cruel to be kind

The question is valid of course, as besides my post about the really crappy part of the event there should be something good coming out of this event, shouldn’t it?

Well, I usually find something worthy even in things ugly. And if it is just that it this can be hold as a bad example.

So in no specific order and yes I do like organisational details:

• I liked the venue.
  I blame Google maps for my little detour the one day as it did not show a small street I had to take, but other than that it was reachable by metro in a decent amount of time.

  The venue itself may be seen a bit non stylish / industrial – I thought it actually provided exactly what we needed.

  A room for the audience, enough space for all the technology, a close room to network which did not look like just the entrance, the space for the exhibitors was well integrated with the flow of the audience, the lunch space was big enough to hold everybody and still quite enough. I did not attend the startup presentations but it seemed that was okay too.

  The coat room was clever enough to expect that at the second day most people would come with bags. They where prepared for that with the numbers.
  

• Catering at lunch
  One of the biggest outcries of last year. While the service personal was not the quickest and I would have made a different selection of food (simpler, perhaps even lunchbox type to get people faster served), it was an interesting combination as food selection. I say interesting because I am not keen on experiments like with the french cusine – but that is just me personally.

  Hot and cold food as well as cheese was served, a good selection of drinks and there is no question that the deserts where gourgous.
  

• Catering during coffee breaks / other time
  as some people know I do drink coffee half half with milk which meant I did not have any coffee over those days. The breaks where okay but there was water missing for the rest of the time to take away – people got thirsty in this venue.
  
• Sound quality / video
  Sometimes people did forget to use the mic or do not have learned how to move their body with the mic but other than that the transmission of sound was great and afaik there was a stream as well running on the net.

  I have not checked (typing this during a train ride) but Videos are supposed to be up in good quality. Although the stage was visible from even the last row, two screens where presented most often with the person(s) on stage on one and the presentation on the other. The one in the middle hold the presentation (in wrong ratio) but also advertisement. I was not bothered by it.
  

• No backchannel on the screen
  Despite the fact that there was not a constant backchannel anyhow due to networking problems there was not even the attempt to have it on screen which I find absolutly 100% correct.

  People who want to read / join the backchannel will do so. Everybody else stays out it. By putting it up on the screen you force people who do not want to see it to watch it. From my experience this goes hand in hand with having problems with focussing on several things at a time.

  This is not bad or anything it is just a different way of receiving information. Somebody who is triggered like this and gets something like a high speed IRC channel running in big in front of him – that is screwing it up for that person. If you want the backchannel, go join it.
  

• The language was english
  Despite the incidents around the politicans, the language was and is english to allow everyone to join the conversation no matter from which country they where coming.
  
• List of attendees on the web page
  A hopefully complete list of all attendees helps me find later who I was talking to or what webpage that person might have. It is faster to go discover now as well.
  
• The program was not planned well
  Well it is not exactly that what you like but seeing how the structure was and the timing it was clear that not very much could be expected of the speakers in this short amount of time – and that is not fault of the speakers, many of those are highly interesting. It made more time for networking – not only for myself but for everybody else who was bored.

Things which where not good but are hopefully taken up as “learned from experience!”

• One hopefully finally has learned that if you do provide seperate connections /access for audience and speakers / presenters.
  
• Printed programs are overrated as they are prone to changes anyway. Make a big screen in the lobby or in the hall itself to show what is up next.
  
• You can never have enough helping hands. In this connected world people actually can help you out with special tasks – just make sure the rest is directed towards it. Attendees could have organized much more on their own if most would have know better about the wiki like side events. This can be outsourced.

More on both if I remember them.

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