Improving UDS

[Scott Kitterman]

On Thursday, December 02, 2010 02:36:19 pm Jono Bacon wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Today I had a discussion with some of the other organizers of UDS, and
> we have been reviewing some of the feedback from the survey and we have
> some areas in which we would like to improve.
> 
> I wanted to highlight these areas and ask for your feedback to help us
> make better choices.
> 
> These areas are:
> 
>       * Tracks - some of the feedback received was that the tracks at
>         the last UDS were confusing and complex. What did you folks
>         think of the tracks? One suggestion is that we ditch tracks and
>         instead just have 'tags' for sessions (e.g. you add a session
>         and tag it from a limited set of tags). Do you think this would
>         be a better approach?

I definitely found it confusing.  The only way I could figure out what sessions 
to go to was review the full list of sessions in detail.  With the old system, 
while I reviewed the whole list, I could tell based on track where to really 
focus.  UDS is getting big enough that it would be really nice to have an 
organizational structure for sessions that limited the number of times I had 
to review the entire stack.  Tags might allow that.

>       * Lower Cloud Attendance - we noticed that the Cloud track was
>         less interesting to folks at UDS. The cloud is a key area in
>         which Ubuntu can compete - what do you think we can do to make
>         that content more interesting?

The number of people involved in development of cloud things is quite small.  
The few Cloudlike sessions I made it too seemed well attended by such people.  
I think that turnout was reasonable for what was needed.  What I missed was an 
organizational structure around server tasks and applications.  I think cloud 
is more of a platform type than anything and I think that disambiguating 
server and cloud would help both do better.

>       * Track Leads - there seemed to be some confusion surrounding the
>         expectations and responsibilities of track leads. How do you
>         feel track leads could be most effective in helping the UDS
>         experience?

Since the tracks weren't connected with any type of organizational or 
technical structure this time, it wasn't clear to me what leading there was to 
be done.  I don't recall any interaction with track leads beyond asking to get 
sessions added.  Were there other things they were expected to do?

Scott K