Comments on: Sneak peek at XML 2007

By: david

david — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 18:13:24 +0000

Thank you both for the comments.

John: I’m reluctant to cut out more space for presentations, but I see your point. Note, however, that we did have a tradition of scheduling standards town halls in the evening in the past. Also, standards committees are a lot more fun after a good dinner and half a bottle of wine.

Sarah: I don’t enjoy vendor tracks either, but I’m also the kind of person who used to boo commercials before movies. I don’t think we’re typical, because any session that mentions a major vendor’s name tends to be packed, and we had heavy turnout for both of our early-morning vendor breakfast openers last month.

We do plan to work hands-on-style presentations into the other three tracks as you suggest, especially since we’ve discarded the tutorial day. As for the exhibit hall, IDEAlliance told me that they’ve tried small-business tables in the past but that there wasn’t a lot of interest — for a lot of single-person or very small shops, just paying conference registration, airfare, and hotel is enough of an expense It might be a good idea to try again, though, since the conference and its attendees are always changing. I’ll bring it up with them.

By: Sarah O'Keefe

Sarah O'Keefe — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:34:54 +0000

Not a fan of vendor tracks. Or…just do a single day with a vendor track. Also…the vendors should pay out the nose for the privilege of presenting in the vendor track. (Generally, I’ve seen these done as “slots for sale” rather than by looking through reviewed proposals. Pretty simple to make a slot in the vendor track a component of “platinum sponsorship” or whatever you want to call it.)

Perhaps you could divide up the “extra” track among standards (day 1), vendors (day 2), and…um…something.

Regarding the hands-on track — I would suggest allowing for hands-on sessions in the regular tracks. If a presenter proposes a session with hands-on activities, put it in the correct thematic track (for example, publishing), but label it as hands-on in addition to publishing. There were a LOT of people with laptops at the 2006 conference.

One other item to note…I run a small consulting business, and we looked at participating in the trade show, but it was completely out of reach for us, given the number of attendees and the cost of trade show space. I suspect that others (like Crane Softwrights, Mulberry Technologies, and so on) would also be interested in the trade show if it were remotely affordable. Perhaps a service providers trade show component?

By: John Cowan

John Cowan — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 16:46:02 +0000

The standards pechakucha is a great idea, but please schedule it during the day. Exiling vendors and BOFs to the evening is fine, but standards groups should have a little more respect, ya get what I mean?

I’d say just stick with three tracks.