TPAC2011-Planning

From W3C Wiki

The TPAC2011 Program Committee is using this wiki to plan the the TPAC2011 Plenary day.

Next call (see #past as well):

  • 2011-10-03 at noon ET [TENTATIVE; Ian will confirm on 30 Sep]
  • 617 761 6200 code 8722#

Action items

Session ideas

Japan-led session

  • Action Kaz to reach out to Japan Members to line up a session (e.g., digital signage).

Vision

  • Action Marie to see if she can identify someone for a "predictions in 2012" session

Testing and interoperability

  • Action Ileana to find operator/browser vendors (e.g., in Asia) to lead a session testing and browser interop


Meeting planning

International participation

  • Action Ian to work with bizdev team about creating survey for participants from China on what would be useful to them to make TPAC plenary a success. Status 29 Sep: Ian in discussion with Angel and Karen.
  • Action Kaz to work with Japanese Membership to identify what would be useful to them to make TPAC plenary a success.

Agenda Building Session

  • Action Ian and Tantek to write up in wiki details about how the agenda building session intro and description will be conducted, with Qs and As.

Goals:

  • Provide lightweight guidance on how to make the day a success
  • Promote active participation
  • Promote collaborative sessions since we only have 28 slots, of which approximately 25% will be pre-determined.
  • Create an ice-breaker opportunity that does not require too much time for 250 participants.

Day before:

  • Dress rehearsal! Check room setup, enough paths to the board, location of board, etc.

Schedule (75 mins):

  • :5 - Introduction and brief overview of next several hours. Provide printed handouts to help explain how the day works.
  • :10 - Meet your neighbor (icebreaker). Tantek and Ian will instruct all the odd rows to turn around and meet the even row behind them (except final row). People will introduce themselves for 5 minutes and say three things about themselves. Then they will do in the reverse direction for 5 minutes. The theory is that people are more likely to already know neighbors on either side than in front/behind. Suggestion from Jeanne Spellman - Announce that we will be doing an icebreaker introduction, and want to give people the chance to meet people with similar interests. Pick 5-7 broad topics and ask people to stand up if interested in them, so that people can target who they would like to meet. That would be quick and more targeted.
  • :20 - How the scheduling session works (Tantek and Ian). Includes Q&A. We will prepare some FAQs based on experience. Our goal is to get as many questions out of the way before scheduling starts so that we don't have to disrupt the flow once it does. We will also proactively encourage people to get together to create jointly run sessions since we expect to have more than 28 sessions proposed during the course of the day.
  • :35 - Session scheduling. There is a grid near the front of the room, marking off rooms and times. All people write session titles on pieces of paper (big enough to see). They go to the grid and hang their session proposal in a slot. (See photo in FAQs). Pre-selected sessions will already be on the grid. A few session slots at the end of the day are reserved ("blacked out") initially so that they can be used later if new topics emerge, or if people change their minds and want to run a session. All participants are encouraged to get up and take part in the negotiation of whose topic is when. The W3C staff will be available to help people participate, answer questions, lead people to the grid, and so on.Tantek and Ian play role of managing the expected case of more sessions than available slots, by encouraging people to combine sessions. If there end up being more sessions than slots, we will try to accommodate the extras by recommending the people meet in informal locations (e.g., on the benches outside the bar).
  • :05 - Quick wrap-up to signal end of scheduling process and give people time to read the board, then travel to first session. We tell people that since the board will evolve over the course of the day, they should come back, review it and add to it between sessions. We will tweet changes to the board and keep an electronic version of the board on line.

Logistics

    • Ian to confirm with Susan Westhaver that meeting rooms are available in the evening. (PENDING)
    • Ian to ensure we have the means to have a grid for 8.5x11 topics
    • Ian to investigate name badges with large type (on both sides) and place for URI (REQUEST SENT)
    • Ian to work on a helpful printed guide with schedule, how it works, etc.
    • In Oct send a message to people about how to prepare, what they will have available, their chairing role, etc.
    • How can we lower cultural/language barriers to participation (e.g., by large contingent expected from China)?

General Planning

  • Where does the grid go once the day starts? In the middle of the hallway with the rooms, e.g.,? Put the pre-selected sessions farthest from the grid (to encourage traffic past other rooms?)

Notes on Overall Plenary Structure

  • For session allocation, we have ~90 seconds per session
  • Max 28 sessions (7 rooms * 4 session slots)
  • Sessions can be combined ("We need 3 hours!")
    • Tantek: with that few session slots and that many people I'd rather that we err on breadth (more topics, different discussion leaders) than depth (the "we need 3 hours folks" - anything needing 3 hours should really be part of some existing *-group session during the rest of the week, perhaps held with related groups on overlapping days).

Notes on Sections of the Agenda

Time slots dropped intentionally as things move around.

Intro and Cross-Group Plenary Topics

  • 20 min "State of W3C" talk by Jeff (or someone else on W3T), past year successes/failures, and current opportunities/challenges (the more upfront/transparent, the better).

* Ann: I like beginning with this talk, especially the "upfront / transparent" part. How about the speaker (Jeff or ???) asking, at the end, for suggestions from the audience if there are any other opportunities or challenges that he forgot to mention. Develop the list in real time... visible to all. Accept input from IRC as well as microphone. I'm thinking this list might help people think of discussion topics for the self-organized sessions later on.

** Tantek: Strongly agreed on all points Ann.

  • 10 min brief "structure of the day" outline by Ian / W3Comms to explain how we're running things differently this year and why
  • 45 min All Group pre-planned session one to cover openly controversial topic that affects many groups
    • need to gather ideas for what such as session could cover
    • panel discussion with different viewpoints could work
    • 15 min panel discussion or brief position explanations / conflicts
    • 30 min moderated panel/audience Q&A

Breakout Sessions

  • sessions: 45 mins each with 15 mins for break/travel

Plenary Sharing and Advocacy

  • all group reconvene for opt-in 3-5 min lightning talks from session leaders + Q and A

* Ann: why would the report-outs be opt-in? If a group didn't get very far, or didn't come up with anything interesting, or no one showed up -- the leader can say that. People should be encouraged that there is no failure; it's OK to say no one showed up for your idea. It's OK if you didn't solve world hunger, or even a smaller question. We need to go out of our way to make this experience a supportive, encouraging environment. (Hence my advocacy for allowing other languages.)

** Tantek: We should do opt-in because not every session will produce something worthy of saying, and it's not worth everyone in the room's synchronous time to state that - they can read about non-events on the wiki instead. Discussing/going over non-events is also both boring and demoralizing. I think it's not a good use of time. It's also OK to just capture everything you did on the wiki, and defer to Ian or me to say hey this session put all their notes on the wiki - go check it out! (that takes like 20-30 seconds).

*** Ann: OK, that makes sense. I want the groups to feel some pressure to report back. Otherwise it's easy to spend all the time talking, without reaching consensus or conclusion.

Wrap-up

  • 15 min closing talk by Jeff/Tim (or someone else on W3T), wrap-up, summary of the day's themes, encouragements for next steps.

Past Notes on agenda building session

Ann suggestions for agenda building session

* Ann: I like getting people to say something out loud, as they might be more likely to participate. I'm nervous about doing this with such a huge crowd; not sure it logistically reasonable.

*** Ann: (as of the 9/19 meeting) I'm not clear if this was overruled, some other format determined, or we're still pondering how to handle introductions. I acknowledge the problem of doing it with 250+ peeps. Despite my concern about scaling for big crowd, I want to reiterate the value of this scenario as an ice breaker. I (again) suggest the alternative of large clusters (divide the room in quarters?), with 4 gongs. My experience is these intros get people interacting; gets the crowd's juices flowing. Once someone has said a few words out loud, they are more likely to continue. That, to me, is the value; more than the actual intros.

Tantek suggestions for agenda building session

BarCamp-style:

  • three word/phrase intros, nothing more.
  • if you want to use up one of your words/phrases for your company name, so be it.
  • blowhards will be gonged

** Tantek: we're going to need a gong or bell of some sort to cut people off, and someone strict to do it (I'm willing to do it, but would rather spread the authority around a bit and either have Ian do it, or perhaps we can get another W3T member to volunteer - Coralie?)

Ian suggestions for agenda building session

  • Primary goal - Agenda-building
  • Secondary goal - Have people meet new people; **Ann: to me, the bigger secondary goal is to get people energized for the day so they'll participate & enjoy it
  • Tertiary goal - Keep people constructively occupied who are not going to lead sessions

Timing:

  • :10 - Tantek and Ian intro (mostly Tantek)
  • :05 - Everyone introduces themselves to two people they didn't know before. We have name tags to help the general issue of remembering who people are.
  • :30 - People schedule sessions on the board. During this time, Tantek gives a presentation on keys to BarCamp success, and invites others in plenary to share their experiences. Thus, Tantek works the crowd and builds understanding about the day while the people who are proposing sessions settle the day. This will make good use of everyone's time and avoid people crowding the grid.
  • :20 - Tantek and Ian review the grid. People have the opportunity to ask clarifying questions. If necessary, we prioritize, rearrange, combine etc based on discussion
  • :10 - Extra time if needed / travel to rooms

past

Closed action items

  • Ian to send 12 September reminder to meeting attendees with 1 October deadline for plenary suggestions
  • Action Ted to put a gaming session in the wiki and reach out to others.
  • Action Ian to contact Alan Bird for suggestions on cloud computing. Some ideas: Amazon, Rakuten, Cap Gemini, EMC (from Karen). Status: Said Tabet has put topic in wiki.
  • Action Ian to reach out to various people with different interests; may happen toward end of September. Ideas: Guha, TBL, Tantek, Manu Sporny, Jeni Tennison. This one is a PLENARY session idea.
  • Action Ian to reach out to Elika Etimad and Tab Atkins (cc: Tantek) on this session.
  • Action Ian to reach out to Harry Halpin, Thomas Roessler, Nick Doty for ideas
  • Action Jeff to secure two sessions out of the Web and TV workshop 19-20 September
  • Action Ian to reach out to Anne van Kesteren.
  • Ian and John Resig seeking to make this happen.
  • Action Ian to reach out to Janina and Judy. Status: They expressed interest.
  • Ian to update the wiki with timing expectations, how sessions will be (pre-)selected, how we will resolve if have too many. Timings: plenary proposals due 1 Oct; plenary sessions announced 12 Oct; pre-selected breakouts announced 19 Oct
  • Action Ian to contact Avaya about a session about performance at the network layer.

related

  • FooCampBarCampDifferences - some background and analysis I wrote up about how FooCamps are run vs how BarCamps work (or don't), and specifically why having a top-down "let's organize/vote on all the sessions" doesn't actually work (hasn't work in practice, and hasn't been necessary either). - Tantek
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