Drupalcon Munich has a great graph that shows the dates when people submit sessions. Unfortunately (for event organizaers) a lot of it happens at the last minute.
This is a problem for session track chairs because they don't know if they'll have enough good sessions.
Drupalcon Munich set the session submission deadline at midnight CEST. This caught many folks by surprise. While they should be straightforward, the reality is that timezones are confusing to people. The result is that we miss out on sessions which would have been submitted at the last minute.
If we look at the quality of sessions correlated to the time they were submitted we can see that there is no correlation:
That scatterplot shows Denver, but data for Chicago and London look virtually identical.
Proposal: End session submissions at midnight in American Samoa, UTC-11
The benefit of American Samoa is that it is the last time zone on earth. Midnight there is the end of the entire day on earth.
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Comments
That's noon in Europe
The problem here is that everyone waits until the last minute. In Munich we had two thirds of the session proposed in less than a week. We can change the time of the deadline, but that won't solve the problem. Having the deadline at midnight in American Samoa, UTC-11 just means that Australians, Asians, Europeans and Africans will still be able to submit sessions the day after the deadline... which doesn't make any sense.
We should instead work on marketing and reminders earlier in the session proposal period.
which doesn't make any
I quite disagree - it makes perfect sense to me ;)
Is there any argument against it other than the subjective "sense" ?
I agree there will always be some people who are late and want an exception to be made, but if we can do something to avoid at least part of the problem...why not do it?
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
We got the same submission
We got the same submission rush during last few days for Drupalcamp Lyon (and I was among these late guys for DrupalConMunich). We could think that Drupalers act often in a hurry, and like deadlines. So we can't organize an event without deadlines.
previous experience
Well, so previous experience is that session submission closed midnight in the timezone of the event.
Denver: http://denver2012.drupal.org/news/still-time-to-submit-sessions
London: http://drupal.org/node/1149236
Chicago: http://chicago2011.drupal.org/news/drupalcon-chicago-session-submission-...
I think this made it pretty predictable so far. It was the same procedure used in Munich. Not sure why it caught people by surprise this time.
Nothing new
This is nothing new, there have always been people who were surprised by the deadline (speaking from experience). "I didn't realize the deadline is at midnight [include timezone of the event]" is just an excuse, the timezone is not what causes people to wait until the last minute. No matter when the deadline is, there will always be people who miss it.
suggestion for future Drupalcons
"Early Action" - if people get their proposals in by an EARLIER date, then there can be an early action decision on those proactive submitters. Has the added benefit of also creating excitement about some of the earlier speaking sessions, and also sets the bar higher for later submissions to come. Anyway, worth trying in '13 -- I might suggest it at our local Drupalcamp here in NYC this year to see how it is taken.
BTW, I've been one of those guys who missed the deadline in past years, with no excuse than was just too busy and didn't notice when the date passed (said squeamishly...).
Joe Bachana
First Employee at DPCI
1560 Broadway
NY, NY 10036
212.575.5609
www.dpci.com
Chicago did something like
Chicago did something like this, as I recall, - basically pre-select a few talks for each track in part ot build early excitement about the program.
Since that hasn't been repeated I don't know if the Chicago team thought the approach failed, or it just wasn't passed on.
not repeated?
Munich definitely has preselected sessions: http://munich2012.drupal.org/program/sessions/featured
Yeah, it's been done at every
Yeah, it's been done at every con since Chicago afaik.
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
pre-selections vs. 'early action'
This is great guys. What I'm suggesting is qualitatively different. I believe that the spotlight/featured sessions that were picked at Chicago (and likely thereafter) were solicited speakers that we know will be a draw. What I'm speaking of is similar to the college early action type of applications, where the rank-and-file in our community that submit their sessions before a certain early date will get an early decision (Yay, Nay, or deferred). These would not be spotlight sessions, but just general ones.
The only reason for an early action submission program is to get people submitting earlier.
May not be worth the extra round logistically, but it was just a thought.
Joe Bachana
First Employee at DPCI
1560 Broadway
NY, NY 10036
212.575.5609
www.dpci.com
I like this idea
I think if this was structured and explained correctly, it could be a strong incentive to get your proposal in earlier (i.e. possibly less competition)
The difficult bit though for organizers would be if they don't get any good sessions from the early selection deadline, then there is a hard thing to do. Also, its hard to make a decision on the "best X sessions" until you see all the sessions available.
I think there is still benefit in exploring this idea more though.
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
The design is great
Using flags to vote for sessions brings a great insight on who likes what so we know what to put in the bigger session rooms.
This problem is merely a challenge of timing and motivating people to contribute,
If not by providing a session then by valuation of the listed sessions
Note in general you get more proposals then there are slots so a luxury problem arises to turn speakers down in a polite way.
Statistics disagree
Unfortunately, what we've found in the past is that "upvotes" have a very poor correlation to how many people will attend a session, as well as to how good the session ends up being according to post-session feedback. It's basically useless as a prediction mechanism. It would be nice if it were, but the data doesn't bear that out.
Up++
Up Parent Observation! ;)
What's the benefit?
Since, as the data shows, there's no correlation between date of submission and session quality, what's the benefit of getting people to submit sessions earlier?
benefits of early action
Good point Ezra, and I'm probably forking this thread, but my issue with the Drupalcon sessions are the spottiness in quality. With early action there might be an opportunity to help curate/suggest how to improve the proposals.
Joe Bachana
First Employee at DPCI
1560 Broadway
NY, NY 10036
212.575.5609
www.dpci.com
Communication
The communication channels DrupalCon uses are well publicised. We tried pretty hard (close to the point of annoying people) to make sure everyone was aware of the pending deadlines. On Twitter (DrupalCon) and Facebook (Drupal and DrupalCon) the reminders started 14 days out and become more frequent. In the final week the deadline time and timezone was stated. There were posts on D.O, groups.drupal.org , LinkedIn groups, re-tweets galore, even the local German drupal web sites. Several of the track chairs also published blog posts.
The fact people will always miss deadlines. It is human nature to leave things to the last minute. Most of us perhaps prepare sessions in our own time, outside the pressures of work and this adds to why sessions submissions are late.
Timezones are quite confusing. At least using the local timezone, the local community get when midnight is. That has been the tradition thus far.
I think Greggles idea has some legs. It should at least be considered. I buys the bulk of the community a little slack.
Ultimately, if you take your session seriously, figure out the timezone and how it translates. No?
Paul Johnson
http://www.twitter.com/pdjohnson
Global Social Media Lead for DrupalCon
The fact people will always
Yes, but given that there is no correlation between early submission and session quality...we should take reasonable steps to avoid people missing deadlines.
Marketing/notification of the deadline is clearly an important but not complete solution. I know that two of my favorite presenters (who got high evaluation scores at previous events) have both screwed up the timezone thing at either this con or previous cons. They knew the date...but screwed up the timezone conversion. If it means we get just one more good session submission per conference, isn't it worth the "cost" of moving the timezone to American Samoa? (By the way, can anyone say what the "cost" is? So far it seems like a /free/ thing that has no cons).
knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation
I think the current system
I think the current system works fine. The only problem is that people are procrastinators (which we can't fix) and they may not realize the door is about to close in whichever timezone (which we can). Rather than make it midnight Samoa time could just add a countdown clock or notice on the top of the session submission page and the proposed sessions page -- "Session submissions will close in xxx days, xxx hours and xxx minutes".
And the reason it might be nice to get people to submit earlier (if they had a reason to do so) is that people evaluating the conference will have a better idea of the sessions they might see. Currently it looks like there are some featured sessions and not much else until you get to the last day or so of session submissions.
evaluating the conference
This would be significantly helpful for the team who are trying to promote DrupalCon. Until sessions are finalised we are selling upon a location and the keynote speakers, which for some is not enough.
Paul Johnson
http://www.twitter.com/pdjohnson
Global Social Media Lead for DrupalCon
Agreed
I work with a company who has been doing conferences for well over 25 years. The best thing you can do is advertise the countdown as it gets closer. We harness mailing lists and keep our pages current. You can think of time zones as an after thought. Do the countdown on the respective pages (including the homepage) and too bad so sad for those that miss it. You could also do an extended deadline but that just encourages procrastination.
A countdown might just be
A countdown might just be what we need to communicate, when it closes? There is no way you can screw up, if you can see "10 hours to go!".
Great idea
If these dates (proposal deadline, event start date, group photo and closing session) are in COD Event node then context as wel as a timer element can help the attendees to be there on time.
The upside is we (hopefully)
The upside is we (hopefully) gain a few more quality submissions.
The only downside I've read (which I understand as) is it might not work. It's free to try and easier than some of the alternatives I've heard. Seems a no-brainer to me, cost is nothing.
--
mike stewart { twitter: @MediaDoneRight | IRC nick: mike stewart }
Yes, people procrastinate. Is
Yes, people procrastinate. Is it our fault? No. Do we miss out out good stuff? Possibly. Can we make this less frustrating for people? Probably.
If we communicate people have until May 31st to do a particular thing, with deadlines expressed in UTC-11, whatever time of day it is on the 31st, they will still be able to do that particular thing. As soon as the calendar flips to June 1, the deadline may or may not have passed, depending on the timezone you're in, but if it has, there can certainly be no confusion about that, because wherever you are in the world, it's the next day already.