October 9, 2014

Owned by Bill Branan
Jun 16, 2017
3 min read

Connect

Dial: +1 (530) 881-1400
Access Code: 651025

Attendees

Facilitator: Rick Johnson

Notetaker: Tom Cramer

Connect Organizer Notetaker: Richard Green

Attendees: Patrick Feeley, Tom, Richard, Rick, Chris, Mark, Bess

 

Agenda & Notes

What happened last week? What did you observe?

  • amazing! number of attendees, level of engagement, what happened but also how well it was organized, community as a whole 

Lets walk through the Hydra Connect Manual to structure the debrief

  • General Organizing
  • Financial
  • Booking
  • Registration
  • Content
  • Now that it's all over...

 

General Organization

  • Overall: did a pretty good job
    • one minor complaint = too many emails, and too many fill in lists
    • this is a hard one: participation and input is important
    • perhaps we can do more on consolidating messages?
    • on the other hand, too few emails is also bad, and the presentation and flow of info on the wiki was better than good (personal opinion)
  • Overall comments:
    • getting power strips / extensions cords in the meeting
    • event mismatched to size of room: having small groups in ballroom can be problematic
    • mobile microphones critical for the ballroom
    • coffee was good
    • should we have had an extra email
    • having coffee in library and main event in ballroom was not ideal
    • wifi was excellent!
  • Social Events 
    • Monday: newcomer welcome dinner was lightly attended. 
      • Many people got in late due to travel
      • Were there enough hosts to take people to local eateries? Did people know where the eateries were?
      • possibly do newcomers on the 2nd night (night of workshop)?
    • Tuesday: Beer Bus was a success–lots of people out early in the conference, lots of conversation. Some comments on the expense of the bus (relative to taxis...)
      • consider non-alcohol focused events to parallel the beer bus (which was o
    • Wednesday: Jolly Scholar on Weds night was good
  • Financial
    • Summary
      • $55 per person
      • $8702 total income
      • less eventbrite fees, net = $8011
      • one $55 refund to pay out
      • dinner on Weds is paid for
      • catering is still open, but price was set
      • t-shirts payment still open (Lynn/Mark)
    • CWRU also paid directly for facilities (thanks CWRU!)
    • t-shirts are a significant part of ticket price
      • overlap with OR distribution, too, makes some people not want them
      • issues with getting right sizes
      • but the t-shirts 
    • people like the low low cost of the conference
  • Booking
    • Hotels
      • blocks of 20 rooms; expanded at least three times – approximately 80 rooms booked in the block (question)
        • some people didn't use the block
        • some people ended up at Doubletree
        • some people ended up at Air BNB
      • Patrick will check in with hotel.
    • EventBrite for event registration 
      • ask about t-shirts more regularly
      • ask people to share email on the reg form
      • look at getting a couple more admins into EventBrite to help generate reports
  • Conference Content
    • Schedule
      • Tuesday: Workshops were great!
      • Wednesday plenary was fast paced, covered good range of topics
      • Thursday: also good, though unconference topics was kind of light
      • Friday: felt a lot like the old quarterly partner meetings (this is a good thing)
        • end of day attrition was noticeable, but lots of people came 
    • Content 
      • lots of interest in more training
      • could we get more participation?
        • some people came in with a "consumer" attitude
      • Lightning Talks
        • good overall
        • some people didn't know they were on the hook 
      • Spotlight on New Attendees was awesome
        • but maybe we should ask different questions of different groups
      • sessions seemed somewhat short
        • run unconferences longer?
        • run Friday WG meetings longer?
        • we were running 5 tracks at a time
        • but short conferences
      • possibly run through lunch?
        • spreads the lunch rush out
        • Tuesday was too crowded at the Jolly Scholar, but 
      • show off the different applications that were built with Hydra
        • Hydra Showcase very early in the conference?
        • possibly do more demos throughout the conference... like the 
        • look at demos during the poster session?
      • Poster session was excellent
        • having the posters printed & there was fantastic
        • CWRU funded this. should we build this into budget in future? perhaps without mounting costs
        • possibly have a recommended size that can be reasonable
      • some confusion on difference between WG/IGs and Unconference tracks. Focus on messaging?
        • also make clear who is welcome to come to WGs
  • Now that's its all over
    • Lets do a post-event survey
      • Google Forms?
    • Richard will send out a survey
      • starting with Mark Notess questions from last year
      • will add anything that we want to add
  • Logistics 
    • pens
    • stickies
    • white boards
    • projectors
    • have lots of easels for posters