Data and analysis on the attached Data Tables
From @Taylor_Ferguson In-Person highlights that came out of the data:
Most people found the Meet the Experts session to be the most valuable
- People found discovery summit in-person to be more important than online
- Attendee Comments for in-person improvement:
- “One plenary session in the beginning and one plenary session at the end of the conference are enough. The extra time could be used to organize the breakout session in a smaller in a reduced number of tracks.”
- “The second day was a bit inefficient: too many discussion forums, no real plenary talk, only one single paper session.”
- A few noise/acoustics complaints
- Staff Feedback for improvements:
- Comments on the lack of variety of food options
- More staffing from R&D
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Steering Committee Feedback for DSE 2023
In-Person
Plenary
Frank - workflow topic was helpful, in line with stat speaking, valuable to people who organize trainings. More examples on this in the future
Maria L. - slightly different, not always focused on uses of JMP, usually focuses on green aspect and social responsibility. She enjoys it, other aspect beyond our box of thinking. Hopes this continues in future DS. Hannah also was confusing to understand especially the jokes, spoke fast. Thursday Plenary was to late in the day. Liked the diversity of the talks.
John Linden - Agrees with Maria, helpful to have a stimulating talk to start or end the day with. Helps with conversation and networking. Not sure about having one each day. JMP team presents day one. Two plenary sessions or shorter one in the middle. Consider more technical plenary speakers
Katharina - loved the plenary talks and having them each day. Hannah Fry plenary talk was to late with people leaving. Didn’t understand a word of first 30 minutes of Hannah Fry’s talk. Be aware of fights on the last day to allow people to leave on time.
Sebastian - Appreciated first plenary of JMP speakers. Liked that more than just John Sall spoke
Jacquie - Getting to know JMP people at the beginning was nice to feel comfortable to know them and approach them, same with Gore. Agrees with the other plenary’s who were not technical enough. Excepts the plenary speakers to participate in the conference itself. Stick around and talk to participants. Even if it’s the same day.
Andre - felt the same about Hannah’s talk not being fully understood.
Victor - plenary are good to spark curiosity and help have a broader scope/vision on data and other topics
Would you be more likely to stay on Thursday if it was more JMP content or a plenary?
- Maria L., yes more JMP content or paper presentations
- Katerina, wanted at least one working day for the week and would have stayed for papers
Somaieh - missed the academic and university presence in posters and in attendance, frank agrees as well
Paper Presentations
Zhiwu - Having people interact with presenters, very valuable. Prefers paper presentation in person. Opportunity for discussion limited online.
Frank - too much overlap
John - Papers were great addition to conference, great to get to know people and talk to them afterwards. JMP staff presenting has value but the value customers bring is higher. Seems ½ people are new users. Paper presentation most valuable part of conference. JMP Papers add value. But all papers were really good. The best solution for figuring out which talk to go to was seeing them all online afterward, for me the main value of the online session is that everything is recorded.
Victor - thought topic and papers were excellent, great value. Little disappointed that the presentations had overlap and to hard to decide which to attend. Wants to reintroduce poster sessions.
Sebastian - Really enjoyed them, felt that in former years hard to go from one poster to the next. This year agenda too relaxed. Felt there were more timeslots to be filled, more sessions.
Christel - enjoyed more time between sessions. Have poster sessions during transitions.
Discussion Forums
Zhiwu - liked the forum very much. Raised concern about a new feature to add in, make discussion forum more valuable have academic and industry expert together. Agrees with John, that JMP set up discussions to understand industry needs
Frank - set up topics on JMP application areas, not industry. Have some more moderation and a wrap-up.
Francisco - by going to many presentations and who is asking questions you may find people who want to learn the same thing as you, better introduction to others with similar interests. Attended Chemical track: Chemical: Idea for JMP to listen what is needed. Using the data from the attendees to split the groups into more segments.
Victor - Completely agree with Ziwu, there is a lot of potential and synergy between academics and industrials : DoE teaching and use-cases, new techniques/models, ... INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIY DISCUSSION
Sebastian - Attended the Pharma track: felt more like a Q&A rather than a discussion session, no designated topic, no one really knew how to start. Need time to read action items and discuss rather than moving to the next point
Jackie - Pharma one, physical arrangement of sitting in rows made it not feel like a discussion. It would help to be in groups or sitting in a circle. Areas of JMP rather than industry for topics. Great idea but can be improved. (other forums did move the chairs around)
Katharina - would have preferred paper sessions rather than the discussion forum. Would not have needed the discussion forums. Liked how the lunch had the topics on the tables.
John - Seemed like it was the main event for the JMP staff to learn. How is a n industry functioning and what should JMP know about it. Have a checklist at registration with different discussion topics and see what people signed up for then to divide that way but industry is okay too.
Sebastian - Jessica from JMP pulled Sebastian away and pointed him to specific people he should speak with. Account reps and sales teams should do more of this
Maria - likes more time to dedicate to the discussion, what’s coming next, what does JMP want to hear, clear labeling, felt that she couldn’t add much value, not prepared enough
Meet The Experts
John - Great to have and comes with a list of things to ask. Changing the time or distributing it so its skewed more for the first half of the conference rather than the end. Less effective towards the end of conference. Liked hearing the questions from others and learning that way.
Jackie - thinks how long the session and discussion is a separate issue than with how long to have the breaks. Breaks are too short then people miss moving to next room. Felt like an hour of meet the experts was too long. Loves Meet the Experts but maybe not a long break and long MtE.
Victor - You might need some time to deep dive into a topic with experts, and they are rarely instantly available, so I liked the timeslot of 1h
Training Opportunities
Maria - thinks they are valuable, if topic fits into learning schedule, then yes continue to offer
Jackie - went to two, thought they were good. Liked that they were shorter, good quality, went to Julian’s and Di’s. Felt the participants were happy with it. Useful and should continue. Avoid an overall fee
Somaieh - attended when there were fees, thinks we should keep these, don’t charge for them
Francisco - Mostly experienced users attended, the idea of training should stay as part of the conference fee not extra, help beginners justify coming. Need new users to come
Victor - It also depends on the topic: more "specialized" (or technical) theme/analysis may attract less people. A combination of different levels of trainings might be interesting
Extra
Somaieh - Couldn’t find enough recycling bins
John - Loved the location, felt like he knew everyone there from the conference was in the city. Centralized, not to much wandering off. Not on the way to something else. Thought JMP lab for 17 last year was relevant, maybe not as much interest without a new release
Maria - would love to go back to Sitges
Victor - Big spaces (for lunch, meet the experts or others) were very noisy, it was sometimes hard to focus and find the words in English
John Linden (via Email) - I recalled another point I wanted to share. I know I would personally appreciate it if the event date would not fall on a Jewish holiday. I would think the same should go for Christian and Muslim holidays as well as significant national holidays. I know trying to arrange this across all of Europe is very challenging, to say the least, and there are always compromises. I would be of any assistance to assure we do the best.
Kirsten - Call for Content for DSE 2024 will open in May and close in October
Q: Jeff - how do we get more people there?
- Varied topics, dedicated fields/disciplines
- Do not offer the virtual event, one takes away from another, especially one week after another. If this was a different event then online altogether would make more sense. Place for both though
- Conference is about JMP and about analytics: More focus on analytics and less about the software. Leveraging that you learn on statistics SPC. What is the problem that you are solving
- More students with discount, price of conference put people off, 4 days to long, maybe 2/3 days
- Needs to make sure conference is good for new users, have a special track
- Certified training as part of the conference to make more people join
- However, are new users the target audience for DS? Intermediate users maybe
- What actionable items will I bring back to my team? The answer to this question can help get people to want to go
- Get the app prior to the event.
Duration of in-person
- Somaieh Mohammadi: 2-3 days
- Christel Kronig: 3
- Dr. Katharina Lankers: 2,5 days = 3 travel days
- Linden, John: 3.5
- GUILLER Victor: 3
- Maria Lanzerath: arrive on Tuesday morning, leave on Thursday afternoon
- Auge, Andre (RTA): 3 days?
- Jacqueline Asscher: Length is tricky, though. Some people will get funding for ONE conference, so for them long is better. 4.
- Maria Lanzerath: I would invest one more day IF I want to attend a training course
- Francisco Jose Navarro: 3-4 days is good.
Online
John - Having the recordings/material added to each page is great. regardless of having/not having the online, the conference can also be recorded like in the past and published online. I think JMP offers so much online already (which is fantastic) it's hard to justify this additional online conference
Somaieh - Not necessary to be so close to in-person, maybe in the middle of the year
Maria - I would sacrifice the online summit to strengthen the in-person conference. Having talks for people who can’t travel available in the community is a good way to share content
Victor - And maybe focus the online version on papers/semi-live presentations (and some sessions like meet the experts), but leave the networking/forums and discussions to in-person Summit? People attending the online version may not have the same expectations than those attending live
Katherina - do we need the online event?
Jackie - Very difficult to get people to participate in the online conference, the people that came were less open to participating. Social aspect to having an online conference, people only for a few hours. Pre-recorded talks don’t give more than what’s in the community. Why not international? Less people less conversation. Liked MtE. Online format 4 days in a row is to long.
Francisco - I think the current solution is good (offline + online). Recording live sessions is always worse in terms in quality. Conference is not only for papers but interacting online with experts. I think a global online can be good idea. Incentive to record your talk, keep the interaction virtual.
Andre - It was difficult to follow in person and online discovery 2 weeks later. Scott Wise presentation was only online! The best on line one from my point of view
Christel - For me, I was inspired to attend online because I enjoyed the in person one so much, I just wanted to see more talks that I didn't get a chance to see in person
Maria L (per email after the meeting) - I was thinking about what would go lost if there was no more online discovery summit. A highly valued part seems to be the “meet the experts”. JMP could offer something like “office hours” for customers to meet with the developers. This would be announced in the community, and JMP users(/customers would call in just like during the online discovery summit, yet, independent from any other event like the discovery summit. Happy to explain this further as needed, or in case that’s of interest in any way. If not, just kindly ignore it, please.
