[H-GEN] Talk at today's Humbug meeting

Russell Stuart russell-humbug at stuart.id.au
Fri Mar 20 23:04:31 EDT 2009


On Thu, 2009-03-19 at 16:58 +1000, Arjen Lentz wrote:
> Well, people have visited Bris, so adding visuals... what does that do?

When we win (whatever year that may be), it is sort of expected we have
a promotional video to present at the announcement.  This could be that
video, or at least the precursor to it.  So it is just a case of moving
forward something we have to do anyway.

> Why not work on the actua; bid content, then the presentation of that  
> will follow from that.

We have done the bid twice now, and so the bid document is already
pretty polished.  After finishing it last year I recall saying if we
lost it wasn't obvious what we could do to improve it, should we loose.
No doubt looking ideas like those you list below and reading at
Wellington's bid will prompt a few changes, but still I suspect it will
be more a case of tinkering around the edges.

> For instance, I wouldn't mind seeing lunches included.

Yes.  Having everyone in a "common" lunch place would encourage
schmoozing.  Including lunches in the ticket price would encourage that.
It would have to pass the budget test though.

> In Hobart, the BoFs were a scattered mess; rather than accepting this,  
> see if it can be improved; it'd be nice if more people went to BoFs  
> and didn't lose out, and if things didn't conflict with 'em.

In hindsight, when looking back at previous LCA's there are always
things that could have been improved.  That said, Hobard had an
unusually large number of things I would have done differently, the BoFs
being but one.

> I personally have to say that while the speaker dinner is nice, it  
> separates a group from the rest for no particular reason. The actual  
> benefit is quite minimal, in fact it just means that some peope can't  
> talk with some other people that night. It's nice as a thank-you for  
> speakers, but I'm pretty certain that if it came down to it speakers  
> don't actually give a stuff and wouldn't not submit for LCA if there  
> weren't a speaker event.

Agreed.  But you would have to replace it with something that did
facilitated people talking to socialising.

> I also think there's an overload of sessions, but a lack of space  
> (both in time and physical arrangements) for just meeting and talking  
> with people. Everybody agrees that's a key aspect of a conf, but most  
> confs don't actually keep that in mind when organising a venue and  
> timetable (to name just two aspects that would influence this). If you  
> can make this a key factor, then other things might change and that  
> will certainly differentiate a Bris LCA bid from others. And it'll  
> make sense.

Did you have any specific ideas on how to do this?





More information about the General mailing list