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Sign upProgram guidelines #19
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| ## Have a clear audience goal | ||
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| Before you review talks, have a clear idea of what your target audience is. This is not just “users of the technology the conference is about”, this is also includes subgroups by field or level of expertise. Beginner talks will bore advanced users, and advanced talks will not be useful for beginners. When you have multiple rooms, having multiple targets is more feasible; however this can be tricky to schedule, so be careful. |
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badboy
Mar 30, 2018
Member
"and advanced talks will not be useful for beginners"
I think it might be ok to soften this one. There are advanced talks that can incite interest in beginners.
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| ## Introductions | ||
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| If you have an emcee, be sure to communicate with speakers about this well in advance. Ask how they’d like to be introduced — some may provide you with text, some may care less (in which case, prepare the text yourself and make sure the emcee has it well in advance). Make sure you know their pronouns, and have your emcee work with them to make sure their name will be pronounced correctly. |
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badboy
Mar 30, 2018
Member
emcee - I haven't seen it written as this, only as MC. Maybe make it more clear who that is and what they are for?
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| Overall, be consistent with how folks are introduced. | ||
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| ## Logisitics and Announcements |
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| ## Logisitics and Announcements | ||
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| A website or central document that describes the general practices and layout of the event is very valuable and can eliminate a lot of redundent questions. |
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| A website or central document that describes the general practices and layout of the event is very valuable and can eliminate a lot of redundent questions. | ||
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| Try to keep all the information for the event in a central and logically organized manner. Keep in mind that weird things *will* happen so have a plan for emergency/urgent announcements (anyone have an HDMI cable?) and make sure people know where to look for these. Use the same medium (twitter/Slack/IRC/etc) as inconsistancy will lead to confusion or missed announcements. |
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| - Applause (seriously) | ||
| - Plugging/Unplugging Laptops | ||
| - Speaker Introductions | ||
| - Announcements |
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badboy
Mar 30, 2018
Member
One thing we have at RustFest: Main sponsors get a 5min talk at the beginning. Might be worth to add as "Other" or something alike?
| You should not only set this time aside but you should clearly show it on the program you display and distribute to attendees. They appreciate a realistic schedule and will be more likely to comply with it if they know when it is and why it’s there in advance which always makes things run more smoothly. | ||
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| ## Tech Check | ||
| It is extremely useful to have your A/V or organizers available to help speakers set up their machines on stage to test their display *before* they have to speak. Inevitably, not every speaker will be available (and some will flake out and forget) but every person you are able to tech check saves you time in your program and also allows the event to appear more professional. |
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badboy
Mar 30, 2018
Member
Maybe make it clear to use the breaks (morning break, lunch break, etc) for tech checks.
Also someone should be responsible in the minutes before the talk to setup speaker (mic, laptop)
| Be aware of the human limitations of your participants! People get sleepy after lunch, or they may be hungover on the second morning of the event. An idea here is to have more technical talks after the coffee break and less tech heavy talks after lunch and on the second morning of the event. | ||
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| ## How long and how often should breaks be | ||
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badboy
Mar 30, 2018
Member
The "hallway track" and the breaks are often the most useful parts of a conference. We could use this section to highlight that.
deg4uss3r
force-pushed the
program-guidelines
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from
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ad840a7
Mar 30, 2018
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Updated suggestions from @badboy |
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skade
approved these changes
Apr 14, 2018
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| ## Introductions | ||
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| If you have an emcee (MC), be sure to communicate with speakers about this well in advance. Ask how they’d like to be introduced — some may provide you with text, some may care less (in which case, prepare the text yourself and make sure the emcee has it well in advance). Make sure you know their pronouns, and have your emcee work with them to make sure their name will be pronounced correctly. |
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skade
Apr 14, 2018
Contributor
I'm thinking if dealing with speakers (before and during the event) merits an own document for cross-referencing?
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| If you have an emcee (MC), be sure to communicate with speakers about this well in advance. Ask how they’d like to be introduced — some may provide you with text, some may care less (in which case, prepare the text yourself and make sure the emcee has it well in advance). Make sure you know their pronouns, and have your emcee work with them to make sure their name will be pronounced correctly. | ||
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| Some speakers feel awkward about self-introduction, so having an emcee introduce them can be quite helpful. Others may have a talk that starts with an introduction that segues into the material, so they may wish for the emcee introduction to be shorter. |
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| We don’t recommend opening the floor to Q&A. We do recommend: | ||
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| - Dedicated room/Speaker Corners | ||
| - Keep it short, speakers want to go to talks too! |
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skade
Apr 14, 2018
Contributor
I agree that most Q&A's are bad, but I don't know if I fully agree with the recommendation. I don't know about how to phrase it better :/.
There's also moderated/submitted Q&A, where questions have to be submitted to the MC, who will ask them (or not). This also ensures that the Q&A is no essays in themselves, as people cannot submit more then 2-3 sentences.
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badboy
Apr 14, 2018
Member
Yeah, we should rephrase that to list the options instead of excluding Q&A in total. I will think about the phrasing later.
badboy
approved these changes
Jun 24, 2018
celaus
reviewed
Jun 24, 2018
| - Have a microphone for the audience for immediate questions afterwards | ||
| - The MC should be around and stop people without an actual question | ||
| - A moderated Q&A, where questions have to be submitted to the MC, who will ask them | ||
| - Collect from Twitter, IRC channel, etc. or dedicated website |
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celaus
Jun 24, 2018
Collaborator
When recording/live streaming the speaker/MC has to repeat the question when there's no microphone for the audience.
When live streaming a "no presence required" way of asking questions is very appreciated
japaric commentedMar 30, 2018
written during the Events session at the Rust All Hands
Basically how to schedule a conference program
cc @ashleygwilliams