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EclipseCon 2006

1. Overall. How would you rate your experience of attending EclipseCon 2006?

2. The Best. What did you like best about EclipseCon 2006?

EclipseCon 2007

3. Short Talks. EclipseCon 2006 had nine minute short talks. Did you like the short talk format? 

(Note that we received unanimous feedback that there was not enough time to move between the short talks, so we're not even asking that question here :-)
Given that long talks are 45 minutes and that the goal of a short talk is to provide a brief introduction to a subject rather than provide deep details, how many minutes should the short talks be? 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 15?

Additionally, the EclipseCon 2006 short talks were scheduled horizontally: short talks were held in all the session rooms at the same time and were not simultaneous with any other activities. The other option is to schedule them vertically: in a single room all day long and in parallel with long talks, panels, demos, etc.

4. Parallel Sessions. EclipseCon 2006 had, at times, seven parallel activities (five talks, two demos, and an exhibit hall). Given that the conference is of finite length, having more parallel activities allows a greater variety of topics. Conversely, so many parallel activities pretty much eliminates any chance of seeing more than a few topics. Including the exhibit hall, approximately how many parallel activities should we have at EclipseCon 2007?

5. Format. EclipseCon 2004, 2005, and 2006 had a 1+3 conference format: one day of tutorials and three days of technical talks. Other options include more days of tutorials or running the tutorials in parallel with the technical talks. Of course there are pros and cons to each of these formats. For example:

• A tutorials-in-parallel format is less expensive to run than a separate-tutorial-day format because each time we change the rooms from tutorials to technical talks we have to pay the AV technicians and staff to setup and tear down. Setup and tear down are expensive ($$$) overtime because they are done overnight.
• Having a single tutorial day allows you to take a maximum of two tutorials (morning and afternoon). Two tutorial days allows a maximum of four tutorials. Tutorials in parallel would allow you to take up to six or more tutorials, but at the expense of not seeing as many technical talks - you would have to trade off tutorials versus talks.

So, considering all that, what format would you like to see for EclipseCon 2007?

6. Longer. EclipseCon 2006 had sessions from 8:30am to 5pm. Another way to have a greater number of sessions would be to extend the conference into the evening. Should we extend the technical sessions another hour (to 6pm) and thus push the receptions and BOFs into the late evening and night?
  Yes No

7. Exhibit Hall. EclipseCon 2006 closed the exhibit hall during keynotes (on the theory that everyone would be at the keynote anyway), and for a while in the afternoon (on the theory that people would be at technical sessions).
What creative hours/days should the exhibit hall be open so that you can get a chance to see everything and yet not punish the exhibitors by requiring them to be at their booths 24x7?

8. OS Pavillion. For 2006, Business Objects sponsored ten open-source projects to attend and exhibit. Did you like having these projects in the exhibit hall?
  Yes No I did not visit them in 2006

9. Keynotes. EclipseCon 2006 had five keynotes and plenaries (Joel, John & Erich, Greg, Ward and Tod). Given that each keynote uses up five-to-seven technical session slots (depending on how many parallel sessions there are), how many keynotes should we aim to have in 2007? Three? Four? Five? Six? 

Are there any particular keynote speakers or keynote topics that you would really like to see at EclipseCon 2007?

10. To Improve. What else should we do next year to improve your experience at EclipseCon 2007? (Be creative!)

EclipseCon in the future

11. Location. If EclipseCon were held outside of the Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, CA, USA) would you attend?

Thank You

Thank you very much for your opinions and your help in creating an even better EclipseCon 2007. If you have comments or critiques of specific EclipseCon 2006 talks or tutorials, please use the button in the left menu.