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[comotion AT delta9.pl]

On Sun, May 26, 2019 at 10:43:32PM +0200, David Noble wrote:
> I have a few observations.

Hi David,

> søn. 26. mai 2019 kl. 22:03 skrev <comotion AT delta9.pl>:
> > Yes, we need more speakers. About 20 more speakers.
> >
> > Do you remember someone from previous years that you connected with?
> >
> 
> 20 more speakers is quite a big ask. I think that there is a real chance of
> the talks becoming too niche to attract attendees if speakers are recruited
> in for the sake of being speakers.

Making the programme too niche is definitely a danger, even if we don't
book speakers for the sake of being speakers, which I am sure noone
is doing (consciously). Do you have any suggestion for what we should do to 
avoid
it?

Getting help from previous speakers to find relevant content from the
conference was the single best thing I did for the programme last time
over, and I got real help in booking some quality talks.

20 speakers booked by one person is a lot, but for one person to book 3
to 5 speakers, that should be entirely doable.

> > On Fri, May 10, 2019 at 12:03:40PM +0200, Christian Johansen wrote:
> 
> *snip*
> 
> > > We usually have 3 tracks.
> > > I think it is good to have at least:
> > > - Technical Track
> > > - Political/Social Track
> > > - Art/Gender/Education Track
> >
> 
> To put it bluntly, I think this is too ambitious, particularly given the
> low turnout last time FSCONS was held in Oslo. I don't remember if there
> were more conference staff than attendees, but I think that this is a
> situation that should be avoided.
> 
> I suggest dropping the idea of having three tracks, and cutting back to one
> instead; but keeping the fields of "Technology", "Politics / Society" and
> "Art / Gender / Education" as themes. In this format, speakers from each
> field; preferably with talks that that intersect with the other field could
> be gathered, and selected based on quality, thus ensuring a high quality
> conference; with a considerably reduced workload on local staff.

We've agreed on keeping the themes the same but not splitting it into
tracks, for other reasons: usually talks at fscons straddle two or more
of these themes and having different "tracks" doesn't really make sense
then. If the tracks were more specific it would make sense, but that
would assume we were a big conference with loads of submissions rather
than a small one with mostly invited speakers.

-Kacper