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Sean Dague wrote:
> On 01/09/2014 03:52 PM, Lauren Sell wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> I'm a soft +1 on Wed -> Sat plan.
> 
> I think that lets people decide that if they don't want to be there for
> the extra days up front because of burnout, they can show Wed. And I
> like the idea of having less overlap between the 2 events.

I'm a bit torn.

For people only attending the design summit it's slightly better to stay
on week work days (Tue->Fri). And for people attending both I fear that
6 days straight without a break will make it very tiring. So from a
design summit success perspective I prefer that option.

On the other hand, having only one conference day without overlap
(Monday) is not enough to get good participation from devs to the
conference. So from a conference success perspective I prefer the
Wed->Sat option.

Both options have their benefits and drawbacks, so I don't have a strong
preference.

I think my personal preference (for future summits) would be to make the
two events separated (either co-located in the same city with a one-day
or week-end break, or in different places, a few weeks apart). We could
even have the design summit in the US when the Conference is in EU/APAC,
to average travel costs. Yes it's the most costly (both in money and
organization time) option, but it's the only one I can see which ensures
both a successful conference and a successful design summit. Also the
Design Summit doesn't need as fancy space as the conference so it's much
simpler to organize.

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)

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