July 4, 2013 at 8:55 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Better Conference
July 5, 2013 at 12:09 am
Making the whole thing improv would be quite hard for a technical event: how would you prepare your demo's?
I do support the community voting for sessions: that way the sessions who are most in-demand will be at the event.
At the Belgian community day - which is an event of all the Belgian Microsoft user groups - there's was this year a panel discussion with experts, allowing the crowd to ask questions. I didn't go because I went to another session, but it might be interesting 🙂
The problem - at least here in Belgium - is that the audience is quite passive. You're lucky if they raise their hands if you ask a question. So I doubt if making it all more interactive would be an asset 😀
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July 5, 2013 at 3:14 am
Fascinating post!
To me, the sort of conference you describe is actually little more than a re-gurgitated technical manual! The kind that lists all the possible commands/ methods etc that are supported in a language, but there's no way to ask a human question, like "how do I calculate a percentage or shade it pale grey?"
You have to know a lot before you can begin to participate .... and if you know that much - why go at all?
July 5, 2013 at 3:29 am
kate.fletcher 42758 (7/5/2013)
Fascinating post!To me, the sort of conference you describe is actually little more than a re-gurgitated technical manual! The kind that lists all the possible commands/ methods etc that are supported in a language, but there's no way to ask a human question, like "how do I calculate a percentage or shade it pale grey?"
You have to know a lot before you can begin to participate .... and if you know that much - why go at all?
I usually go to sessions for one of two reasons:
* the subject is about a topic I haven't had time to delve into myself
* the speaker knows more about the subject than I do, so I will definately learn something
(Maybe this one as well:
* the other sessions in the time slot were more boring)
😀
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My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
July 5, 2013 at 4:22 am
I have regularly attended the SQLBits conference in the UK and find it follows a similar pattern to that described however months in advance presenters submit what they would like to present on and the attendees get to vote on which should be included. It certainly appears to work and I always find the session informative and would recommend to anyone. That said it would be great to have some more interactive or discussion sessions too. One of the sessions that does go a little towards this and helps new speakers get a foot in the door is the lightning talks session which is a full session made up of short (no longer than 5 minutes) individual presentations.
July 5, 2013 at 5:30 am
While it would be rather hard to prepare for, perhaps actually having some "improv" type seminars mixed in with the pre-planned topics might be a good idea. Possibly have the speaker set what the basic topic will be (SQL backups? Statistics? Indexing?) so they can get some notes in order, maybe prep some demos for likely questions.
The attendees then are asked to bring up anything, no matter how small, that they might have a question about related to the current topic. Attendees would be encouraged to offer suggestions and ideas to other peoples questions / issues, and possibly given the opportunity to borrow the presenters' system to demonstrate. Almost more of a "round table" type discussion, rather than the "class room" type.
It would give the newbies a chance to ask questions in an arena with a large breadth of experience, while the "old salts" might pick up something new or be reminded of a feature they forgot about...
Having attended one SQL Saturday a few months back, it did seem there was at least some audience participation, although it did feel somewhat "schoolish." Not a bad thing, and I still enjoyed the seminars.
Jason
July 5, 2013 at 5:41 am
Such a round table style session is a good idea.
Although I can imagine not everyone is comfortable with being bombarded with questions. 🙂
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July 5, 2013 at 8:15 am
What about pre-submitting questions or scenarios to speakers a week in advance, giving them some idea of the parts of the topic you want to cover?
July 5, 2013 at 8:31 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/5/2013)
What about pre-submitting questions or scenarios to speakers a week in advance, giving them some idea of the parts of the topic you want to cover?
That wouldn't be a bad idea either. I guess it would depend on the format once at the conference. If it's going to be more a "classroom" type discussion with the speaker providing the information, it would work OK, if it were to be a more "free wheeling" sort of discussion with input / suggestions / other attendees tossing out suggestions / answers then you might get stuck on one topic until time runs out...
July 5, 2013 at 8:43 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/5/2013)
What about pre-submitting questions or scenarios to speakers a week in advance, giving them some idea of the parts of the topic you want to cover?
That would need people to filter the dupes out and a good description of the agenda ahead of time. The state level PASS teams probably aren't set up for that.
----------------
Jim P.
A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.
July 5, 2013 at 8:55 am
reference material first:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconference
http://www.unconference.net/unconferencing-how-to-prepare-to-attend-an-unconference/
I have attended a number of unconferences over the last 5 years, and find them a richly rewarding alternative to the classic conference the original poster described.
The concerns raised about 'Improv' conferencing are quite valid, but this is not an either-or situation: I have attended and hosted off-the-cuff roundtables that were 'Improv' by almost any measure, then later in the day given a 90 minute presentation with a 17 page handout, two demonstrations and a physical model. The real difference for both was an audience that wanted to be there ("Vote with your feet" is a standard rule of unconference) and my willingness to do the prep work for the second conf 'on spec'.
July 5, 2013 at 9:24 am
Good day everyone,
One Microsoft conference I went to was very good. Two speakers with a mock real life scenario where one speaker was the IT Pro and the other was the Developer. They had a scenario to go through about giving access to the Developer the developer giving code to put on the server etc... It was very animated and captivating. It made me understand the point of view of the IT Pro and why he needs to be so tight with permissions.
Maybe this could be adapted to DBAs where the first speaker could be the boss breathing in the neck of the second speaker (the DBA) while he is recovering from a total crash and trying to figure where the problem.
Thank you Steve for making us think outside the box. Very appreciated.
Benoit
July 5, 2013 at 10:31 am
bpoirier (7/5/2013)
Good day everyone,One Microsoft conference I went to was very good. Two speakers with a mock real life scenario where one speaker was the IT Pro and the other was the Developer. They had a scenario to go through about giving access to the Developer the developer giving code to put on the server etc... It was very animated and captivating. It made me understand the point of view of the IT Pro and why he needs to be so tight with permissions.
Maybe this could be adapted to DBAs where the first speaker could be the boss breathing in the neck of the second speaker (the DBA) while he is recovering from a total crash and trying to figure where the problem.
Thank you Steve for making us think outside the box. Very appreciated.
Benoit
Matt Masson (of the SSIS team) and some other guy have a presentation like that about Data Quality Services. Matt is the developer, and the other guy is the business type who knows all about the data and the business. Very interesting and entertaining session.
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MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP
July 5, 2013 at 11:12 am
Very interesting topic. I'm all for more audience involvement. Last year's Summit (2012) had a session with Thomas LaRock where the presenters led the attendees on a trouble-shooting and database performance-enhancing scenario, with suggestions from attendees incorporated into the presentation in real-time. The more of this type of presentation we can have, the better.
Not trying to make this a plug for my endeavors to this end, but I too have been working on an idea to increase audience involvement at such events. The idea is a SQL game, where participants from the audience form teams and play a game of SQL-off against other teams. Trying to get some traction to hold it at PASS events. I am hoping there is enough interest in this to try it out.
Hakim Ali
www.sqlzen.com
July 5, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Perhaps there could be an open "trouble-shooting and question-asking" session with several experienced "presenters" where the expectation is that the attendees would bring their issues and a database to work against to resolve them. Then let everyone - presenters and attendees - try different options to resolve the problem.
While I realize some problems are complex enough that this might be difficult in some cases, I think it would provide great interaction, plus it would help build presentation skills in those bringing the issues into the session.
Sort of a "grow your own" concept.:-P
Steph Brown
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