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Post Conference Report

jheld67 edited this page Aug 2, 2013 · 5 revisions

Discussion here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/api-craft/v7qpUPaIcUo

Attendee Report

Attendees came from the following cities

(please add your city if we missed it.)

  • Ann Arbor
  • Austin
  • Berlin
  • Boston
  • Chicago
  • Cincinnati
  • Denver
  • Detroit
  • Freeport, Maine
  • Hong Kong
  • Los Angeles
  • Minneapolis
  • New York
  • Paris
  • Phoenix
  • Prague
  • Salt Lake City
  • San Francisco
  • Seattle
  • Vancouver
  • Washington, D.C.
  • Waterloo

104 Total Attendees

  • 93 Paid Attendees
  • 6 Organizers
  • 5 Scholarship Attendees

30 Self-Organized Sessions

21 Published Session Proceedings

Financial Report

Total Revenue: $28,605

  • Ticket Sales: $16,275
  • Anonymous Sponsors: $12,330

Total Cost: $28,568

  • Food & Drinks: $15,280.37
  • Facility: $9,527.63
  • Swag: $2,724.14
  • Supplies: $536.84
  • EventBrite Fees: $499.41

Retrospectives

What went well

  • Open space format worked surprisingly well
  • Food and drink were good and there was plenty of it
  • Venue was cool-ish (a few shortcomings below)
  • The law of mobility kicked in on day 2 with good results
  • Support team at the Madison Building was very helpful
  • EventBrite was reliable
  • Swag was well received

What did not work

  • The organizers were not as well organized as they would have liked for morning session on day 1
  • Organizers did not clearly communicate the fluid nature of session times and session topics on day 1, which caused confusion
  • There were not enough breakout areas
  • The larger breakout areas were too noisy
  • The organizers did not emphasize that sessions can and should end early if the topic has been covered
  • Using the auditorium for evening news was the wrong space: broadcast mode instead of interactive mode

What to improve

  • Create a better circle for the morning planning session
    • Due to lack of space, our circle collapsed into a lopsided blob
  • Quieter breakout areas and more of them
  • Encourage butterflies and bumblebees on day 1
  • Bigger wall for the space-time matrix and the community bulletin board
  • Communicate breakfast times in the event API and on the event website
  • Ask for actionable outcomes for each session
  • Create signs with API Craft values (represent thyself, not thycompany, etc) along with Open Space values
  • Save money by ordering a little less food and drink