Open Stack

Hi everyone,

At the future of design summits session in Hong Kong, we talked about staggering the design sessions with the general breakout sessions and workshops in Atlanta and Paris.  

In Atlanta, the keynotes and breakout sessions will run Monday - Thursday, and the design sessions will run Tuesday - Friday in hopes that technical leaders will have more opportunities to speak in breakout sessions (or take business meetings) the first day, as well as take advantage of the fact that attendance will drop over the course of the week. This diagram might help visualize the overall schedule: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8tgvw4kcihuhubt/PastedGraphic-1.tiff

We need to make a decision for the Paris design summit pretty quickly. The Summit will take place the week of November 3 at the Palais des Congres, and we’re planning to host the design sessions directly across the street in the Le Meridien. We’ll run the keynote, expo and breakout sessions Monday - Wednesday (three, rather than four days), and we have the option to run the design sessions either Tuesday - Friday or Wednesday - Saturday. 

I would like to get your opinion so we can finalize plans and get the contract signed with Le Meridien next week. Some factors to keep in mind:
- It will cost us a bit more from a production and meals standpoint to run the Design Summit Wednesday - Saturday. It’s not cost-prohibitive, but we’ll need to be conscious of spend in other areas. The cost for space will be the same either way.
- There would of course be less overlap with keynotes, breakout sessions and workshops if we start the Design Summit a day later, allowing for more talks and meetings
- In order to take advantage of the extra time, it will increase travel expenses and time away from home for attendees, which could impact their ability to attend

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Lauren