2010 Feedback

From BarCampWiki

Feedback for 2010 Barcamp Boston

Feel free to add additional feedback below if you didn't get a chance to mention it at the final session.

• Add a line and add your own feedback here. Thank you!
• ...
• Have Web Voting for the first session topics to fill the first slots.
• Transition time between sessions. More explicit notice of the 5 minute buffer.
• 5 minute cards/timers for presentation endings
• Other barcamps are 45-50 minute talks. Two rooms for hour sessions, others for 30 minute sessions.
• Lightening talks firs thing in the morning during kickoff session
• Room to continue sessions if they go longer.
• Signage and parking information on the website/wiki for out of town people
• Try to get garage deck for Barcamp
• Large rooms were occasionally underutilized. Encourage people to think in advance for larger presentations and raising audiences
• Better voting and/or notification system to get people to present on a topic.
• How can we get ahold of people is a question/problem (Jay)
• Once something moves to become an official topic, rewrite the signs to make them more clear.
• Reusable name tabs, reprint name tags. (I apparently won a book for this but didn't realize it "oh well" (prezbedard))
• (Mike W); We have an issue with low attendance vs signup.
• Barcamp Boston/NYC were held on the same dates
• Better nametags; QR codes, Twitter handles, bigger first names, tag clouds, allow upload of photo/name/bio to BCB website.
• People seem to like Stata
• More fun sessions (Shimon)
• Barcamp Philly was limited to 200 and NYC has smaller conference rooms- encouraged discussion.
• NERD suggested as a venue.
• The underuse of lobby space has been pointed out. We could use that much better for niche discussions.
• Comment on ambiguity of the name. Perhaps the use of a subtitle could help.
• Crowd flow was difficult when everyone was looking at the schedule board.
• When people introduce themselves, they should be limited to three "tags" (for example: ruby, social media, startups). No sentences allowed. Like last year.
• The AppEngine Django talk used Etherpad for notes. It would be nice if all sessions had an Etherpad for group note-taking that was then linked to at the end of the conference. Except that etherpad.com is going away. Nevermind.
• Vegan pizza was awesome.
• Great event this year. Thanks to all who put it together and those who attended and presented. Looking ahead, it would be great if we could enlarge the audience and reach beyond the core of tech enthusiasts. After all, with the title of "Barcamp Boston," isn't it odd that nearly all of the topics were tech-focused? Why not reach out to other disciplines, such as medicine, the arts and humanities, the media, and even--gasp--the the law and politics. There are several ways to do this, including (1) inviting some well-known individuals in these fields to present and then publicizing the fact that they are going to appear; (2) reaching out to colleges and universities; (3) posting a video that gives a person a better idea of what to expect and that explains how to craft an effective presentation; and, (4) grouping some of these presentations together in consecutive time slots. A final comment to those who may feel that this would change the event in undesirable ways: We love the barcamp approach, right? Doesn't it seem like we owe it to others to help them discover the potential it offers to learn and meet others who share a similar passion in discovery and innovation?
• The big round tables in the cafeteria two years ago were missed (for "roundtable discussions")
• The Agenda wiki was good, I would recommend a mobile enable website for allowing attendees to easily view agenda & updates from their phones
• I was confused about what the event was, I didn't understand why the schedule was blank or what sort of stuff would be presented..... until I looked at last years schedule. Putting a link to the prior years schedule in a more prominent place (like in the current years schedule) would help get people unfamiliar with whats going on excited.