2018 edX staff retrospective

Owned by Ned Batchelder (Deactivated)
Last updated: Apr 01, 2019

What went well at the 2018 Open edX conference?  What could have gone better?  Add bullet points here, or send an email to oscm@edx.org if you want a more private channel.

  • Went well: John Mark at karaoke
  • Could have been better: Ned at karaoke
  • Could have been better: Some method to get devstack installed on attendees' machines before the workshops +
    • Special callout here though: Jeremy's devstack setup USB sticks were great – let's do that again next year. +
  • The sessions immediately after the coffee break were not well attended at first and folks entered the talk 5-10 minutes after they had started
  • Could have been better: Timers and announcements for when shifting between scheduled sessions. 
  • Keynotes pro: I loved Anant and Fiona back-to-back. Zvi's was insightful, too. In general, I was very happy with our invited speakers
  • Keynotes con: I think we need to break out the product + technology keynote (state of open edx) from the other keynotes - maybe have an opening evening kickoff with SoOE
    • Need to think about how best to give sponsors time at the keynotes - I think it went better with the sponsor message at the beginning, not the end
    • Improved performance level in the Keynotes could have been better.
  • Dev Summit:
    • We didn't do a good job publicizing what was going to happen.
    • We didn't have good hangout support for the people back at edX.
    • Great turnout - especially compared to last year.
    • Community appreciated the format for this day.
    • Good discussions throughout the day - large group readouts seemed to re-energize the group.
    • Dev Summit format was more effective than last year's free-form "hack day" - I thought the breakout discussions were interesting and productive. Expected follow up was unclear, but I thought even having the discussions was valuable.
    • Needed coffee.
    • I wonder if it's worth experimenting with interspersing these sorts of discussions with talks? Might be more engaging overall for people.
    • I liked that we were still able to have some level of hack day if people wanted to.
  • From anonymous staffer:
    • The whole "talk into the mic that seems like it's dead" thing for the livestream seemed confusing to everybody - and I don't *think* it was on the room-running list?
    • Nit: I found myself wishing for a placard outside each room telling which talks would be held there and at what times.
    • It was way too difficult to get Fiona to accept her speaker gift bag.
  • Should staff have business cards? Or a generic Open edX business card?
  • A number of speakers were unable obtain their visas so perhaps we could reach out or confirm speakers sooner to give them more time
    • Sending the invite from the University might help?
    • What are our thoughts on web-conferencing in those unfortunate souls?
  • Went well: WhatsApp for coordination worked well for transport, conference communication, and outings
  • Went well: Coordination around room leaders
  • Went well: Coffee all day and food in general
  • Could have been better: It wasn't clear if breakfast was served at the hotel
  • Could have been better: Topics, locations, and times for BoF not clear.  Don't say "BOF". "Open Spaces" is better.
    • Wiki had info, but was not referenced from the conference materials
  • Went well: timing cards were helpful!
  • Could have been better: Many people came in and out of rooms during sessions, which was distracting since most of the doors would loudly slam shut if the person didn't close the door gently. Maybe having signs outside the door reminding people to enter quietly would help?
  • This is a nit (as a Toastmaster) and probably not totally in our control, but speakers were generally not as prepared as I think they could have been with some guidance. I don't know how we check up with speakers outside of edX beforehand, but I wonder if there are any support or best practices we can reinforce to ensure they can convey their messages more effectively. Happy to discuss more offline.
  • We need to plan out the CFP process more carefully. Involve non-software folks in the process. Involve non-edX in the process.
  • What went well: good mix of tech people and education people.  Keep that mix in the future.
  • Workshop leaders said they wanted to be able to contact their attendees ahead of time to give them setup instructions, etc.
  • Some speakers were standing in front of their own slides in the videos:
  • ^ Videographers were asking speakers to stand in front of the lower slides because the video would not really be able to see them if they stepped to the side... 
  • Could have been better: Where the BoF schedule was located was not initially clear. I think there was also some confusion on what BoF was (heard some confusion amongst attendees when looking at the desk of schedules).
  • It would be useful to have external attendees note areas of interest/contribution ahead of the conference so that connections with edX attendees can be made proactively.
  • Scheduling talks:
    • Put dev-focused talks late in the conference, since people stay for the dev summit
    • Want more how-to talks
    • Most of the topics for Wed-Thurs were very engineering centric = is that the goal of the conference? If yes, then I think we met what we wanted to achieve. If we want to expand the type of attendees, then I think we could have more Product/UX/data sessions. 
    • Can we mix workshops into the week so more people can attend?
  • Could be better to label talks as technical vs not, etc, or beginner vs advanced so that attendees know what to expect.
  • Can we segment talks by track?
  • SCHED App was great! Let people know about it.
  • Slack channel was under-publicized. Add it to the booklet? (It was mentioned in the booklet).  Display it on a monitor?
  • Put Slack and GitHub handles on badges.  QR codes?
  • Central area for coffee and food was good.  BOF was off to the side, people didn't find it.
  • Were there edX talks that should have happened but didn't?
    • Some edX people were unclear about the focus of the conference: technology, or broader?
    • Talks from ed services about course design, etc?
  • We didn't bring USB-C dongles (sad)
  • Prepping the keynote speakers:
    • They could have used some presentation preparation help
    • There were some possibly offensive comments in the second keynote?
    • Be sure to prep the speakers about code of conduct, tone of community, etc.
    • The keynotes felt like lectures
    • EdX should talk less about edx.org, and more about the community
  • Get feedback about the talks in realtime. AWS Reinvent had a way
  • Could be better: don't clump together as edX.
  • Joe diligently posted event pointers in Slack.
  • Should we schedule social events in advance?
  • Make separate WhatsApp channels for work and play.
  • We could have made more of the 5-year anniversary of open sourcing.
  • Roberta was awesome.
  • Better: printed checklist for room leaders to keep track of all the details.
    • and one for the presenter
  • EdX people could try hard to think of questions for talks they are seeing.
    • Make this a separate role for lightning talks, since the room leader is overwhelmed already.
  • Lightning talks were chaotic
    • Needed to use the podium computers, but we didn't realize that ahead of time
  • There should be an edX person in every event
  • Dev Summit: plan better for the adhoc discussions: need more rooms.
  • Workshops:
    • Wide variety in how they are run.  Can we provide labelling so people understand what each will be like?
    • Provide guidance to the workshop leaders on how to run them.
    • Make sure workshop leaders understand the expectations and timeline.
    • Be clear about the prerequisites, or how to get them.
    • Many in the community were still on Vagrant.
    • Make thumbdrives that we can give away.
    • We didn't have a way to get in touch with the attendees for each workshop
    • At registration, have clear signs about how to get devstack installed
  • Be clear that slides will be available later so that people don't have to take pictures of slides
  • Starting on unusual times (10:35) was confusing for people
  • FedX open space was only edX people! (not sure whether good or bad...)
  • - Some of the dev sessions spent too much time getting machines configured. I think this could have been done via a more explicit prep sheet sent to people before the conference.
  • A few "hacks" for business cards: