[Pycon-openspaces] Open Spaces planning

Mon Jan 18 15:43:49 EST 2016

If we decide that these announcements will work best as an opt-in
experience, where we point people at a second account like
@pycon_open_spaces or @pycon_events or @pycon_reminders, then there might
not be any need to spend time on automation. We would give the Open Spaces
committee the credentials to tweet directly to that account, and 15 minutes
before each hour (or whatever) when you checked the board to vet the
upcoming slate of Open Spaces you'd write their topics into a quick tweet.

If instead we decide that these could be tweeted directly from the main
@pycon account, and that the extra dozens of tweets wouldn't drive people
to unfollow @pycon — remembering especially that most of our 15.1k
followers won't be at the conference and would get zero benefit from these
hourly tweets — then I'd still probably prefer to avoid a solution that
copied tweet content from one account to another, and instead have @pycon
simply retweet what the other account had just tweeted. That way people
could avoid the noise by (if they know about the feature) turning off
retweets without completely unfollowing @pycon.

But: given that only 3k of our 15k followers will be at the conference, I'm
fairly unlikely to want us to be tweeting hourly events from @pycon. I'm
really preferring something like @pycon_events or even @pycon_onsite as the
channel for by-the-minute event updates that aren't really major (though
it's fine for one-off announcements like canceled talks and 3–4 big events
a day to tweet from @pycon, I think, that's totally expected) and if we
just give the Open Spaces committee access to that account, then there
won't be a need for an IFTTT-style copy of text from one stream of tweets
to another.

But this is really a topic I've not thought about much. I'll go back later
today and look over how the @pycon Twitter account was used during each of
the three main conference days during Montréal 2015, and follow up here
with further thoughts!

On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Hobson Lane <hobsonlane at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Anna,
>
> Who is responsible for composing and sending tweets? If they'd like, I can
> help the twitter organizer develop a twitter bot to queue up and tweet
> reminders from any twitter @account.
>
> There are commercial webapps that can do that as well, like Buffer.com,
> but they aren't open source and aren't python ;) Of course a twitter bot
> could be used for any scheduled announcement (sessions, special events,
> etc), if desired. My colleagues and I have proposed a tutorial session on
> building a twitter scheduling bot, so this would not be much additional
> work.
>
> --Hobson
>
> On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Anna Ossowski <ossanna16 at gmx.de> wrote:
>
>> That is a great idea, Brandon!
>>
>> Am 18.01.2016 um 19:31 schrieb Hobson Lane <hobsonlane at gmail.com>:
>>
>> I think you might be right, Brandon. An opt-in push approach might be all
>> that's needed. A link to an iCal and Coogle calendar item for each open
>> space might be the easiest way to accomplish that opt-in "reminder" feature.
>>
>> --Hobson
>> (503) 974-6274
>> gh <https://github.com/hobson/> twtr <https://twitter.com/hobsonlane> li
>> <https://www.linkedin.com/in/hobsonlane> g+
>> <http://plus.google.com/+HobsonLane/> so
>> <http://stackoverflow.com/users/623735/hobs>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:07 AM, Brandon Rhodes <pycon.brandon at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> I suspect that open spaces are simply hard for people to keep up with
>>> because we do a “pull model” — people have to go walk up to the board and
>>> read all the little cards to see what is going on. I wonder what would
>>> happen if we, every hour 15 minutes before the start of the next slots,
>>> just tweeted a brief tweet like:
>>>
>>> 3pm Open Spaces: Robotics! PyLadies organizers! New web frameworks!
>>> Astronomy!
>>>
>>> The downside is that it would make our Twitter account very noisy. If
>>> there were a separate @pycon_open_spaces Twitter account that we
>>> advertised, I wonder how many people would follow it? Or maybe it should be
>>> @pycon_events or @pycon_alerts and we could also tweet “lightning talks in
>>> 15 minutes!” and “PyLadies auction starts at 7pm” and so forth? Or maybe
>>> the mobile app has an alerts channel that people could subscribe to, or a
>>> way that we could update Open Spaces 15 minutes before every hour so that
>>> they came up in everyone's mobile app?
>>>
>>> Of course I might be crazy. But it feels like there should be a way for
>>> people to ask for Open Spaces notifications to be pushed their direction,
>>> instead of having to remember to go walk across the whole conference center
>>> and back to the Open Spaces board to see what is going on the next hour.
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 1:01 PM, Anna Ossowski <ossanna16 at gmx.de> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That’s an interesting thought. Thank you for explaining that to me,
>>>> Hobson!
>>>> So I’m a bit torn. On the one hand I understand the issue and think
>>>> polling might be a good idea, on the other hand the big advantage of the
>>>> Open Spaces is that they are very „free“ and informal in a way, unlike
>>>> talks, which are chosen based on what people would like to see so if we did
>>>> a poll I’m afraid we might scare people away from Open Spaces or put some
>>>> sort of pressure on them to offer what others want to see and not what they
>>>> would like their Open Space to be about. In general I’m a fan of letting
>>>> people do what they love.
>>>>
>>>> If we did the poll beforehand it would also be an issue that our list
>>>> of topics wouldn’t be extensive because people tend to come up with topics
>>>> at PyCon spontaneously. I wonder if we could put up a second board and
>>>> somehow facilitate a poll onsite but that’s just a thought.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe Kinga and Brandon can chime in. I’d be interested in their
>>>> opinion on this.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you!
>>>> Anna
>>>>
>>>> Am 18.01.2016 um 18:52 schrieb Hobson Lane <hobsonlane at gmail.com>:
>>>>
>>>> Gotcha. Perhaps polling would still be a way to inform organizers about
>>>> the interests of their audience. It's also a good way to inform attendees
>>>> about open spaces and get their "buy-in" for the range of topics/activities
>>>> offered. Some of the open spaces seemed lightly attended in past years. I
>>>> know when I hosted an open space last year, I would have benefited from
>>>> such a survey. Only one person showed up to my open space on neural nets.
>>>> If I'd known the interest level was so low I might have adjusted my topic
>>>> and activity suggestion a bit.
>>>>
>>>> --Hobson
>>>>
>>>> --Hobson
>>>> (503) 974-6274
>>>> gh <https://github.com/hobson/> twtr <https://twitter.com/hobsonlane>
>>>> li <https://www.linkedin.com/in/hobsonlane> g+
>>>> <http://plus.google.com/+HobsonLane/> so
>>>> <http://stackoverflow.com/users/623735/hobs>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 8:32 AM, Anna Ossowski <ossanna16 at gmx.de>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thank you Hobson!
>>>>>
>>>>> I just wanted to clarify what our job as the Open Space committee is
>>>>> to make sure we’re all on the same page. Our main job is to facilitate the
>>>>> Open Spaces, which means we make it possible for people to organize their
>>>>> own little Open Spaces by providing rooms, a sign up board, ideas for Open
>>>>> Spaces, general infrastructure, and promotion. Our job is not to organize
>>>>> each little Open Space ourselves. The PyCon attendees will pick a topic,
>>>>> pick a room and a time onsite themselves. Onsite our main job will be to
>>>>> make sure to put up the sign up board everyday, monitor the board and make
>>>>> sure the Open Space topics are CoC appropriate, document the topics, and be
>>>>> there in case of questions.
>>>>>
>>>>> I hope this clarifies while voting on topics for example is not
>>>>> necessary as the people will sort of make that decision for themselves
>>>>> onsite :)
>>>>>
>>>>> Have a good week everyone and please feel free to add new cards,
>>>>> assign yourselves to cards, etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anna
>>>>>
>>>>> Am 15.01.2016 um 21:46 schrieb Hobson Lane <hobsonlane at gmail.com>:
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you. I may not have been logging on or searching for boards
>>>>> correctly. I see it now, and I added a couple cards. Feel free to edit or
>>>>> delete anything I put up.
>>>>>
>>>>> --Hobson
>>>>> On Jan 15, 2016 6:02 AM, "Anna Ossowski" <ossanna16 at gmx.de> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Hobson,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I must have added the wrong Hobson Lane (user name hobsonlane) the
>>>>>> first time. That’s strange because I used your email address to find you.
>>>>>> Anyway, just readded you under the right user name :)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anna
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Am 15.01.2016 um 14:49 schrieb Hobson Lane <hobsonlane at gmail.com>:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Anna,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I cant find the Open Space trello board under my user name "hobs".
>>>>>> Could you re-add me?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> --Hobson
>>>>>> On Jan 14, 2016 10:20 AM, "Anna Ossowski" <ossanna16 at gmx.de> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hello Hobson and Kinga,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I hope you’re both well!
>>>>>>> It’s the new year and PyCon is happening in just a few months. While
>>>>>>> our main work won’t start until closer to the conference, I just wanted to
>>>>>>> check in with both of you so we can start planning.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I just created a Trello board for us, which I added both of you to.
>>>>>>> If you didn’t get added for some reason, please let me know your Trello
>>>>>>> name and I’ll add you again. Trello is a great tool for planning and
>>>>>>> collaboration so I thought it would be useful for us.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I created 5 boards so far „To Do“, „In Progress“, „Done“, To
>>>>>>> Contact“, and „Ideas“. Please feel free to create new boards, add cards, or
>>>>>>> move cards around. I would also like to encourage you to assign yourself to
>>>>>>> tasks that you would like to tackle. I think the board names are pretty
>>>>>>> self-explanatory :) When you start working on a task, please just move it
>>>>>>> to the „In Progress“ board and when it’s done please move it to the „Done“
>>>>>>> board.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> My guess is that we should start working on things in March at the
>>>>>>> latest to have enough time to get everything done before PyCon starts at
>>>>>>> the end of May but there are things we can start preparing now so feel free
>>>>>>> to tackle tasks whenever you have time. The only thing we should wait with
>>>>>>> until closer to PyCon is contacting people. If we contact them too early
>>>>>>> people might forget about it.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> If you have any questions or need anything, please feel free to
>>>>>>> contact me anytime :)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you!
>>>>>>> Anna
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Pycon-openspaces mailing list
>>>>>>> Pycon-openspaces at python.org
>>>>>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pycon-openspaces
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Pycon-openspaces mailing list
>>>> Pycon-openspaces at python.org
>>>> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pycon-openspaces
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Brandon Rhodes
>>> PyCon 2016 Conference Chair
>>> pycon.brandon at gmail.com
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
Brandon Rhodes
PyCon 2016 Conference Chair
pycon.brandon at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/pycon-openspaces/attachments/20160118/eb84156c/attachment-0001.html>