XDC 2017 feedback

[Miguel Angel Vico]

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 at 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 at 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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-- 
Miguel