For some reason, I just saw this post. Hopefully it’s still being monitored. I’ve shared some of this feedback in the past but thought it was worth sharing here:
More small group (3-5 person) discussions and workshops—especially cause / affiliation / career meetups. Those are mostly 1-1 networking, which is useful, but I’d rather meet the same people in 3 small 20 min group discussions than in 5 or 7-minute 1-1s.
Especially for affiliation groups
I think this will give more of a sense of community than 1-1s alone can do.
It’s also easier to coordinate a 1-1 after a conference than a multi-person meeting, and you lose a lot more with >2 people virtually (e.g. due to lags and time zones being complicated etc.)
Maybe find an event app that could schedule >2 person meetings
Make it easier for participants to spontaneously meet-up
E.g. “I want to discuss the recent Forum post discussing XYZ at lunch on Sunday, join me at 1pm if you’re interested!”
More emphasis on office hours over talks: I think everyone agrees that talks are not the most valuable part of EAG (they are probably more useful at EAGx’s). I’d happily have 50% less talks to have more office hours or workshops from EA speakers.
You could promote recent work by those speakers online / on the Forum before the conference for interested people
Consistently open the conference app at least 2 weeks / 10 days before the event (something fixed that people can expect) and publicize this clearly on the website / slacks / email / etc.
I would say even releasing the agenda >= 3 weeks before the conference so that people can read up on the speakers and take time to choose what events they want to go to. I understand that speakers sometimes change their plans, but it seems fine to me to update the schedule.
Especially for new people, it can be useful to see even a rough agenda to get a sense of what kinds of events there are
Post the full agenda and talks of every past EAG on eaglobal.org website. I sometimes want to share “that talk Neil Buddy Shah gave at EAG SF 2019” and then spend 10 minutes googling it.
For some reason, I just saw this post. Hopefully it’s still being monitored. I’ve shared some of this feedback in the past but thought it was worth sharing here:
More small group (3-5 person) discussions and workshops—especially cause / affiliation / career meetups. Those are mostly 1-1 networking, which is useful, but I’d rather meet the same people in 3 small 20 min group discussions than in 5 or 7-minute 1-1s.
Especially for affiliation groups
I think this will give more of a sense of community than 1-1s alone can do.
It’s also easier to coordinate a 1-1 after a conference than a multi-person meeting, and you lose a lot more with >2 people virtually (e.g. due to lags and time zones being complicated etc.)
Maybe find an event app that could schedule >2 person meetings
Make it easier for participants to spontaneously meet-up
E.g. “I want to discuss the recent Forum post discussing XYZ at lunch on Sunday, join me at 1pm if you’re interested!”
More emphasis on office hours over talks: I think everyone agrees that talks are not the most valuable part of EAG (they are probably more useful at EAGx’s). I’d happily have 50% less talks to have more office hours or workshops from EA speakers.
You could promote recent work by those speakers online / on the Forum before the conference for interested people
Consistently open the conference app at least 2 weeks / 10 days before the event (something fixed that people can expect) and publicize this clearly on the website / slacks / email / etc.
I would say even releasing the agenda >= 3 weeks before the conference so that people can read up on the speakers and take time to choose what events they want to go to. I understand that speakers sometimes change their plans, but it seems fine to me to update the schedule.
Especially for new people, it can be useful to see even a rough agenda to get a sense of what kinds of events there are
Post the full agenda and talks of every past EAG on eaglobal.org website. I sometimes want to share “that talk Neil Buddy Shah gave at EAG SF 2019” and then spend 10 minutes googling it.
(Also I love the illustration!)