Is it possible to set up DConf Asia?

[Adam D. Ruppe]

On Saturday, 30 June 2018 at 02:23:57 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> Honestly, this is this first time that I've ever seen anyone 
> try to argue that conferences like this are a bad idea.

I argued it (though I don't remember how vigorously) back when 
the kickstarter was done. I still think there's far more useful 
things we could have spent that money on.

So, I literally just got home - as in about 20 minutes ago - from 
a work trip, an organization-wide retreat that consumed this 
whole week (and btw a LOT of money). I'll grant there was some 
value in the powerpoint presentations, but they were a tiny 
minority of the time.

The "talks" of this week were frequently intercut with questions, 
comments, arguments. The plan included various break-out sessions 
that mixed people across teams that don't usually mix in order to 
share more and see the other perspectives.

And, of course, before 9 and after 5, were the parts that most 
people felt were most valuable, just kinda hanging out and yes, 
even doing a little bit of work.

Overall, I'm actually still not sure it was worth the time and 
money that went into it... but there's a good case to be made 
that it was, even limiting it to just the 9-5 parts. But there 
were a few people saying they think it would have been more worth 
it if we cut out even more of the structure, to make the 9-5 more 
resemble the 5-9.



So when we criticize dconf, it is because the official time is 
devoted almost entirely to the most useless part of a meeting - 
the powerpoint presentations. (Like you could have just emailed 
that to me.)

And the powerpoints themselves btw are frequently trash. Really, 
the point of a talk like this is to market something - get people 
interested enough to read your book or use your project or 
whatever. Reading text or code off a slide is really pretty 
pointless, again, you could have just emailed that to me.



But anyway, if we are going to get people together, why not focus 
on the together aspects? Instead of having a traditional talk, 
try doing 5 minutes of talk to market interest in the idea, 
followed by 20 minutes of break-out interactive groups to 
collaboratively explore it, followed by conference share-outs and 
questions from those groups to the whole. And mix up the groups 
too. We did a fair amount of this at my work thing this week and 
I actually thought it worked fairly well. I actually rarely even 
had my computer out all week - we can youtube and email and IRC 
some other time, while in person, let's in person stuff.

Instead of having another talk immediately follow, just have 
some... together time. Make the lunch break 3 hours long instead 
of 1, so people have more of a chance to mingle and organically 
collaborate. You say the best part is what happens after the 
conference... so let's try to bring that after-conference stuff 
TO the conference itself!


If we're going to spend the money, let's not spend it on more 
powerpoints. Let's emphasize the parts you already like better, 
and actually focus on the unique benefits of in-person time.