pmooney.net

2 - There will be one next year.
It will be two days.

He was already planning it Monday night ( technical and social details) and already has a task list for me to do....

Congrats Paul ..Now take a rest for ohh maybe a day or two..

3 - I enjoyed the day thoroughly. I thought the pace of the day was great despite Bill's point about it being rushed.

Sometimes you need that kind of tension to give the day the buzz that this one so obviously had. For example the DevBlast (now who did that one?)

Good point about the "This session is..." boards Bill. Maybe you could patent the idea and call it Bill's Boards?!

4 - Hey Chris... Ryanair don't fly trans-atlantic, so it wouldnt of helped you. Next time there will be more notice so flights will be cheaper.
P.

5 - Hi Paul,

I thought the event was great, very well planned, with quality speakers. Personally I would like to see more IBM product demos (e.g. Workplace Forms 2.6, Sametime etc.).

Another thing, imagine how many people would be there if all the Notes contractors in Dublin took a day off to go to the event!

V.

6 - You and I had talked about coming over but it could not work out because It is a very expensive time of year to travel to Ireland (but I did not know about Ryan Air) and I could not come without the family (as it was No 2 daughter's birthday). I heard from everyone I talked to that it was awesome and I am sorry I missed the fun!

7 - True, Ryan does not go transatlantic, but there were very good fares into Great Britain that could have been combined with RyanAir...Next time!

8 - Well.

1. What worked.

The day was a blast. It even ran almost to time, which is one hell of an achievement. As a sponsor, we got lots of interest. As a speaker, the rooms, projectors worked well (but the screens could have been lower, as I was too short to point at the top of my slides.. )

2. What didnt work.

The three rooms were basically really really small, and if another 10 folks had turned up it would have been really really claustrophobic. This was apparent during lunch/coffee when the queue went out the door. So either less people, or longer breaks, or lunch being served in room 4- the next one along - might have been better.

I suspect that it was all far too rushed. The number of really fantastic speakers who came dictated the timetable - who on their right mind turns down Rob Novak or Daniel Nashed for instance - but it meant that the 40 minute slots felt rushed, and there was a lot of moving around in between.

Now as a speaker and a sponsor, thats how the latter point felt. However, it'd be far more interesting to see how the delegates felt about that. After all, 60 minute presentations are really tiring to watch - whereas 40 minute ones may be easier on the posterior, etc ?

3. What could be improved.

There was only one last minute agenda change - to facilitate a speaker who needed to run off early - but that didnt work out too well, with all the delegates in a wee bit of confusion.

Perhaps best to have large cardboard "This session is..." signposts above/on each door for each presentation ?

4. What was missing ?

I actually cant think of a thing.

5. What would be changed ?

Perhaps less speakers, more time in between and some formal mechanism to stop the delegates "clumping" into their work-groups and mingling more.

---* Bill

9 - Give me enough notice, and I'll be there... It will be especially nice if it were a 2 day event!

10 - It will be 2 days...
It will be next year...
You will all know when and where by Lotusphere07...
No excuses from you Mr McDonagh. You are going

11 - Realistically, Bill... if they accommodated us on screens, we'd need stadium (ramped) seating starting in the second row... :)

The admin/dev track was perfect... In most cases, you saw the same audience from session to session, and it made for good continuity. While I understand Bill's "less speakers/more time" comment, you have the rare "chore" of having to choose between top tier speakers. I don't think you have much choice but to expand to two days if you want to have more speakers/sessions. The other options would be to move to a different venue with more breakout rooms.

I obviously can't speak to this event as a "typical" attendee. I would guess that they got good/great content at an incredible price. As a speaker, this event rocked. All the content, none of the formality, and freedom to try stuff that wouldn't necessarily fly at an "official" venue like Orlando. In addition, having you be my host over the weekend added something that was priceless. From a personal standpoint, this event ranks in the top three I've ever done (first Lotusphere, first time speaking at Lotusphere, and ILUG). And I didn't rank those three in order... :)

12 - Twas a 2 man show Johnvon. Myself and Eileen Fitzgerald.
Guys - be careful what you say here... I will hold you to coming over next year. Imagine a whole week of being pestered at Lotusphere!

13 - @13... Um... Eileen is *not* a man... :)

14 - Paul and I were chatting in the bar last night. There's a whole list of things for next year, such as display boards - and knowing Paul there will be no getting out of it!

(BTW, if any of his ideas involve screwdrivers - run! )

15 - ditto #6. i'd love to come to this...

hats off to the planners (i assume you must have had help paul), it isn't easy to pull something like this off. frankly i'm rather amazed. looks like you just about created your own Lotusphere Europe over there...

16 - Smaller speakers???

You could stack Bill and I and we *still* wouldn't make an NBA center...

Wait... Smaller *number* of speakers...

Never mind...

17 - Well this was my first LN event so I can't really do a comparison... but the day was awesome! All the presentations I attended were great (and I am sure that the ones I didn't attend were great too! ), the organization of the event was fantastic (once again hats off to Paul and Eileen).

The only thing that, imho, could be changed would be to have, like Bill mentioned above, a smaller number of speakers.

Regarding having a 2 day event next year, it sounds good, but won't that possibly lower the attendance? It might be easy for some people to attend a 1 day event (specially if they're locals), but due to work issues and/or logistics, might not be as easy to attend a 2-day event.

18 - The only complaints I had were that it seemed rushed and there was almost too much going on for one day. I like the idea of a 2 day event. To make that work, I think you might need to have some speakers present sessions on both days, so that attendees who can only take one day off won't feel too left out.

If you have the same number of speakers (or more), I'd suggest getting one more room so that you can have more concurrent sessions running. That might even allow you to do repeats on days 1 and 2.

This was definitely the best user group meeting I've been to and felt more like an unofficial Lotusphere Comes to You event than the type of user group meeting I'm used to in the States. Paul and Eileen did a fantastic job! Of course I think you should leave all the scheduling up to Eileen so you don't have time traveling speakers.

19 - @17
LOL I somehow suspected you would make a joke like that

20 - Do you hear that Paul?.. hands off the schedule Some great points Kathleen , The pace was hectic , but when you have soo many excellent speakers prepared to speak you could not but fit them in, somehow. Suppose you would have to ask did it add to the Buzz ? What was a shame was that there was not time for more questions after the sessions, but your idea of some repeat sessions is a good one.

21 - I have to say it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Of course, I always been known to say that when there is beer and underwear involved. This is, quite proudly, at most conferences. I did meet my wife at Lotusphere after all. But that's off track - ne'er has the beer and underwear been visible at the same time like in Ireland. If the TSA let me out and Irish Customs let me in with the bag of tricks I'll have to bring to improve on it, I would love to return next year.



Rob

22 - At least they had a choice... I was TOLD I was going to be there.

23 - Ah yes, more advance notice! I did check the airfares, but just couldn't do it. If dates are known by LS07, then there will be at least one more short guy at the next gathering. And if I can talk my wife into doing the plane ride (after a few 10 hour flights to various places, she's vowed to do nothing longer than 5 ...but we'll see) ....I'd love to hit the user group and then take another week or so to just tour about. Maybe starting with 4 days at the Guinness plant

24 - To all the geeks that have threatened with coming over next year.

Elephants have a long memory
The internet has a longer memory
*I* have an even longer memory, and will persistantly annoy the crap out of you at LS07 to confirm! So... you can only blame yourselves

25 - Oh. Chaps. If you want a shorter plane ride out of the eastern seaboard - Iceland Air. They hub in Iceland, giving you a nice pleasant half-way stop. So both segments are well under 5 hours.. And its quite pleasant... ?

Sorry if my first comment seemed "down" on the event - it certainly didnt mean to be. Christ, if you can do that again without losing your life - your doing well!

---* Bill

26 - The biggest problem was the technical difficulties. I mean, really, who was it who told me to take the Tardis instead of using the slightly more reliable site-to-site transporter? Sure, I got to Dublin, but it was 1608!

Ok, seriously: Here's one more vote for a 2 day event. It'd make it easier to justify the trip for those of us stuck on the wrong side of the Atlantic. And loads of advance notice would help, too, so we could try to track down reasonable flights. Otherwise, you're just gonna have to put up with boatloads of semi-good natured whining from the poor jealous bastards who didn't make it....