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JAOO 2008: Format Changes
By Kresten Krab | May 22, 2008
Introducing half-day tracks and long-talks
One of the new things in our 2008 conferences (Brisbane, Sydney and Århus) is that we’re modifying the format slightly. For many years we’ve run very stringently in full day tracks, each track having one specific topic and being located in one specific room for the entire day. We have had many positive comments on this format, because it often causes people to stay in the same room, and when you sit together for a while it is easier to get discussions going; and also easier to create a good flow in the track’s content.
However, there are also several issues with this format; mainly that it can sometimes be cramped to find exactly five talks that go well together. Some times it has – admittedly – happened that there were tracks with one off-topic talk which just didn’t fit, but we thought that the content was so interesting that it should be somewhere.
So, to introduce some more flexibility into the scheduling and editing of content, we have decided to allow half-day tracks; morning tracks being just two talks, and afternoon tracks being 3 talks (typically). We’ll still have full day tracks, but also many half-day tracks.
The other thing we’re introducing (or actually re-introducing) is long talks, meaning a talk that fits an entire morning or afternoon; so in this sense you can think of it as a half-day tutorial, but it is part of the general program and you can walk in and out of it if you wish. Those of you who have been with JAOO for long enough may remember that we did have these in-program tutorials before; and so now we are reintroducing them. As an example, one of the long talks we’ll have this fall in Århus is Michael Nygard (who is not a dane, despite his name), the author of Release It!. We will also have some technology long talks such as an overview of the Java platform for non-Javaists; and ditto for .NET.
Let me know how you have experienced the JAOO format; if you are in Brisbane or Sydney next week let me know how it works for you.
