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Event Logistics

Aaron Gustafson edited this page Sep 6, 2019 · 3 revisions

Duration

The duration for a Web We Want session is flexible, but should be no less than 45 minutes. The number of pitch slots will directly depend on the block for the session (see Agenda, below).

Pitches

We invite a handful of folks to present their "want" to the audience. Each pitch is limited to 5 minutes. The pitch can be given in-person by the person who submitted it or the pitch can be pre-recorded (and posted to YouTube or similar) or the "want" may presented by the Emcee (or another organizer) on the person's behalf. Slides are optional, but recommended. If we end up presenting on someone's behalf, slides are highly recommended and credit should be given to the person who submitted the idea.

Judging

For the purposes of the session, we will assemble a panel of 3 expert judges. These may be drawn from the conference speaker pool or conference attendees. We highly recommend that the judging panel not over-represent men (especially white men) in order to help cultivate a more inclusive community and draw from a wide variety of perspectives. We also recommend that the judges have different technical backgrounds and competencies as well (e.g., one HTML, one CSS, one JavaScript). This may be tailored to the conference as well, so a conference focused on JavaScript or a specific JavaScript-based framework might have three JavaScript experts on stage, but they should have different areas of specialization in order to keep the discussion interesting.

During the course of the session, judges are expected to provide feedback after each of the pitches, based on their understanding of the problem space. Judges with nothing to add can skip their turn, but each should be given an opportunity to speak.

At the end of the session, the judges will confer and pick their top "want" from the pool of pitches. At the same time, the audience will be ranking the presented pitches, in order of their preference, using a voting tool like PollJunkie.

Agenda

05:00 Emcee welcomes the audience and the judges; introduce the judging panel; introduce format & expectations
~10:00 each - Pitches - 05:00 for pitch; up to 05:00 for judge discussion
03:00 Judging - judges confer & audience votes
02:00 Thank you to judges, presenters, audience & call to action to submit

This means that, for a 60 minute session, we recommend no more than 5 pitches; For a 45 minute session, no more than 4.

Sample scripts

Introduction

Hi there and welcome to the Web We Want. I’m your host YOUR NAME HERE and this session is a bit different than what you’re probably used to in that we’re using it as an opportunity to learn from you. We want to know what features you believe are missing from the web platform, developer tooling, and browsers in general. The Web We Want has been collecting "wants" from the community and today we’ve invited NUMBER OF PITCHES folks to pitch us on why we should solve the problems or address the deficiencies they’ve presented. But before we get to that, I want to give you a brief overview of how this session will run.

First off, I’m joined here on stage by an incredible judging panel today. INTRO EACH JUDGE After each of our pitches today, they’ll provide some feedback. They might also ask some follow-up questions.

Once we’ve heard all of the pitches, our judging panel will confer and pick the "want" they’d most like to see addressed. And, while they’re discussing, you’ll be given a chance to rank the pitches as well. Once the judging is complete, we’ll announce the winning pitches from the judges and from the community and they’ll win a prize. MENTION THE PRIZES One quick point of clarification: the same pitch cannot win both prizes; if the judges and the community pick the same "want," the winning pitch from the community will be their second favorite.

Ok, let’s get started…

Judging

Ok, so we’ve heard all of the pitches and now we’re going to take three minutes to pick our favorites. On the screen now are all brief summaries of each of the pitches you heard and a QR code you can scan to visit the PollJunkie voting app. While you’re voting, our judges will confer as well and pick their favorite. (to the folks that pitched) Good luck! I’ll start the clock now.

Winners & Thank you

Ok folks, the votes are in. Judges, what was your top pitch?

[Judges respond]

Awesome! Congrats to PITCHER’S NAME!

And the community choice prize goes to WANT NAME. Congrats to you PITCHER’S NAME for that! Our winners can see POINT OF CONTACT after this wraps to claim their prizes.

Well that’s it for this edition of the Web We Want. Let’s thank our expert judges, our amazing presenters, and last but not least thank you to all of you who participated and voted in this session. Please consider submitting your own wants to webwewant.fyi.

Thank you!

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