[linux-elitists] Conference planning

[Marc MERLIN]

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 10:03:38AM -0700, Don Marti wrote:
> > To a point though. For the most part when speakers have those mini meetings,
> > they kind of enjoy the time alone, preferably without groupies :)
> > (not that most attendees are bad, but a few can be pretty interruptive of an
> > otherwise perfectly productive hacker discussion).
> 
> The problem is when there's more speaker-only time than potential mingling
> time.  Maybe the solution is to put the coffee at the other end of the
> facility, and just give the speakers 1337 speaker mugs that entitle them
> to free coffee.  (And get mug shipping boxes and offer to send each
> speaker's mug home afterward.)
 
Understood. Yes, in that case the free coffee idea may just work :)
 
> > Lessons learned: 
> > 1) don't futz with your laptop on the day of your talk (I wasn't in this
> >    case, that had happened months earlier)
> 
> Don't futz with your laptop for n days before traveling.
 
Pretty much. It's just not always realistic at some confs where you learn
about new things after a talk and want to try them out :)
 
> > 4) have a backup plan when all else fails (including your laptop dying):
> >    I export my slides to html and put them on my web site so that I can 
> >    take any laptop and show mostly the same slides from the web
> 
> Dude, show networks are the only technology flakier than
> laptop/X/projector beefs.  Copy the thing to a USB key, mail it as an
> attachment to the conference organizers, and burn a CD.

That assumes the talk was written and finished well in time :)
But yes, a USB key is always easy, I cary one in my wallet for that matter.

Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/