Financial Aid

• Make reimbursement process easier by creating a pdf for recipients to fill out instead of making them create their own.

Food, etc.

• Have water be available in the hallways, not just the rooms
• Convince the food vendors / hotel to leave the food trays around for longer than the few minutes when scheduled meal breaks are. Numerous times I missed the provided food due to an extended conversation following a talk or having been in the vendor area.

General

• Better/more signage.

Lightning Talks

• Be more specific that talks should be more than a sales or recruiting pitch. Tell us about what you're doing!
• Point people to example lightning talk videos, once we get them posted.
• Post a list of the lightning talks once the signup sheet has been taken down; people were unsure if they were accepted or not, and asked at the reg. desk.

Networking

• wired network for speakers' podiums, vendors & sponsors who request it, tutorials (esp. tutorial instructors)
• wired network for tutorials -- too many people need to install at the beginning of a tutorial and it was too easy for the wireless to go down thus holding up progress on tutorials.
• wired network for registration desk.
• have a networking-status page in the wiki. The Reg. desk can print it every morning and make copies available.

Open Space

• introduction to open space for attendees
• more announcements about open spaces
  • each session chair mentions open spaces that they're interested in
  • add scheduled open spaces to the daily schedule changes sheet

Registration Desk

• Have a simple badge printing program so that Mary can print badges w/o having to create a registration.
• make on-site registration faster -- get a terminal? do it in PayFlow's (or should I call it PayFlaw?) management interface? outsource the whole registration process to a third party?
• make using the reg. software faster -- shortcuts for common tasks, alt tag on the badge image, other tweaks.

Sponsorship

• Dedicate space for recruiting
  • Use open space room(s)?
• Encourage sponsors to set up social events (parties, dinners, mixers, etc.).

Talk Selection Process

• Keep speaker names on proposals during reviews
• Organize scheduled talks into themed tracks

Talk Logistics

• Better wrangling of speakers at speaking time, including:

  • Present before session
  • Session chair hands out release forms
  • Make sure all required A/V resources are available and working (sound, etc)
  • Check/set display resolution

• Headset mics to free up both hands?

• Buffer zone around A/V setup to avoid RFI from Blackberry devices and such

• Email in advance and/or give a handout to all presenters (including lightening talkers) to include:

  • suggestion to turn off screensavers, IM clients, etc that might interrupt the talk
  • warnings against poorly contrasting colors (e.g. yellow on green)
  • supported projector resolutions
  • recommended minimum font size for legibility at various resolutions
  • suggestion to backup their presentation prior to the day of their talk :-)

• A spare DVI to VGA adapter per room

• Perhaps a spare projector in the speaker's ready room which can be used to test the speaker's equipment out prior to their talk

Tutorials

• The evening session worked well. What about 2 days of tutorials?
• Allow for instructors to communicate with students (pre-conference)
  • wiki
  • mailing list
  • broadcast message
  • allow students to "release" their email address
• Allow time during the selection process to allow for "back and forth" between the selection committee and those proposing tutorials. This will allow for clarification, modification and/or expansion on the proposal.
• Score tutorials:
  • -2: No!
  • -1: Leaning against
  • 0: Neutral
  • +1: Leaning for
  • +2: Yes!
• Skype for scoring sessions? Much more effective than IM
• Set up 1 Google doc with all of the related with all of the tutorial related spreadsheets
  • Proposal scoring and status (accepted, rejected, awaiting input, etc.)
  • Room assignments
  • handout status (pdf received, off to printer, received from printer)
  • Tutorial status (open, canceled, full, closed)
• Have one, ''and only one'', primary contact per tutorial.
• Get a headset (microphone) for each instructor.
• Have instructors meet in a "ready room" so instructors can fill out the release form before their session.
• Explain the release form beforehand so there is no confusion (yeah, right :-)
• Notify the instructors that the handouts will be in black-and-white (with gray scale) so they will not depend on colour to make their point(s).
• Have a way to verify handouts have been delivered to the hotel before tutorial day.
• Get financial information sooner, especially for non-US instructors.
• Make a template for proposals so we have consistent section names (RTF format?)
• Ask proposals for "ideal" and "maximum" (effective) class size (but don't guarantee either)
• Get slides online for emergency access (computer dies, etc.)
• Set up a waiting list for tutorials.
• Is there a way to allow instructors to submit handout notes later? Brian said that the print shop had the jobs done before he could walk across the (very large) shop to get them. Could the notes be submitted a day or two before tutorial day?

Scheduling

• Start with PSF Community Awards to allow the recipients, if present, to receive congratulations all weekend.

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