[META] Programming - Content and Format

My initial reaction, of these options, is that I like #3 (contributions integrated into camp) the best. My feeling is that 1 day of sessions would be too short and 1.5 days of sessions would be a little odd, especially for people who would need to take a 1/2 day off of work.

Thanks for summarizing, I think you have the options listed correctly.

a) As for the question of training vs sessions, I agree that some actual data would be nice (who comes for training but not for sessions). I had the thought that by having a morning training, perhaps we catch some of those people coming out of training and straight in to an "entry-level" Drupal session track. We always try to have some of these sessions anyway, so why not make them an extension of training? And for those attending for advanced training, such as "theming", try to schedule a theming-related session in the afternoon.

b) I would like to see us have more than 1 day of sessions offered. One and half day may seem odd, I agree. But perhaps we can offer something to people who aren't interested in training that Thu morning, but wish to attend the full day?

c) I'd like to see a keynote included again this year, so having Thu/Fri of sessions can work with that schedule, whereas just Friday of sessions doesn't leave much room for a keynote.

My vote is for #2, 1/2 day Trainings Proposal, followed by #4 and #3, with #1 at the bottom.

The suggestion that I had was a variation of #3

Thursday: Trainings & Sprints
Friday: Sessions
Saturday: Concurrent Contribution day and reduced session track (2 or 3 rooms instead of 4 or 5).

Saturday if we're at UST, I'd imagine that we'd take over the atrium for contribution day. We could have the tables set up for sprinting. I'd imagine the schedule being something like:

- Registration
- 15-30 minute session in atrium introducing Contribution Day
- Concurrent: Contribution sprint, Mentored Contribution Introduction, Sessions
- Lunch with another full-camp topic or keynote discussing contribution
- Concurrent: Contribution sprint, Mentored Contribution Introduction, Sessions
- Coffee break
- Concurrent: Contribution sprint, Mentored Contribution Introduction, Sessions
- Closing plenary

Folks interested in contribution could focus on that all day, others could attend sessions or do a mix. The Introduction, Lunch and Closing Plenary would bring everyone back together as one group.

I firmly believe that Thursday should be full day training and before making changes to that we should discuss the concept of a half day training with our training partners. We could easily lose training partners if their materials don't fit well in a half day or if they don't see as much value in only having people's attention for a half day. We're already asking them to do this for free, I'd like to defer to our partners a bit on this one.

I'm proposing the outline above because I think trying to cut the day in half would be a disservice to both the session content and the contribution sprint. Running them concurrently gives flexibility and having some content to bring the whole camp back together throughout the day could encourage more participation in the contribution sprints. That's my theory anyway.

I think big picture questions like this are a great example of a place where having a clearly articulated mission/vision for the local community and camp would really help make the answer clearer.

I'm not really a fan of moving trainings to Saturday. I believe having them Thursday is a draw for our camp and makes Friday better attended. And that they are also frequently attended by people who are doing so "for work" (Anecdotal, I don't have data to back this up). And less so by people who are likely to do so on the weekend. Though, that could totally just be because they're always on Thursday.

I don't know for sure as I would have to talk it over with others but my gut says that Drupalize.Me probably wouldn't be interested in doing a 1/2 day training. Primarily because all our existing materials assume a full day and it's probably not worth it to try and adapt them. If we do decide to go that route could we survey previous training attendees and see if they would attend a 1/2 day vs. just not attending?

I also like the idea of running an unconference or sessions alongside the contribution sprints on Saturday. Personally I lean more towards unconference. In general I like the idea of Saturday being a bit more about, and for, the community. And think it's an opportunity to try experimenting with different things a bit as people who attend on Saturday are probably already sold on our camp and are less likely to be scared away by a non-traditional approach. I could see this being valuable for me personally. Probably more so than the full day of sessions on Friday.

I thought it worth adding -- from our several values-based, and mission-based, conversations we've had so far, there were a few takeaways that I think can already help inform our decisions.

• We had a lot of energy and purpose around the idea of expanding our circle, and bringing new voices into the Drupal community.
• The two biggest ways we can achieve this are through training and session content.

Big +1 to Joe's comment

Add another +1 to Joe's ideas -- especially good to hear from a trainer's perspective. These companies are a huge part of why past camps have been so good. It would not be Drupal Camp without them.

I'm leaning strongly toward the #3 (or a variation) above - the 4th day (Sunday) sprint has been something I feel bad about every year - but being honest I've always been too wrung out after three days to make any contribution let alone think straight. And I've always felt guilty about that. Making contribution integral to the entire event would really be a good idea. I can't stress that enough.
We could help new comers to feel they could help, especially if the sprint is not taking place in another venue on yet another day. We've had things like this in the past, but I think it could be enhanced if we plan it out.

Thanks @minneapolisdan, I know you have been having conversations about the mission/values stuff and really appreciate that!

> We had a lot of energy and purpose around the idea of expanding our circle, and bringing new voices into the Drupal community.

For me, this is a good indicator for making Saturday less about sessions and more about "bringing new voices into the Drupal community.". I don't think sessions do that. At least not the typical session which teaches you how to do something in/with Drupal. Especially when scheduled alongside a more standard "let me teach you how to do X with Drupal" session. There are sessions about the community, or getting involved, but they rarely attract "new voices" and are instead attended by those of as already in the inner circle.

In most cases given the choice between a session that teaches them about the Paragraphs module and a session about contributing to the local community people choose the former.

Changing the format on Saturday to some kind of sessions/bofs + sprints might give us the opportunity to change that. For example, we could do a time slot with only community/contribution related sessions so if you want a session you have to choose one of those. We could also do things like extended sessions, e.g.) a 90 minute introduction to the issue queue and navigating Drupal.org.

> The two biggest ways we can achieve this are through training and session content.

I believe that our camp format as it's been the last couple years is good for growing the number of people in the local area using Drupal. But that it hasn't done a whole lot to increase participation in the local Drupal community. And that if we want trainings and sessions to work towards the goal of bringing more people into the circle then we need to be open to experimenting with new formats.

I like the idea of Saturday as a day where we try a whole bunch of different ideas with the goal of giving people the opportunity to learn about participating in your local community. And even better, giving them the chance to do so in a safe and supportive environment so that they have a positive first experience and are interested in doing so again. I think this could also be done with option #3 where we run two days of sessions + concurrent contribution events. However, I think the majority of people will likely choose the safe route and go to sessions.

Keynote sounds great, but I think we might be a lot behind on that. Can we pull that off?

My optimum solution:

Thursday - training/sprints
Friday - sessions with or without keynote, but keynote would be a plus
Saturday - people that will be there will be there, so let's make it good with a more unconferencey participatory session approach

Sprints have always dragged on Sunday, maybe Thursday will be really energizing. Also with only 3 days folks might actually show up for that.

Just my opinion. I'll step back and let you all decide, I trust your judgement and process!

Just my first pass through these comments -- kudos, Tim, you are really helping to stretch my thinking on this. I love it. +100
I need to go back over this discussion again later today when my schedule opens up.

I like that proposal a lot. It's a concrete example of a lot of the wishy-washy ideas I've posted in other comments. So +1.

I still prefer 30 minute sessions, but 45 totally works!

For me this accomplishes a few things including:

• It maintains the parts of our camp that have been really successful so far (Thursday training, Friday sessions)
• It forces us to be a bit more selective with sessions (barely, it's only 6 less) for a hopefully higher quality overall program
• It removes a day, 4 days was more of a burden than a value the last couple of years in my opinion
• It allows us to experiment with new ways or providing value to camp attendees beyond sessions
• It gives us things we can talk about (training, sessions) that are super relevant to the Drupal community and people that are already using Drupal. This will attract them to the camp. It's also familiar and comfortable for those who have attended in the past. Especially those who were only ever going to come Thr/Fri anyway.
• It gives us a space to promote more involvement with our local community, and to actually give people a chance to try it rather than just talk about it. It also, in my opinion, makes the camp more valuable for those of us who are already deeply involved in the community because it provides us a space to work together. For those of us who for years have been saying, sessions are great but the hallway track is where it's at.
• It gives us some new things we can talk about when promoting the camp that are exciting (because they're different) and relevant outside the Drupal community to try and pull in new people.

I also just want to offer the disclaimer that while I'm all in for changes like this I also recognize that I'm not in a position to be as involved this years as I have in the past. And believe that the people doing the majority of the work should have the biggest say.

For what it's worth... After reading through your discussions, I'm on board with what I think is the most popular idea:

Thu: training/summits
Fri: sessions and keynote (if possible)
Sat: unconference
Thu/Fri/Sat: ongoing sprints

Do we have a general consensus to move forward?

I would be interested to see the type of turnout for training on Saturday vs Thursday, but can understand the hesitation of delivering that format.

One day of sessions, one day with the unconference/BOF/Sprint day, and one training/summits day, Sounds good.

👍

👍 to #17

#17 - Sounds good to me

I advocate we just go with 45 minutes as the session length. I don't think it makes sense to defer that decision and try to use session submission as an informal poll. That doesn't give presenters a very solid feel for what it is they're proposing. They should be able to know up front what their session length is, and I don't want to have to try to build a schedule around both 30 and 45 minute sessions.

Having session length be 45 minutes gets us in the direction of shorter sessions. As part of the session guidelines I'd suggest we recommend that presenters plan for a 30 minute session allowing 10-15 minutes for questions. Of course if they end up using the full 45 minutes so be it. If they release their room early then sponsors get more time with them.

My schedule plot is actually based on 45 minute session lengths. That means we can squeeze in up to 7 session slots at 45 minutes each.

Let's say 45 minute sessions, but clarify to users that "if you already have a 30 min session prepared, you may also submit "as is" and it will be considered equally alongside 45 minute sessions.

Just to capture anyone who has a Drupalcon presentation at 30 minutes and wants to know they can submit to our camp?

I believe we're well past this at this point and all relevant decisions have been made or are being accounted for elsewhere.