Just a quick heads-up about developer community presentations at the 2010 DevSummit. While there will be more official details to follow next week, we wanted to keep you in the loop as we plan; and we would like to hear from you before things get too far along.
One of the more popular activities at the 2009 DevSummit was the track for attendees to present and have a forum for discussing their work directly with the developer community. The objective was to keep this content fairly unrestricted but focused mainly on the "how did you, how can I" angle. Here is a snapshot of what was presented. If you go to that page, scroll down to the heading "User Presentations". We recorded and shared many of those presentations through the ArcGIS Resource Centers so that those not in attendance could benefit also. And we thank those presenters who gave us the permission to redistribute their presentations this way.
Well, we're happy to report from the post-Summit surveys that these presentations were very successful and very well received. But at the same time, the logistics of it all needed significant improvements. We all learned quite a bit this year about how to best provide this kind of track, and planning for the 2010 DevSummit is underway. Here's what we have so far.
Rooms
For starters we'll be using at least one, probably two conference rooms rather than a demo theater setup in the community center. This will double the seating capacity in each room, as well as improve the lighting and sound quality. Not only will this be better for those attending, but also for those watching these video recordings later.
Location
The rooms we will be using for this at the Palm Springs Convention Center are in the "Mesquite" area which maintains their location central to the overall event, and directly across from the Community Center (Oasis 1) area.
Scheduling
We will be adjusting the scheduling of these Developer Community presentations so that they sync with the timing of the rest of the technical workshop agenda. This should help improve the "I really wanted to go to both" type of conflicts.
More Slots
There will be at least double the number of presentation session slots. In 2009 we had underestimated the demand of this track and unfortunately needed to turn away many applicants with very interesting presentations. Best case would be if we can open this track to everyone who applies...simple as that.
Community Voting
At the 2009 DevSummit, a team of staff at ESRI selected presentations from a pool of abstracts. We had planned to have the developer community vote on that set to move some sessions into larger rooms. But when those rooms became unavailable, we were not able to do that.
The 2010 DevSummit will be completely different. All applicants who meet the minimum submission standards will be listed on a site where everyone in the ESRI user community can vote. On the voting site we will list your presenters' names, title, description abstract, and organization. Presentation slots and prioritized scheduling will be given to those topics that generate the most interest from the community.
Milestones
Later in September, look for an official announcement and a page on ESRI.com on which you can apply. That is where all of the details and rules will be. We will announce the location of this page on this blog, through Twitter, Facebook, and of course on the 2010 DevSummit website. The site will be open to applications until January 15th, 2010 then community voting until February 6th. Selected presenters will be notified the week of February 8th.
What are we looking for?
You bring the topics and the community tells us all what they want to see and discuss. Bring the content that you believe will be interesting and useful to the developer community, even if ESRI technologies are not the central focus. For example, at the previous DevSummit many of the more popular sessions focused on topics of general interest such as the Agile software development process, unit testing, RESTful-ness, OpenLayers, and the MVC architectural pattern. But of course if you are developing with ArcGIS, this is also the place to show your work, maps, application design, code, your successes and failures, hurdles, tips, tricks, whatever you think will be interesting and useful. But whatever you want to do, it's a great idea to keep things non-commercial and the focus on "how did you, how can I". Attendees of your presentation want to take some information away that they can use.
That's about it for now. More details soon. We look forward to hearing from you.
Key Links for the Developer Summit:
- EDN Team
