SuggestionBox
This page is intended to be some kind of register of suggestions for the improved organisation of the conference in the future, although there's no better time than the present to suggest and make improvements to the way things are done.
Feel free to add suggestions, marking those which could be introduced already for this conference with 2007.
Note that this is more of an organisational suggestion box rather than something recording opinions about the actual conference. See EuroPython2007Feedback for a general suggestion box about the conference and your experience of it.
Suggestions
The suggestions are organised into a few mostly separate categories.
Organisation
- Make the non-venue-specific processes more prominent - this is where the wider community can really play a part: the Web site, registration, talk reviewers and track/theme management.
- Reach out to the community before starting to organise the conference - consider a Call For Organisers in order to get volunteers for the above things.
Registration and Processes
2007 Get feedback from the community about specific things that we suspect could be done better. For example:
- Do people get uneasy when we open registration later than two months before the conference?
- Did uncertainty put people off going to the conference? (This isn't just a question for attendees, obviously.)
- Was the information available to attendees coherent and sufficient, or do people need to surf around for things we could have told them on a single page?
- How hard was it to register?
- Put deadlines on more convenient days. Let people have the weekend to finish off their talk proposals.
- Try to work from the registration form - this really focuses the organisation on the more important details and raises questions about things which are chargeable or not.
- Have some announcement templates ready in both Web and message formats.
- Consider bulk registrations, where one person registers a group on their behalf. (See the infrastructure suggestions.)
- Consider the registration of the organisers and invitees.
Infrastructure
See the EuroPython/SoftwareRequirements for more thoughts.
- Bring up the technology stuff a lot earlier so that if people want to write their own conference software, they have their chance to pitch it in good time.
- Consider having full control over infrastructure - being able to register other people conveniently, for example, and having control over accounts. (A workaround might involve having special limited-time europython.org e-mail addresses for people registered by others, where account registration systems require a distinct e-mail address.)
- Try and get the accommodation provider to provide bookings over the Internet.
Get connected to e-payment providers well in advance.