How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com) [LWN.net]

Over at Opensource.com, VM (Vicky) Brasseur and Josh Berkus give advice to conference organizers on how they can improve their conferences for attendees. There are ten different areas they address, including "Clear communications", "Have a Code of Conduct (and train staff on what that means)", "Fix your darn badges", and "Working Wi-Fi (here be dragons)". "When asked, attendees have a lot of strong opinions on the subject of conference badges, and the majority of those opinions are not positive. Badges serve multiple purposes, but the single most important one is allowing attendees to identify each other. Yet, despite that, few conference badges do a good job of performing this one deceptively simple duty."

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How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 14, 2016 23:40 UTC (Thu) by davidstrauss (subscriber, #85867) [Link] (2 responses)

This article has good advice on the website and communication, but it's as important to not overload the website with information, either. A conference goes through a few stages, and here's what I'd want at each one -- and little more.

All the time:
- Sponsors and sponsorship information
- Policies
- Contact information

ASAP:
- Call for papers
- Venue and official hotel
- Ticket pricing information (if sales haven't started yet)
- Visa letter information

After talk selection:
- Unified schedule of talks and official events
- Venue and official hotel
- Ticket sales
- Visa letter information
- Sponsors and sponsorship information
- Basics of getting around: Do Uber or Lyft work in the city? What's the recommended route from the airport to the hotel/venue? Do taxis take credit cards?

During the event:
- Schedule of talks and official events (ideally changing the front page of the conference site to be like a TV channel listing from the current time)
- Venue and official hotel
- Sponsors and sponsorship information
- Basics of getting around

After the event:
- Videos and slides from talks
- Sponsors and sponsorship information
- Any announcements for next year (city, etc.)

Stuff I don't find helpful:
- Suggested restaurants and hotels. I appreciate the thought, but I have Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other preferred guides.
- Different pages for schedules of talks, trainings, hackfests, parties, and other types of events. "Is the party tonight?" "Well, it's not listed on the Social Events schedule. Oh, it's listed in a section called After Hours."
- Overly clever schedule pages with lots of Javascript or that are too wide for my phone. Just let me Ctrl-F to find the talk/person I'm looking for.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 12:26 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (1 responses)

Actually, in your "all the time" section should be - right up top - when and where the conference is, because it should be known well in advance, perhaps even before the impending edition of the event takes place (for a recurring conference).

I've had experiences where the "when" part was rather fluid, but there are people who need to know definite dates well in advance (for work vacation booking, cheaper travel, and so on). Perversely, such things were only really fluid because people weren't in "organiser mode" soon enough, not because of potential scheduling conflicts with other conferences, but it helps to be aware of what's going on at around the same time as well. (That's where LWN's event calendar comes in!)

It really does help to try and see the conference site as a complete outsider who doesn't know stuff like the local culture, how to get around, and so on. That's why such sites need to have a broad selection of contributors, not just a bunch of locals, because the experiences with travel and transport can be completely different.

Otherwise, I agree with what you've put, apart from "trainings": it is my mission to restore the word "tutorials" here, and to eliminate the dreadful "learnings" (correct word: "lessons") that also seems to be part of business English these days.

(Actually, for the most part, I don't do conferences any more. Firstly, they don't generally interest me enough. Secondly, organisers seem to get more and more hassle for an increasing amount of effort. And the notion of not just sharing information on a continuous basis, instead going for "the reveal" - or whatever the marketing term is - by pitching a talk as some kind of event in itself, is just an absurd inefficiency in the process of documenting work that is, after all, itself ongoing.)

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 20:57 UTC (Fri) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

I'm annoyed by conference websites were you have to dig though the website to figure out where it's hosted. Sometimes they helpfully put the name of the city on the front page, but the actual address is buried somewhere else. Bonus points if they list the name of the conference venue, but when searching Google you find a venue whose name is translated or in some way an almost-but-not-quite match.

People who have never visited your country before have no idea if "<city> Convention Centre" is the same as "Convention Centre of <city>". Just put an address that's unambiguous on the front page, so we're sure we're in the right place. Or a lat/long link to OpenStreetMaps. Or a link to the home page of the venue.

(It used to happen that not even the dates were on the front page. That thankfully seems to be much rarer now.)

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 3:58 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (39 responses)

I would love to go to a conference where WiFi is jammed or disabled in rooms where someone's giving a talk.

Yeah, I know. It'll never happen. But one can dream...

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 5:13 UTC (Fri) by shemminger (subscriber, #5739) [Link]

Usually the wifi only teases by sometimes working

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 7:02 UTC (Fri) by alison (subscriber, #63752) [Link]

Couldn't agree more. The same goes triple for in-person meetings.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 8:31 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (35 responses)

Why?

If your meeting is boring then it's YOUR fault.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 14:34 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (25 responses)

WRONG!

If the meeting is boring to THEM then they can RUIN YOUR enjoyment.

Plus it's just plain downright rude to go to a talk/presentation and then disrupt it FOR EVERYONE ELSE because you can't leave your phone or laptop alone.

Please don't blame the victim ...

Cheers,
Wol

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 21:11 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (24 responses)

> If the meeting is boring to THEM then they can RUIN YOUR enjoyment.
Somebody is not having fun!!! <in robotic voice>Switching to EXTERMINATE mode, deploying chainsaws, proceeding to massacre them.</in robotic voice>

Seriously, if you can't tolerate other people doing their own business that does NOT interfere with you - you probably should not go to conferences.

Besides, a person with a laptop might be live-blogging the talk or making notes to ask the speaker later.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 16, 2016 3:07 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link] (9 responses)

Besides, a person with a laptop might be live-blogging the talk...

If the live blogger is assigned by, or sanctioned by, the conference organizer, then they should (ideally) be seated in a reserved or special section so as to not disturb the audience. Even better would be to have a stationary workstation computer with wired Ethernet and web cam, so bloggers won't have to worry about dead Wi-Fi or battery (and audience members wouldn't have to worry about tripping over the laptop power cord).

...or making notes to ask the speaker later.

That's what pen and paper are for. ☺

Just my $0.02.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 16, 2016 5:16 UTC (Sat) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (1 responses)

Aha... And the things like quick git grep (or google, for that matter) to get the details for followup question or to estimate the degree of (in)sanity of what's being proposed are also supposed to be done by pen and paper?

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 16, 2016 6:03 UTC (Sat) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

In my suggested arrangement, yes.

One wouldn't need git(1), grep(1) or Google if the presenter's proposal was wacky and controversial enough as to elicit estimations of "degrees of insanity". At least not until the conclusion of said presentation.

But then again, my suggestion was only two cents' worth. ;-)

Seriously... my philosophy is that a great presentation on technical matters has all the numerical stats 'n' data already figured out and published either in the presentation slides, or in a handout available to attendees.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 16, 2016 15:57 UTC (Sat) by jake (editor, #205) [Link] (5 responses)

> If the live blogger is assigned by, or sanctioned by, the conference organizer,
> then they should (ideally) be seated in a reserved or special section so as to not
> disturb the audience.

fwiw, I'm not a live blogger, but I am tapping away at my laptop throughout talks (whether there's wifi or no), and I try to sit near the front to get a photo or two ... it's part of my job :)

i have seen others taking notes (for themselves, colleagues, or an article of some sort, dunno) too ...

sorry if it distracts, but i don't really see a way around it (paper & pen just doesn't cut it) ...

jake

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 21, 2016 16:50 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

You can quite nicely tap away at your laptop taking notes without Internet connectivity.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 21, 2016 16:57 UTC (Thu) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]

> You can quite nicely tap away at your laptop taking notes without Internet connectivity.

of course ... i didn't say anything about needing internet ... i just objected to the "paper & pen" supposed alternative ...

jake

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 21, 2016 20:54 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

Not necessarily.

Personally, if a presenter thinks that they are so self-important as to require WiFi be turned off - I'll stand up and walk out in the middle of the presentation (and walk through the camera field of view if the talk is recorded).

It IS far more disrupting.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 3:10 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (1 responses)

That's fine. If people can't tolerate not being constantly entertained or stimulated for a short time and are unwilling to devote their full concentration, I as a speaker would rather have them leave and find entertainment elsewhere than be tortured by my terribly boring talk.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 3:13 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Except that you likely have _one_ talk and people are likely to sit through multiple talks every day.

Now, you can try banning WiFi for your own talk only (making sure to make this conspicuous in the talk description) and see how well it goes. I predict hilarity.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 18, 2016 8:29 UTC (Mon) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]

That's what pen and paper are for. ☺

Well, I think I type faster that I write. Also it's easier to send the electronic notes around than the paper notes - and it's a lot easier to read the electronic notes than my handwriting.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 16, 2016 11:30 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (13 responses)

> Seriously, if you can't tolerate other people doing their own business that does NOT interfere with you - you probably should not go to conferences.

So people like me (and nix, and probably others) shouldn't go to conferences, despite the fact we might both gain and give a lot, just because other people can't be bothered to be polite?

I have a low distraction threshold - I was brought up in a quiet house without a TV and never learnt to exclude distracting influences.

Like many older people my hearing isn't what it was - it's still extremely good, and much better than many people much younger than me, but I have great difficulty separating competing sounds - it is EXTREMELY easy for someone making a noise next to me to drown out the speaker, and that's just downright *rude*.

And then many people who would like to attend conferences are probably on the autistic spectrum - and rather more sensitive than normal to sensory overload.

At the end of the day, it's all down to respect, and if your activities prevent other attendees from hearing what the speaker is saying, you shouldn't be doing it. Sorry, but they're not there to listen to you, they're there to listen to the speaker.

Cheers,
Wol

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 17, 2016 0:43 UTC (Sun) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

> So people like me (and nix, and probably others) shouldn't go to conferences, despite the fact we might both gain and give a lot, just because other people can't be bothered to be polite?
I'm sorry, but other people are usually not doing anything unusual with their laptops at conferences.

And if you can't cope with people nearby just doing regular stuff, then perhaps you shouldn't go to the conferences. Alternatively you can ask for reserved seating in front rows or to make a 'no laptop' section for you.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 28, 2016 1:24 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I can certainly say that if anyone tried to attach a Model M keyboard to their laptop, I would eviscerate them... but then so would everyone else: *nobody* would be able to hear the speaker!

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 21, 2016 15:22 UTC (Thu) by Funcan (guest, #44209) [Link] (10 responses)

Conversely, I get a lot more value out of conference presentations when I can type notes, try things out, compare what is being said to things on the web, etc (depending on the presentation and presenter). Why should I loose all that added value because you need a sensory deprivation tank in order to concentrate?

I agree that many things are out of order at a conference, but quietly typing on a laptop is pretty much universally accepted behaviour now

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 21, 2016 16:51 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (9 responses)

To reiterate: Internet connectivity is not required for taking notes on a laptop.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 21, 2016 18:08 UTC (Thu) by idrys (subscriber, #4347) [Link] (8 responses)

And I don't understand why a laptop with internet connectivity is supposed to be more distracting than a laptop without.

I've relied on internet access before to look up terminology from the Intel world I was not familiar with so I could follow without distracting everybody else with stupid questions. Would it have been preferable if I had not been able to take anything home from the session?

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 3:15 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (7 responses)

Here's the thing: People (supposedly) go to conferences to interact in person. It's not only a matter of distraction. It's also the case that people reading email or whatever during a talk are not paying attention to the speaker and he or she loses that audience interaction. It spoils the energy of the room, spoils the sense of engagement, and ends up being little better than just chatting over IRC.

I do improv, and an improv set without an audience is lame. It's the same with a speaker: Good speakers feed off the audience's energy and you wind up with something much greater than the literal text of the talk.

It's just like cell phones and real-life interactions. Studies have shown that the mere presence of a cell phone completely changes the way people interact in person.

If conference attendees don't want to give their full physical attention to the speaker, then what the heck is the point of going to the talk?

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 3:38 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (5 responses)

> Here's the thing: People (supposedly) go to conferences to interact in person. It's not only a matter of distraction.
Really? Unless you mean a 5-minute Q&A section at the end of the talk, people do not interact more with the speaker than during a Youtube video.

And in any case, it's _listeners_ problems, not yours.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 4:09 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

You haven't been to really good engaging talks, then.

And it's not only the listener's problem; people obviously not paying attention make the talk less pleasant for everyone.

But anyway. I no longer go to technical conferences because I'm not interested in interacting with people with poor social skills who can't bear to be away from their devices and get twitchy at the thought of being disconnected. It's just not fun anymore.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 4:23 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

A conference talk engaging for me is not necessarily interesting for my neighbor.

And I quite like conferences and I've given plenty of talks. I can't say I feel for people stuck in the pre-last century who can't tolerate that other people might not be totally engrossed in their speech.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 12:43 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link] (2 responses)

A conference talk engaging for me is not necessarily interesting for my neighbor.

Not necessarily interesting? Then why are they even in the talk?!

Maybe there's a place for a conference where people can sit in an auditorium with their faces bathed in the light of their laptop screens, while the calming tones of a speaker soothes their frantic minds, speaking about potentially any topic, with maybe a few familiar buzzwords thrown in every now and again to make the audience's attendance seem justified. There could also be music!

And maybe the Linux Foundation would sponsor it.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 13:28 UTC (Fri) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link]

> Not necessarily interesting? Then why are they even in the talk?!

Usually for me at a conference, there's maybe two talks I'm sure I'm interested in. And then there's a bunch of ones that *might* be interesting, depending on how the topic is interpreted and the technical level of the talk. Or I'm in the auditorium because I've been asked to comment on some details at the end, but I know the topic very well. Or I just have to soothe my colleague taking over my duties, so I could go to the conference, that everything's going alright. Or ...

I'm confused about the demands attendees here make of their fellow attendees.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 19:33 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> Not necessarily interesting? Then why are they even in the talk?!
Tons of reasons:
- The talk description looked interesting, but the presenter is a boring drone.
- The talk description looked interesting, but you only care about the Q&A section.
- The talk description looked interesting, but the content turned out to be well-known to you.
- The talk description looked interesting, but the content turned out to be way too technical for you.
- You need to spend 1 hour between session you're really interested in.
- You need to show your boss that you've attended enough sessions to justify your trip to Las Vegas.

There are tons of reasons.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 22, 2016 8:11 UTC (Fri) by idrys (subscriber, #4347) [Link]

And here I notice that you completely ignore my arguments, instead focusing on things I did not talk about.

Really, there's no point arguing if you do that.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 19:28 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (7 responses)

And in a conference situation, you should be able and willing to walk out of a session that turns out boring. If I join a session on (say) "C++11 in a multimedia world" and it turns out to be a sales pitch for a C++11 wrapper around Microsoft Media Foundation, I should just walk, not hang around working on my laptop and disrupting the experience of everyone else in the room.

This also creates feedback for the people who write talk titles and abstracts - if you have 100 people in the audience when you start, and 10 minutes in, you're down to just 5, you know the pitch was wrong.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 19:30 UTC (Fri) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841) [Link] (1 responses)

Nah - the pitch was right but the talk was wrong.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 20:49 UTC (Fri) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Like the "if the code and the comments disagree" case, I submit that both were wrong.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 21:09 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

If it's a large conference then you usually plan attendance in advance. So walking out will force you to walk around in corridors for another 30-40 minutes - too little to do something meaningful like going to a restaurant, too much to be boring.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 16, 2016 8:40 UTC (Sat) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

Better to have 45 minutes on WiFi in the corridor (with the presenter clear that I lost interest and walked out) than 45 minutes in a presentation working on something else on my laptop.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 16, 2016 23:44 UTC (Sat) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (1 responses)

" I should just walk, not hang around working on my laptop and disrupting the experience of everyone else in the room. "

because 'walking out' in the middle of the talk is not disrupting for the rest of the audience ?

Watch some video of the latest CCC for instance... most attendee in the room have a laptop (you can see all the backlit scren wheever they show a wide shoot)
but what really disturb thing, which trigger very often a comment from the moderator, is when people leave the room just before the Q&A of the talk.

iow, it seems that piratically, people leaving before the end is more disruptive than people using a laptop during the talk.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 17, 2016 12:42 UTC (Sun) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Such annoyances are among the things that persuaded me that, for me at least, the conference is an archaic form of event, at least in the way that they are usually organised: the hurry from one talk to the next, with people more focused on getting out of the talk they're in so as to catch the next one, only to sit in the next one reading their mail, surfing the net, or even preparing their own talk.

You can improve some of these things - schedule related talks closer to one another, add longer breaks, provide more physical space and easier access - but sometimes the venue, length of event, and people's expectations frustrate any such improvements. And while I've regarded the informal interactions (the so-called "hallway track") to be more rewarding in various respects, it seems that many people would prefer to see a packed schedule and a big event, so as to get their money's worth.

If I were to go to such an event now, it would have to be closer to what was (and presumably still is) known as an "unconference".

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 17, 2016 4:56 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (subscriber, #34940) [Link]

In many conferences “just walk” involves forcing 10-20 people to stand up so you can pass, as well as you blocking the view for 10s or 100s of other people, and maybe even blocking the camera used for recording & live streaming.

I think working quietly on your laptop is a lot less disturbing then…

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 21, 2016 16:49 UTC (Thu) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

If people are bored by my meeting, they are free to discreetly get up and leave.

The real problem is that people are used to not concentrating, and also used to being extremely rude to presenters.

How conference organizers can create better attendee experiences (Opensource.com)

Posted Jan 15, 2016 11:49 UTC (Fri) by niner (guest, #26151) [Link]

The London Perl Workshop (with regularly some 200-300 attendees) does not have WiFi at all. And that's on purpose. And I do agree that it just makes for a better conference both as a speaker and as a (far too much tempted) attendee.