Scheduling the day

[James Adam]

Hello folks,

Firstly, thanks for putting so much time, energy and thought into your proposals and suggestions on vestibule[1]. It's really great, and I hope you're finding it a useful tool.

Before we (and you) can start considering whittling down the proposals into the final set, we need to make a few decisions about how the day itself will run. Things like:

- how many presentations should we aim for?
- how long should they be?
- how many breaks do we need?
- how long for lunch?
- do all the talks need to be the same length?
- should we do shorter breaks between all the talks, or group the talks into chunks and put longer breaks between them?

... and loads of other things - I'm sure you have ideas that we haven't thought of.

Anyway, what we'd like are your thoughts and preferences about this stuff. We'll take all that on board as we try to plan out how the day will hang together.

Cheers,

James, Murray and Tom

[Murray Steele]

Just to kick you off, our current thinking is:

On 21 September 2011 16:30, James Adam <ja...@lazyatom.com> wrote:

- how long should they be?

30 minute slots 

 

- how long for lunch?

1 hour 30 minutes

 

- do all the talks need to be the same length?

Yes?  Well, the slots will be, the speaker can choose how to fill that slot.

 

- should we do shorter breaks between all the talks, or group the talks into chunks and put longer breaks between them?

At least 5 minutes between each talk slot, with two longer breaks (one in the morning, one in the afternoon)

Cheers,

Murray, James, Tom

[Harry Rickards]

On 21 September 2011 17:01, Murray Steele <murray...@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip> 

- how long should they be?

30 minute slots 

 

- how long for lunch?

1 hour 30 minutes

 

- do all the talks need to be the same length?

Yes?  Well, the slots will be, the speaker can choose how to fill that slot.

 

- should we do shorter breaks between all the talks, or group the talks into chunks and put longer breaks between them?

At least 5 minutes between each talk slot, with two longer breaks (one in the morning, one in the afternoon)

+1 on the 5 minutes between each talk thing.

It's hard to know whether this will work without knowing the intended lengths of the longer breaks, but if the morning break became a late morning break and the morning break and lunch lengths were evened out, people could eat lunch at their time of choice - say, 12 (in the late morning break) or 2 (in the lunch break). Hopefully that makes sense - 3 line sentences aren't usually a good thing!

While not related to timing, one area of concern for me is plugs (my less-than-a-year-old Thinkpad can't even manage 2 hours). Does anyone know if plugs will be readily available near seating?

Many thanks

-- 

Harry Rickards - hric...@gmail.com (preferred) || ha...@linux.com || hric...@acm.org

[Mari Carmen Gutierrez De La Ossa]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 8:53 PM, Harry Rickards <h.ric...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21 September 2011 17:01, Murray Steele <murray...@gmail.com> wrote:
> <snip>
>>>
>>> - how long should they be?
>>
>> 30 minute slots
>>

Just one question: do the 30 minutes slots include Q&A? Then maybe
they are a bit short, a 30 minutes talk + 5-10 minutes of Q&A may fit
better. But in the end it depends on the speakers' preferences, of
course!

>>>
>>> - how long for lunch?
>>
>> 1 hour 30 minutes
>>
>>>
>>> - do all the talks need to be the same length?
>>
>> Yes?  Well, the slots will be, the speaker can choose how to fill that
>> slot.
>>
>>>
>>> - should we do shorter breaks between all the talks, or group the talks
>>> into chunks and put longer breaks between them?
>>
>> At least 5 minutes between each talk slot, with two longer breaks (one in
>> the morning, one in the afternoon)

I agree with the rest of the proposals :) Thanks a lot for your effort!

Cheers,

Mari.
--
http://www.valakirkasasylum.blogspot.com
http://valakirka.lacoctelera.net
http://twitter.com/valakirka

"To err is human. To really screw up requires root password."

[Anthony Green]

> - how many presentations should we aim for?

As many as can you can get in

> - how long should they be?

30 mins or as long as the presenter as material for whichever is the
shorter.
No padding them out just to fit 30 mins.
Questions are tricky. At previous Manors I've got the impression that
some questioners wanted answers to things they clearly could have
brought up in the pre-selection process.

> - how many breaks do we need?
> - how long for lunch?

depends on where the nearest food outlet is and how long it takes to
get served.
I prefer shorter lunch 45 mins with more mid afternoon breaks so I can
get coffee and walk around a bit.

> - do all the talks need to be the same length?

No. See previous.

> - should we do shorter breaks between all the talks, or group the talks into chunks and put longer breaks between them?
>
> ... and loads of other things - I'm sure you have ideas that we haven't thought of.

Decent, free coffee + drinking water would be nice.

If there's anything I can read before your talk so that I get more out
of it, please add it to your proposals.
I much prefer talks to go over my head than to feel I know all this
already.
Similarly please include your recommended 'where to go next' in your
talk summaries, so I can follow stuff up post-conference.
Place your code examples on Github.

Tony

[Nasir Jamal]

I agree with Tony on presenter's providing the some pre / post talk references that I can go through in detail on the subject.

Though I am not sure whether the pre-talk references are required before or after the talk has been finally selected.

nas

http://nasir.wordpress.com
http://github.com/nas
http://stackoverflow.com/users/200486/nas
http://twitter.com/_nasj

---

From: Anthony Green <anthon...@bbc.co.uk>
To: Ruby Manor <ruby-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, 23 September 2011, 7:41
Subject: [Ruby Manor] Re: Scheduling the day

--
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Group home: http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-manor?hl=en
Unsubscribe at ruby-manor+unsub...@googlegroups.com

[Murray Steele]

On 21 September 2011 19:53, Harry Rickards <h.ric...@gmail.com> wrote:

While not related to timing, one area of concern for me is plugs (my less-than-a-year-old Thinkpad can't even manage 2 hours). Does anyone know if plugs will be readily available near seating?

There won't be "at-seat" plugs as there weren't any plugs in the rows of seats.  I can't remember the exact layout of the room, but I seem to recall that there were power outlets at the front and a few at the back of the room.  There may even have been some up the sides.  Like previous Manor's we'll bring a bunch of extensions (and we suggest that if you have one, you bring it too) and we'll set these up to get the best coverage we can.

If you're worried about the battery life of your laptop, perhaps consider leaving it at home.  While some talks might have an interactive component, it's unlikely to be the majority of them (although, that is kinda up to you and the rest of the vestibule community).  You won't miss out on anything by not having your laptop, whereas if you do have it and are staring into the screen or fretting about where to get your next battery charge from, it's possible you will miss something from the presenter currently talking or even an offer to go for lunch with the person sitting next to you.

It's up to you though, we won't frown if you do.

Cheers,

Murray

[Tom Taylor]

On 26 Sep 2011, at 22:42, Murray Steele wrote:

> It's up to you though, we won't frown if you do.

I'd go further than Murray, and suggest: ban laptops, and ensure the talks work well without them.

[Matthew O'Riordan]

- how long should they be?

30 minute slots 

I definitely think we need allocate Q&A time, so I would propose 20-25 minute slots and 5-10 minutes for Q&A.

 

- how long for lunch?

1 hour 30 minutes

I see some people are proposing shorter times for lunch, but I think it's quite nice and sociable to have a decent amount of time to sit down and grab lunch in a pub / restaurant near by.  I think 1h30 is a good amount of time.

Matt

[Matthew O'Riordan]

>> It's up to you though, we won't frown if you do.
> I'd go further than Murray, and suggest: ban laptops, and ensure the talks work well without them.

Well I think banning laptops is possibly a little too authoritarian, but I think recommending that people don't bring laptops would be a good direction.

>
> --
> http://rubymanor.org
> Group home: http://groups.google.com/group/ruby-manor?hl=en

> Unsubscribe at ruby-manor+...@googlegroups.com

[Graham Ashton]

On 27 Sep 2011, at 12:03, Matthew O'Riordan wrote:

> Well I think banning laptops is possibly a little too authoritarian, but I think recommending that people don't bring laptops would be a good direction.

I took my laptop to the first Ruby Manor to make notes for myself, but ended up publishing blog posts summarising the talks. I did it again the next year, and I was thinking I might have another stab at it this year.

Blogging conferences isn't something I would normally do, but talking about Ruby Manor seemed well worthwhile. Also, compared to the other tech conferences I tend to go to I found the talks were abnormally interesting (no doubt due to the unique manner in which Ruby Manor is put together).

It's hard to keep up so you have to type like a loon, but if people don't mind a small amount of keyboard noise (?) I'll probably bring my laptop and see how it goes.

[James Adam]

The thing to bear in mind is that you shouldn't expect that you'll be able to sit with your laptop constantly juiced up and surfing the web. There will be *some* power, and *some* internet, but anticipate that neither will be reliable to avoid disappointment.

Personally (as an attendee) I would leave my laptop at home unless one of the speakers makes it clear that they're going to be doing something interactive (to the best of my knowledge, nobody has said this). However, feel free to bring yours if you feel otherwise.

- James

p.s. if anyone does want to publish their notes on the conference, that's great. Graham's notes from past events have been really interesting and useful, so the more the merrier there.

[Kerry Buckley]

On Tue, Sep 27, 2011 at 2:27 PM, James Adam <ja...@lazyatom.com> wrote:
>
> Personally (as an attendee) I would leave my laptop at home unless one of the speakers
> makes it clear that they're going to be doing something interactive (to the best of my
> knowledge, nobody has said this). However, feel free to bring yours if you feel otherwise.

I'll second this. Last year I lugged my laptop down to London on the
train, nearly left it behind in the pub at lunchtime, lugged it home
again, and I'm not sure I opened it once.

Kerry

[Richard Drake]

Thanks for the pointer to this 'ere Google Group James. I now detect that Ruby Manor 1&2 were organised here. I'm probably quite a outlier in that I didn't know of RM's previous existence until LRUG Sep 11, and on googling the following morning decided that the action was on Vestibule and promptly forgot everything else. Hence I didn't know that 100 tickets had already been sold until I got my nice invitation via Twitter message yesterday. PayPal worked for me this morning. Otherwise this could be pretty academic. So well done for the systems work (in the broadest sense) to make this work for me and no doubt for many others coming from different places.

I'm happy with the default values of 30, 5, 90 mins. Given 9 hours, 30x + 5(x-2) + 90 = 540 suggests x = 480/30 = 16 slots per stream. There are 26 proposals in play at present, though I don't expect to do two and I haven't checked other such constraints. Would be there two streams at any time? Any constraints on size in one or more of the rooms used?

I guess the answer may be just one stream, one room, one camera etc. Those who've been before would no doubt have this tacit knowledge. As for me, it needs to be spelled out.

[James Adam]

Hi Richard,

On 4 Oct 2011, at 08:36, Richard Drake wrote:

> I'm happy with the default values of 30, 5, 90 mins. Given 9 hours, 30x + 5(x-2) + 90 = 540 suggests x = 480/30 = 16 slots per stream. There are 26 proposals in play at present, though I don't expect to do two and I haven't checked other such constraints. Would be there two streams at any time? Any constraints on size in one or more of the rooms used?
>
> I guess the answer may be just one stream, one room, one camera etc. Those who've been before would no doubt have this tacit knowledge. As for me, it needs to be spelled out.

It'll be single stream (there's only one big room), and I think a more realistic duration is 8 hours, giving people time to shuffle in and out. It's also likely that the number of talks will be less than 16, since that's a lot to take in, and it's good to leave plenty of mingle/chat time.

- James

[Richard Drake]

Fine, and thanks for not pointing to my maths where 540 - 80 was different to what one might expect. And I forgot the breaks in morning and afternoon.

I'm taking it that 12-13 30 min slots is the default way to slice this. It could be good to have longer for one or two. Hard to do that interactively, with voting I mean. Interesting problem and well worth solving.

I was under the cosy illusion that if chosen I might be stuck away in some backwater room but this option doesn't exist and that's important to know.

As is the deadline of 14th for decisions, to give everyone time to prepare. That's eminently sensible. I'm going to mull it all over, make some edits to my proposals and then I may or may not return to the wiki option (cos it's an interest of mine, even if time's a little short to impact 14th).