzzy...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This isn't new though. Last year (my only other PyCon) all the > sponsors gave lightning talks. The difference is that there were more > sponsors this year I guess...
The difference (from my POV as the guy who helped plan and run the lightning talks this year and last) was that last year the sponsor talks were at a separate time, and clearly labeled as "Sponsor Lightning Talks". A *lot* of folks still showed up, and they didn't feel lied-to when they got product or company pitches.
