Comments on: Some belated thoughts on d.Construct 2006 http://infovore.org/archives/2006/10/15/some-belated-thoughts-on-dconstruct-2006/ a weblog by Tom Armitage Sun, 08 Apr 2012 09:50:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Andy Budd http://infovore.org/archives/2006/10/15/some-belated-thoughts-on-dconstruct-2006/comment-page-1/#comment-7117 Andy Budd Mon, 16 Oct 2006 10:41:25 +0000 http://infovore.org/archives/2006/10/15/some-belated-thoughts-on-dconstruct-2006/#comment-7117 Thanks for the great feedback. I understand your point about multiple tracks, but opinion seems to be divided about this. About 30% of attendees wanted multiple tracks, 30% wanted 2 days and 30% wanted the format to stay the same. The main issue with multiple tracks is the frustration people have choosing between sessions and the inevitable situation when two sessions clash. The other issue is that people are continuously moving from room to room and the "we're all in it together" community feel gets lost. You are right that Clearleft is primarily front-end focused and this may have subconsciously affected the content of the event. However I really wanted a much more technical, hands on focus than eventually transpired. Despite asking speakers not to shy away from technical presentations as we had a very literate audience, it seemed that everybody decided to go high level. That being said, I think the high level talks generally worked well. Conferences are much better at inspiration than education and by focusing on high level concepts you ensure everybody gets something out of it. If you go technical, it could easily end up being too simple of half the audience and over the heads of the other half. You may be disappointed to know that next year's event will be even more front end focused, as the theme will be "user interaction". However In my experience, you get the most value from conferences by going to sessions outside your immediate domain. So I hope we do see you there next year, and hopefully you'll enjoy it even more than you did this year. Thanks for the great feedback. I understand your point about multiple tracks, but opinion seems to be divided about this. About 30% of attendees wanted multiple tracks, 30% wanted 2 days and 30% wanted the format to stay the same. The main issue with multiple tracks is the frustration people have choosing between sessions and the inevitable situation when two sessions clash. The other issue is that people are continuously moving from room to room and the “we’re all in it together” community feel gets lost.

You are right that Clearleft is primarily front-end focused and this may have subconsciously affected the content of the event. However I really wanted a much more technical, hands on focus than eventually transpired. Despite asking speakers not to shy away from technical presentations as we had a very literate audience, it seemed that everybody decided to go high level.

That being said, I think the high level talks generally worked well. Conferences are much better at inspiration than education and by focusing on high level concepts you ensure everybody gets something out of it. If you go technical, it could easily end up being too simple of half the audience and over the heads of the other half.

You may be disappointed to know that next year’s event will be even more front end focused, as the theme will be “user interaction”. However In my experience, you get the most value from conferences by going to sessions outside your immediate domain. So I hope we do see you there next year, and hopefully you’ll enjoy it even more than you did this year.

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