All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report
use Perl Log In
barbie (2653)
reversethis-{ku. ... m} {ta} {eibrab}
http://barbie.missbarbell.co.uk/
Leader of Birmingham.pm [pm.org], CPAN author and father of 2. Spare time involves lots of Perl (see links below) and arranging meetings for Birmingham.pm (if you would like to visit us and/or give a talk, please let us know). I co-organised YAPC::Europe in 2006 and now help to support organisers with documentation and templates, and I keep an eye on CPAN Testing helping to promote it as much as I can.
If you really want to find out more, buy me a Guinness. Just don't ask the obvious
Links:
Memoirs of a Roadie [missbarbell.co.uk]
Birmingham Perl Mongers [pm.org]
CPAN Testers Stats [grango.org]
CPAN Testers Wiki [grango.org]
CPAN-YACSmoke [cpan.org]
Inspiring Self-Funded YAPC Attendees
Alas I won't be speaking at this year's YAPC::Europe, as unfortunately my two talks have been deemed too long
It'll be the first time since 2003 that I haven't presented at a YAPC::Europe event, and means I get to go to talks without worrying about making sure I've prepared my own talk. Plus if I do end up going under my own steam, then I can pick and choose the talks I go to, without feeling obligated to go to ones that I think would be relavent to work. When I first went to the YAPC::Europe conferences (all 4 from 2000-2003) I paid for myself and had much more fun getting to know people. For a good while I could actually hide in anonymity and just feel part of the audience. And to be fair it's the audience we should be thinking about, so may be it'll be good to have that perspective again.
A large proportion of the attendees know each other these days, but there are also plenty who don't know anyone. While we are always getting new attendees, they don't always come back. We're obviously reaching people outside of the echo chamber, but are we reaching the right people? To a large degree I think we are, but I wonder whether there are other ways of reaching and encouraging people, who are currently doing Perl, and are not part of the community. In some cases I suspect they just see their work as a job and wouldn't be that interested in doing anything further anyway, as I've come across those kinds of people in many jobs I've had before. However, its the people who are likely to be interested, and perhaps haven't yet discovered that there is a lot of benefit to be had from attending YAPC events, not just to attend talks, but also to meet developers and get involved with the community, that I'm interested in reaching.
I've yet to figure out how that can be done, but I'm hoping that those new to the conferences, take the surveys and give us feedback as to things that we can do to encourage them come back. As well as getting them to tell their firends and colleagues what a great experience the event was. After all word of mouth counts for a lot. If they're getting a bad experience, and I doubt that that is the case, it would be useful to know that, and hopefully then we can try and fix it for the future. So far feedback has been very positive, and although there are often minor gripes about little details, in the main organisers do get it right. I've certainly enjoyed every YAPC I've attended, I'm just hoping we can encourage others to get the most out of them too.
For the last few years I have also been attending other grassroot Open Source conferences, such as LUGRadio Live, GUADEC and to a lesser extent the UKUUG. These all have a similar kind of approach to conferences as YAPCs, but they are often much better attendeed. They do have the benefit that they can encompass more than just one language, so from that angle they can expect to have a bigger attendance. However, I still regularly meet Perl programmers who are either more involved with LUG events or just aren't aware of the Perl community. Is there a better way to reach these people? Do they advertise better than we do for YAPCs? Something to ponder over at least.
--Larry Wall in <1992May12.190238.5667@netlabs.com>
Europe or North America? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Regarding people coming back to YAPCs: I think that a lot of 'local' attendees still don't can or want to travel to next YAPC, which mostly isn't local. For example, there where 67 Austrians at YAPC::Europe 2007, but only 10 registered for 2008. Not everybody gets her trip payed by the employer, or wants to fund it on his own.
OTOH, at YAPC::Europe
Re: (Score:2)
ok, but in your first sentence you said that you won't be speaking at this years YAPC::Europe because your talks (which link to YAPC::NA) are deemed too long...
I'm doing the talks at YAPC::NA, but they're both too long for YAPC::Europe, which has a 30 minute time limit this year.
I think that a lot of 'local' attendees still don't can or want to travel to next YAPC
That's definitely a factor, but I'm hoping that we give them enough of a good experience that they do decide to go to another.
Not everybody gets her trip payed by the employer
Exactly, which is why I want to see if there is something we can do to encourage those people. With the economic downturn happening in the world at the moment, more companies are unlikely to be willing to send so many people these days. So we fall back on
Re: (Score:2)
I'm doing the talks at YAPC::NA, but they're both too long for YAPC::Europe, which has a 30 minute time limit this year.
Now I get it! :-)
Yes, that hard 30 minute limit is a bit annoying, but it sure makes it easy to generate the schedule..
Wait a minute (Score:2)
If your talk is much longer than 30 minutes, please consider breaking it into 30-minute parts, to accommodate our schedule.
The fixed slot size is something we used for NPW and in my opinion it worked very well. We want to give speakers/attendees the maximum outcome of a conference by creating exposure, if one third of your conference time is spent in a tutorial you miss out on a lot of other exciting activities. And some people might skip or leave early from longer running s
Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately my main talk isn't something I can split. It's already a long talk, and because it generates some healthy discussion, can last a little longer.
I'm still planning on attending, but more likely using my own resources, and not those of my employer. Hence why I was thinking about those attendees who are in a similar position, who aren't previous speakers or recognisable members of the community. What are they looking for in a YAPC conference, and how can we give them the right experience that the