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.

Lightning Talks

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.

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

Sponsorship

Talk Selection Process

Talk Logistics

• Better wrangling of speakers at speaking time

• Headset mics to free up both hands?

• Buffer zone around A/V setup to avoid RFI from Blackberrys 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 interupt 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

Website