NI Week grip -- non tangential

[Val Brown]

So what's up with putting some of the most attended sessions related to Software in the smallest rooms? It was worse than ridiculous. And I also think it showed some poor judgement to schedule so many Software related sessions for the last session on the last day.

I think it would be a good thing for as many LAVA members as possible -- as well as others -- to write to NI and let them know that we really want this to be different next year.

[crelf]

QUOTE (Val Brown @ Aug 8 2008, 05:21 PM)

So what's up with putting some of the most attended sessions related to Software in the smallest rooms? It was worse than ridiculous. And I also think it showed some poor judgement to schedule so many Software related sessions for the last session on the last day.

Hopefully NI will also get the idea by correlating the number of seats in the rooms and the number of people's barcodes scanned as they entered the rooms. I know there were a number of sessions I was in with a lot of folks sitting on the floor. One presenter almost tripped over someone in one of the sessions...

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (crelf @ Aug 8 2008, 06:04 PM)

Hopefully NI will also get the idea by correlating the number of seats in the rooms and the number of people's barcodes scanned as they entered the rooms. I know there were a number of sessions I was in with a lot of folks sitting on the floor. One presenter almost tripped over someone in one of the sessions...

You know you would think so however that's not what happened based on last year. Now I agree, the presenters are different this year in a large number of instances but certainly not different in re: to Michael and Phillipe and, if I'm not mistaken, their group last year wouldn't have fit into this years room -- let alone the number who wanted to attend this year.

[hfettig]

Especially since all of big 'hands-on' rooms were empty on Thursday afternoon. Granted, they might have been breaking down the PCs but there must have been a way.

And what's up with scheduling Mike's talk opposite Stephen Mercers talk?

[John Lokanis]

What they really need to do is have everyone sign up for the session they are interested in and rank them in order of preference before they choose times or rooms. Then they can at least *try* to choose times that cause the least amount of people to have a conflict AND they can assign the bigger rooms to the sessions with the most interest.

This being my first NI Week, I may be off the mark here, but it seems like the bigger rooms were given to the more 'marketing' related sessions while the truely useful sessions to hard core LV DEVs were just wedged in where they could fit!

Tell me where to comaplin and I will send my thougths to NI. I plan to at least start with my local reps.

[Darren]

Yes, I encourage all of you to send feedback on this issue (and any others you had at NI Week 2008). My presentation started at 10:30 on Thursday, and the tiny room was completely full by 10:10, with a bunch of people outside trying to get in. They had to kick out some NI employees who were sitting on the floor to make room for paying customers to sit on the floor.

I don't know if this is its intended purpose, but it seems to me the NI Week Discussion Forum over at ni.com might be a good central location to submit this feedback.

-D

[crelf]

QUOTE (jlokanis @ Aug 9 2008, 12:48 AM)

This being my first NI Week, I may be off the mark here, but it seems like the bigger rooms were given to the more 'marketing' related sessions while the truely useful sessions to hard core LV DEVs were just wedged in where they could fit!

I agree that submitting suggestions to NI about more appropriate room assignments is definately the way to go in the future, but I don't think NI necessarily did it on purpose - we just need to let them know what we want.

For example, Omar and Jim's talk on software reuse managment was in one of the biggest rooms. That said, it was still overflowing with lots of people standing and other sitting on the floor - maybe next time it needs to be part of one of the keynotes

[Omar Mussa]

QUOTE (crelf @ Aug 9 2008, 07:51 AM)

maybe next time it needs to be part of one of the keynotes

I'm sure we wouldn't mind helping NI free up some session rooms by presenting in the keynote instead

[Jim Kring]

QUOTE (Omar Mussa @ Aug 9 2008, 02:50 PM)

I'm sure we wouldn't mind helping NI free up some session rooms by presenting in the keynote instead

I'll start a petition

[pallen]

QUOTE (Omar Mussa @ Aug 9 2008, 04:50 PM)

I'm sure we wouldn't mind helping NI free up some session rooms by presenting in the keynote instead

You've got a winking smiley at the end here. But I don't think it's a bad idea at all. I'll bet that last session I attended could have filled one of the smaller ballrooms at least.

To be honest, I was a little annoyed that they let so many people in that small room. Being the safety guy at my work place, I couldn't help but think of how far we had exceeded the maximum safe occupancy for that room. Not to mention that the door constantly opening made it difficult to hear what was being said even from where I was sitting.

It was a great presentation though. And one that I came away with stuff I didn't know that I could begin using right away. Kudos!