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CommentsAboutSessionSignupWhat do you think? I think that you are trying to herd cats again. (See SessionAttendance from AYE 2002.) SherryHeinze 2003.05.29 I agree, Sherry. With a separate page for each session, it's hard to change your mind without duplicates not easily visible. It's OK - electrons are cheap! Herding electonic bits is cheaper than cats. When data was real and tangible on punched cards, we had to conserve storage space by keeping only the punched holes. Big compression ratio, although decompression was questionable at times. Worked fine for this kind of metric though. ;-)) Some busy-body wanted to improve the algorithm by saving the punched-out chaff - we made him spend it as confetti at a party. --BobLee 2003.05.29 Thanks, Sherry, for the reference. I now remember these discussions; I probably have selective memory (bug or feature?). The one thing that strikes me right now is that we do not want to limit yours and other people's flexibility. Rather, we want to enhance our ability to adapt. We can adapt better with more information and that is what we are trying to gather here. And maybe we are tilting after windmills... BobKing 2003.05.29 I hope selective memory is a feature, Bob, because I have it too. I just knew that I had been through this before. I think that this year you should make the speakers sign up for participants, just for a change. But there are at least 2 speakers who virtually never read the WIKI, so they might not want to play. I am certain that AYE 2003 will go at least as well as the others did. SherryHeinze 2003.05.30 The Wiki way to signup works for me. We could also e-mail to a "registrar" who could post the signups on a regular basis. (That would be a lot of work.) CharlesAdams 2003.05.30 I love the idea of speakers signing up for participants - we could set up an auction application where we could auction ourselves off to the highest speaker bidder.... Charles - thanks for trying out the signup process. BobKing 2003.05.30 Trolling the discussion from last time, I have identified at least these outcomes that are motivating the "sign-up" solution:
This last one was mine. Thanks tons for satisfying my interest in this scheduling exercise.<ggg> Only slightly more seriously, I'll note that _most_ of these outcomes, indeed I think all of them except my interest in amusement, can be satisfied by solutions other than schedule / sign-up mechanisms. I wonder. What is the attraction of this technique? -- JimBullock, 2003.05.30 (Still a wise guy. It's congenital, I believe.) Does that mean if we remove your genitals, you'll stop the behaviour? Or does the behaviour follow your genitals around. Hmm. "She's acting that way because she's keeping Jim's genitals today." :-) -DaveLiebreich 2003.05.30 (Good Lord, it's almost June!) Okay, Sherry. I've just signed you up for all my sessions. No changes allowed. Any other takers? -JerryWeinberg 2003.05.30 Thanks, Jerry. Sounds like an interesting set of sessions and I won't have to make decisions until the last minute (strong P). I don't know about anyone else, but one of the things I try to do when I decide which sessions to attend is go to some session by as many different hosts / speakers as possible. That way I get the most interaction that I can with different people. Since you all tend to work with different people in different sessions, I could get almost as good a cross section by going to all the sessions one person does. SherryHeinze 2003.05.31 Thanks, Sherry. I'm a stronger P than you are, so I won't tell you whether I've signed you up or not until the last moment. In fact, I won't tell you what sessions I'll be giving until the last moment. Actually, until after the last moment. (As you know, we've done that before - it's one of our trademarks.) - JerryWeinberg 2003.05.31 That's OK, Jerry. There is just one thing that I am sure of, after 3 AYE conferences - whatever sessions I attend will be worth attending. They won't always be the ones I planned to attend, they won't always cover what I expected, but they will be valuable. SherryHeinze 2003.05031 I like Jim's list of motivating outcomes. I copied them and added one:
I am also intrigued by his suggestion that there are other ways to accomplish these outcomes. What are they and what outcomes do they deliver? BobKing 2003.6.2 OK. I'll bite, in brainstorming mode so these are not fully formed, optimized solutions . . .
"Changes" started with optimizing the approach at hand, and the initial approach was / is the standard, conventional way for conference-y things: "sessions", "sign ups" and so on. When you people start having "tracks" of management, technical and the like, I'll give up on you, powerpoint ban or no - you'll be the whole way gone. -- JimBullock, 2003.06.02 Uh, Jim, from SessionThree007, "Track/ audience: Project Management." Well it would have been nice to see you again this November. -- ShannonSeverance 2003.06.02 Jim, Well, I have to stick my neck out as a host and the program person this year, and say I'm with you 100% on the tracks. They were added in to meet the needs of any new people familiar with more conventional conferences who are trying to figure out what might work for them. They were introduced last year and they just have continued. Kind of inertia and a challenge to figure out since sessions are hard to "label"! Most AYE conference attendees know they can choose any session and find value. In reality all sessions are applicable to all people. I for one am glad to hear your feedback on track desingations, which I haven't liked since the 1999 when we talked about starting this conference. I wonder how others feel about this. Are tracks helpful or ignored or a turn off? BeckyWinant 2003.06.02 The "tracks" are a marketing device for people who have managers with one-track minds. I challenge you, Jim, to recall any time the tracks were mention or used at the conference itself. Personally, I've never known you to be influenced by tracks, which is one of the reason I have your BuddyBit turned on. Anyway, we're now considering a mob "signup," which is something I introduced at at software maintenance conference some years ago, after a suggestion made by Stafford Beer many years before that. Thanks for suggesting it, Jim. - JerryWeinberg 2003.06.02 In principle, I like the idea of calling things "tracks" as a put-on. The problem is making sure the people who don't get the joke can't do any harm. And no, nobody ever mentioned tracks during the conference. Wouldn't have mattered much to me if they had, except they'd accumulate BozoBit points. As for "influence" buddy o' mine, I'm occasionally strongly influenced by "tracks." If the conference is content-free, I use tracks to go where I least "belong." Tracks have some value in purely technical conferences - I spent my time at database conferences in the performance tracks. This conference isn't like that. You are welcome for the reminder about the mob sign up. All the years I've been tossing out my best stuff sometimes-exasperating-buddy-o-mine, I am sure of exactly once I came up with something you didn't already know about. I guess this one didn't add to that total. Drat. Foiled again. -- JimBullock, 2003.06.03 (Am I on track here?) At normal conferences, I have used tracks to help sort through the myriad of choices in quickest order. They never stopped me from choosing outside the track. They were just the first place to look. ("Testing", "Management": unh, I'm a tester, I'll look there first.) At paranormal conferences, like AYE (is there another?); ok, at AYE the choices are limited and all good, so I look at them all. Tracks are meaningless to me here. ("Tracks, we don't no need no stinkin' tracks!") Then again, if it helps a fellow seeker convince his management, I'm for them. We could simply label them: A, B, C, D, etc or use the column headers from Jeopardy. ("I hope I get the Daily Double!") BTW, I never noticed we had tracks, but now I'm curious. Where are they mentioned? MikeMelendez 2003.06.03 "Paranormal conference" that's good, or at least that's what the spirits are telling me. - ThePhantomPoster They were added in to meet the needs of any new people familiar with more conventional conferences who are trying to figure out what might work for them. One way to make AYE perfectly familiar to people familiar with more conventional conferences would be to make it perfectly conventional. You guys have an interesting trade-off of the sesame-seed variety (if I remember the story right, I think it's in The Secrets of Consulting). How many little, insignificant conventionalities before you end up being perfectly conventional, while each step along the way is demonstrably insignificant. Lucky for me, this one isn't my problem. -- JimBullock, 2003.06.05 (Can't wait until AYE is hosted by DCI.) Jim, My heart and vision follows your logic on the issue of tracks. I.E.: Hummers are sold not because "they are a type of SUV", but because they do what no vehicle has done before - ever! And I imagine that AYE is in that same frontier league. Feature it! We are not White Bread, We are ... devo? (DCI hosting AYE...ai,ai,ai! ... That is tasteless spongy white bread). - BeckyWinant 2003.06.06 -- "Without deviation, progress is not possible." - Frank Zappa To nuance my position a bit here (Sorry, I've been watching political pundit shows this week), the brief I will accept is advisory at most. In the end, there is little relevance to pundits who tell the folks with real risk, and real commitment what they "ought" to be doing. A pundit, a cautious critic, I will not be. If I think I know better, I can step up and do it better myself - or shut up. The decision lies as it should with the "Man in The Arean." (A famous bit from a speech by Teddy Roosevelt.) Or in this case, the decisions about tracks and whatnot lie with the loosely-coupled, multi-gender, spontaneously-reconfiguring collective that hosts this thing, whom I will continue to admire for their (your? its?) courage and audacity as much as for execution. (That bit came out sounding a little more fun than I think it actually is.) -- JimBullock (Now the truth can be told - Devo at The Palace) Jim, you may not like tracks. I may not like tracks either (hah, bet I surprised you with that one!), but there are people who like tracks who are welcome at the conference. And some people have managers who like tracks, and they're trying to get money to come to the conference. I don't want to turn off people who like tracks. Who knows, maybe they can consider an untracked conference after attending AYE? And I don't want the managers to flip the BozoBit on the conference. I also don't care about how people choose sessions, or presenters choose attendees. I believe that the people who need to be at my sessions will find themselves there. JohannaRothman 2003.06.08 How about if we call them "categories"? - JerryWeinberg 2003.06.08 BTW, your hosts are going to hold a dinner meeting in Albuquerque (you'll be around, Jim) to discuss the signup questions when we have more information on enrollments (which are, so far, running ahead of the averages). So, everyone, keep contributing your ideas to this thread. Oh, yes. And since enrollments are going strong, we might have to add a few more sessions. So, we're always interested in SuggestedSessions, for this year or the future. And, we're also interested in SuggestionsForOtherActivities. Let us hear from you. - JerryWeinberg 2003.06.09 Jim, Thanks for the Teddy Roosevelt interlude for those of us who didn't know this. As we know, Zappa echos what we have collectively know for ages. Love the quote. Thanks. BeckyWinant 2003.06.09 Regarding Tracks. Let me put my neck on the chopping block on this. I don't like tracks and never have. If the sessions are really good, then pidgeon-holing them into "one slot" is a dis-service to the presenter as well as the audience, or potential audience. That is what I hate. I suspect that people who "like tracks" just want a way to understand how a given session fits into their interests. It isn't about single slots. Jerry's "categories" gets closer, as it needn't be "one category". To me the best way to present these sessions is with keywords. Perhaps each session might have up to 15 or so (number not significant) words that help a person find something within their area of interest. A search feature could let people select sessions that meet their interests. Maybe with sessions from the past, particpants could add their own keywords, by way of review?! meets Amazon? -BeckyWinant 2003.06.09 If AYE adds tracks to help others get past barriers of fear, then it's a good thing. Inspite of my attempt at humor, tracks are neutral to me. If removing barriers is the goal, then we need to call them tracks. I suggest they be considered as paths, random walks even, through the offerings. That is what "tracks" means. That is what each of us takes with our individual choices at AYE. Labels will be necessary, so some visible coherence needs to exist. But I see no reason that individual labeled tracks need to be mutually exclusive. They should intersect and coincide as seems appropriate. Turning back to attempted humor, under no conditions should we have tracts. MikeMelendez 2003.0610 See WhatWouldYouLookFor
Updated: Tuesday, June 10, 2003 |
