[Mono-list] Mono Summit 2007 Schedule

[Charlie Poole]

Hi Mads, 

> > Given the somewhat specialized nature of the Mono Summit, I figured 
> > eveyone knew me - and certainly NUnit - but I just made some changes 
> > reflecting your comments.
> 
> Of course, if the plan is to keep Mono Summit 
> "closed-circle"/specialized, my points may be all moot.

I came at it from the opposite direction: given how the conference
is organized and (not) advertised, I supposed that the intent was
to keep it as a small gathering for now. Since I'm not an organizer,
that's just a supposition.

> And, I am amazed that the program has no information, 
> whatsoever, (besides dates/times) for the Keynote!

I suppose that it would be insufficient for me, if I were deciding
whether to attend. Since I'm attending and since I have a lot of
experience with self-organizing events like open space and 
un-conferences, I rely on the fact that sufficient information
will be available to me on the spot, so I can decide what to do.

Of course, this is no help in your situation, but maybe it helps
to understand that there is a point of view where the lack of
detail makes perfect sense.

General thoughts on attracting people: Regular conferences rely
on their planned content and the bios of the people who will be
presenting. More loosely organized events, without much of a 
schedule, have to rely on the people and the sort of dynamic that
typically happens. For folks who have never been at such an event,
it's hard to explain the latter.

I ran into this when we organized AgileOpenNorthwest earlier this
year (http://agileopennorthwest.org). Some of the folks involved
wanted us to add planned content "so people could tell their
managers what they were getting."  Others wanted to have big
name keynote speakers. Neither of those things fit into the
kind of event we wanted to have so we relied on explaining how
the open space dynamic works and on publishing the growing list
of names of those who signed up - some of whom were actually
pretty well known. That worked for us.

I throw out the example just as something to consider in a
future year.

Charlie