We're getting closer and closer to setting our agenda for both the online event and the in-person Special Segment.
As of now, to keep the space comfortable and not overcrowded, we expect to invite 100 users to attend, and to keep staffing numbers lower than in some years.
What customers will we invite? All of them we think, but we should make registration available to key accounts before opening it up to the rest of our user base. We welcome feedback on this strategy.
The online event will be free, as it has been. Will we charge for the in-person special segment? Maybe?
What will be in the Community?
- Pre-recorded versions of all the papers presented online and in-person
- Pre-recorded versions of all posters presented online or in-person
- John Sall’s keynote (probably the version from the online event)
- R&D short keynotes from the online event
This is the in-person event
The above image shows the plan for the In-person special segment. It's been thought out pretty well. Here's our thinking...
- This program was created to complement the online program, and attempts to incorporate the most appropriate parts of in-person learning.
- Some of this content will be recorded ahead of time (papers, for example), but very little will be recorded in real-time. That’s purposeful so the focus can be on the unfolding experience.
- We hope to have three dinners, with the understanding that not all folks will attend the first and last. We’re considering on-campus options, off-site options and will inquire with John Sall about his house.
- Other than dinners, all sessions and meals will be in building C Executive Briefing Center and café.
- Assuming we will have some commuters this year and to facilitate pent-up demand for conversations, mornings start with flexible activities before seated sessions.
- Breaks are built into the schedule. Note that attendees go from being together in a room to a spread-out activity that allows freedom to roam and be alone if needed.
- Discovery Expo will be in demo hall area, including Meet the Experts, the JMP Lab, T-shirt giveaways, etc.
- Tuesday’s John Sall keynote is long enough for John to include JMP 17 expert guests. We can record this keynote for use at the online event unless John Sall gives that talk live.
- As well as open seating options, both lunches will have scheduled meeting options for folks who want to actively learn over lunch. Think of things like industry/academic lunch, women in science and engineering interest group lunch, industry-specific networking, throw-back to Stu Hunter pizza and beer DOE lunch discussion...
- User Spotlight: Plenary event. Similar to what we’ve done online where Meg interviews a few users who share their stories. We want to give them opportunities to talk amongst themselves and to address audience questions.
- R&D Roundtables: R&D leaders host attendees for round-table type discussions around our application areas. These should be comfortable for attendees to move from roundtable to roundtable. Perhaps we set these up in different rooms.
- Tuesday’s close could be informal as the Roundtables wrap-up or more formally in the Plenary room.
- Posters can be presented at the same time as Discovery Expo Wednesday morning.
- Papers can be presented in three or four rooms at the same time, to allow for 9 or 12 papers.
- Because conversations around the papers is almost as important as the papers themselves, we’ve dedicated extra time to each 30-minute paper. The expectation is that questions and conversation will keep the room lively for a while after the paper itself concludes.
- The plan is that papers will not be recorded here, but will have been recorded ahead of time to be made available in the community.
- Wednesday’s closing keynote will be a paid speaker selected specifically to engage with and entertain the audience after two full days of technical conversations. Seeing the speaker is a perk of being at this event; we may decide not to recorded this for online viewers.
The online event
As we've promised, we'll have an online version for users who can't travel to attend in-person. Here are our thoughts behind this plan...- This program was created to complement the in-person Special Segment’s program, and attempts to incorporate the most appropriate parts of online learning.
- The start time is 12:30 to allow attendees in every Americas time zone to get settled and perhaps grab a meal before it starts.
- The 12:30-2:00pm time slot each day is reserved for JMP 17 content and Meet the Experts.
- John Sall’s keynote on Tuesday can be the recorded plenary from in-person, but a live shorter talk would be preferred.
- The R&D short keynotes on Wednesday and Thursday will be filled by whichever two or four employees make the most sense. (We can run one each day or we can run two concurrently each day.) How do we choose speakers/topics? We can select them ourselves now. Or we can ask Tuesday’s attendees to select which two topics they want to hear on the following days – crazy idea in the style of Hannah Frye.
- We’ve scheduled time for two sets of papers to be presented each day.
- Because conversations around the papers is almost as important as the papers themselves, we’ve dedicated extra time to each 30-minute paper. The expectation is that questions and conversation will keep the Zoom room lively for a while after the paper itself concludes.
- The papers are called Simu-Live papers here, but we may decide to have presenters give the talk live instead. That may be worth a conversation?
- The schedule calls for Papers & Posters. Posters can be limited to whichever day and/or time is needed for them.
- Bright Minds Mingle takes the place of a socials each day, because they are social in nature and they provide opportunities to interact. They also take the place of Birds of a Feather, because these sessions can cover similar topics.
Nothing is in stone yet, but we're getting close. Speak up if you see problems we've overlooked. Or if you're super excited about how it's looking, you can tell us that too.
