Talk:FirstAnnualConferencePlanning
Hi, I got some comments/idea's for the conference:
on food: make sure there is plenty of space to sit at, a walking lunch/dinner does not work. People got enough stuff to hold (conference materials, goodies, etc) Also, make sure it's good food, with choices for the allergic, dieting crowd (you got a lot of those in CA :) ) etc.
on goodies (or schwag) include a bag. It does not have to be a full-out backpack, but bags are good for putting the other schwag as wel as the conf materials in, plastic or paper (earth friendly though!) at least. Pens are also a cheap but strong tool for marketing. Pens are easily loaned to someone, so if there's message with a link on a pen, it will be noticed. Stickers/bumperstickers are a good idea. As I think there may be quite some press, models (to build your own, I assume?) are great. Most people have kids and will be very temped to bring one home for daughter/son. Also, but that may be pushing the budget.. bottled water with logo and tins with mints. The tiny tins that fit in a pocket easily. Very handy to have if you just had lunch and now want to mingle. :)
On the schedule: An hour is quite short for a workshop and it's only one day, so in picking topics, make sure that the topic can be handled well in an hour.
I would suggest starting Friday just a bit later, as experience tells that traffice will cause people to be late and using Saturday morning for a water-filled event. Guess a bit like this: Friday 8am - 9.00am. Morning snacks/breakfast and registration 9:00am - 9:30am. Opening Talk (Patri. Outline goals, progress, initiatives, challenges) 9:30am - 10:30am. Morning workshop #1 10:30am - 10:45am. Morning break. 10:45am - 11:45am. Morning workshop #2 11:45am - 12:15pm. Summaries of morning workshops. 12:15pm - 1:30pm. Lunch (possibly a talk). (I think this should be more than enough time for lunch, unless you expect over 300 people) 1:30pm - 2:30pm. Afternoon workshop #1 2:30pm - 3.30pm Afternoon workshop #2 3.30 - 4.pm. Afternoon break / mingling 4pm - 5pm. Afternoon workshop #3. 5pm - 6 pm summaries of afternoon workshops 6pm - 7pm. Break 7pm - 9pm. Dinner. (? Can we make it longer ? Yes, dinner will take about two hours anyways.) 9pm - 11pm. Drinks & Mingling. *you will have to put an ending time here, to prevent abuse and to keep food&beverage costs as manageble as possible. Saturday Cool water event!
On press: make sure you decide how many and from which type of paper/magazine you would like press and work with press-badges, so that you know who is press and where to expect articles to be printed. Hire your own photographer to make pictures for marketing purposes.
ok that's my 50 cents for now, if anything pops up, I'll come edit.
