2011 Conference Feedback - Winners Are Grinners!
First of all, thank you for all the extremely valuable, constructive and positive feedback we received about the 2011 conference. It really is gratifying to see so many of you not only enjoying the conference, but making connections with each other and learning stuff too!
There are, however, some issues we'd like to cover in more detail as a response to some of the questions and comments raised in the feedback:
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Delegate contact details: There were a couple of requests for delegate contact details to be shared. First there are the obvious privacy implications; we cannot share details unless we've been given express permission. This year, as no one had suggested it before, it wasn't on the registration form. We are happy to add this to the registration form for future events. However there are many other ways to connect, including this website! We've set things up so that you can create a personal profile and send each other emails from within the site, and then connect outside of it, there is also the google group.
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Registration system/Online Payments: Each year we investigate the different options available to us and try something new. Some work better than others! One of the issues is the cost of accepting payments online. Most of these options charge a percentage of the ticket price, as well as a subscription fee of some kind, and are often off shore. So we can try out one of these systems, but it means an increase in the cost of registrations which we try to keep as low as possible. If you have any ideas or suggestions about online conference payments/registrations please let us know.
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Lightning Talks: The formal (wiki) definition of a lightning talk is:
...a short presentation given at a conference or similar forum. Unlike other presentations, lightning talks last only a few minutes and several will usually be delivered in a single period by different speakers.
One of the issues we've had with these talks is though everyone loves them, no one wants to do them! We have a registration form that is up on the site weeks before the conference, so people have plenty of time to come up with ideas and prepare, but each year we are left begging and cajoling people into doing it. We don't set a theme, and don't think we should as we want a broad range of topics of interest covererd. So if you like lightning talks, sign up! It's only 5 minutes!
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Presenters: Each year, James Purser, myself and Bern De Broglio meet and brainstorm ideas for topics for the conference. Each year we seek out suggestions via ideascale, google group, surveys etc Based on this feedback and the topics we think people are interested in, we start trying to match up speakers with the topics. We find these speakers from all over the place: other conferences, our own networks, recommendations from colleagues and we use twitter a lot. The reason being is that it allows us to follow specialists in their field, who we are interested in and are relevent to local government online in some way, who we may or may not know. We've been shocked (in a good way) at how well this has worked. It has allowed us access to speakers where once they were unattainable and/or extremely expensive, or outside our own personal networks. It means we have been able to deliver to you workshops and sessions that otherwise might cost quite a bit to attend. So, we will continue using these networks and any other means to find relevant speakers and topics, but if you have suggestions please respond when we put out the call, or alternatively, don't wait! Drop us an email and let us know you've had this great idea or you saw this amazing person speaking at this thing and we must have them for LGWN!
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Topics: Technical v Non-technical: One of the real battles we have each year putting together the conference program is trying to find the balance between technical and non technical topics. There never seem to be enough technical topics for people, yet when we run them only 1 or 2 peolpe turn up. So what's the answer? Give us more details on what kind of technical sessoins you're interested in and want to attend. Based on previous feedback we cut back the workshops as people indicated that they felt overloaded with choice, and by Friday it was all a bit too much. Do we swap days? Have technical/non tech in depth workshops on Day 1 and have conference as Day 2? Let us know what you think.
All in all, as usual the feedback is overwhelmingly positive, so thank you for your attendance and your enthusiasm and honesty. Now to the fun bit!
The winner of the Apple TV as kindly sponsored by BrowseAloud and David Sutton Consulting is: Erica Naughtin from Albury City Council
