[wsfii-discuss] proposed structure and timings for WSFII

Fri Aug 5 22:18:50 UTC 2005

lo saul, glad to hear that you are not hallucinating,

On Wed, Aug 03, 2005 at 05:59:50PM +0100, Saul Albert wrote:
> That's it! As for 'lightning talks' as you are suggesting Jo and Rufus, I
> don't think it's a good idea to break up the simplicity of the format of
> stories and workshops.  There's something really good about a shared
> presentation space where everything happens 

on first reading this, i parsed 'shared' as 'sacred', and now it's a
struggle not to do so. i cast my mind back to the most successful
conference i've been to recently, open source geospatial in minneapolis...

partly the buzz, partly the layout; a longish 'chillout' type space
between the speaking rooms and the way out, dotted with tables and
chairs, where there were always 2 or 3 impromptu demofests going on,
clusters of a few people round a laptop looking at a shiny thing.

like many geeks i get very ADD and like to drift, and also often feel
compulsions to stand on a soapbox and spend 5 mins ranting at the
world about today's terribly important topic X. and i always enjoy the
corridor track a lot more than the main event.

how about, we put a projector and a soapbox in a social area - in the
entryway downstairs, or better at the top of the stairs between the
entrances to the hall - which people can grab as they feel like,
without obligation to schedule, or restriction of audience to the few
people gathered around the laptop? a kind of internal speakers'
corner, if we've dropped the idea of a field trip to the original one in
Hyde Park on the Sunday?

> I have one extra proposal to make - we have the famous 'slackers lounge'
> in the 'map room'.

this sounds great. the slackers' lounge is always nonsmoking though...
will we have a separate smoking area, or be obliged to huddle on the
steps?

zx