Testimonials of former Attendees and Speakers
4 days of pure cerebral candy. Enough to last me 4 years of development going forward. (Chris Ross)
The meeting format (many parallel sessions with few participants) encouraged the open exchange of ideas. This was not the place to present a lecture with long powerpoint presentations, instead there was an active discussion between the speaker and the participants. This was more pleasurable both for me as a speaker and for the participants. The only drawback for the speakers was, that he had to hold the same session several times. However, it turned out in the end, that each session was completely different. (Michael Hufschmidt)
I'd just point out that the new format allowed me to focus more quickly on the things that the attendees wanted to learn, and skip parts of my overall presentations that they already understood, or weren't interested in. The old way meant the speaker tries to cater to everyone attending, knowing that some material will be review for some in the audience, but probably not for all, so it isn't skipped. With larger audiences, there's more of a tendency to keep quiet when you don't understand something, not wanting to slow or sidetrack the presentation, and often the speaker requests that questions be held until the end. That's not the case in smaller groups. In some ways you could liken it to the difference between a white paper and a good list thread that discusses and solves a problem. (Kelly Burgess)
I think the new format worked very very well - with the subject matter I was dealing with it is much easier to run in small groups as you can meet individual requirements as you go along. If I do the same subject again next time I would hope that people would be able to have the software installed prior to coming so that the session can be even more hands on. (Wendy Osbaldestin)
...ik wens ook jou heel speciaal te bedanken voor de goede organisatie en het gezellige congress. Je ziet ons vermoedelijk in 2008 wel terug want de programmeurs hebben toch wel heel wat opgestoken en bijgeleerd op deze dagen. (Dirk Couck, Peopleware NV)
The sessions were of small groups of 6 to 8 people. Because of the small groups, and the closeness of the members something happened. Every session, from the moment it began, turned into a guided tour with discussions around every corner. Every member became involved. It was the perfect format for an all round knowledge sharing experience where the boundaries between speaker and attendee disappeared. In the end, even the logistics posed no problem at all. It just fell into place. (Michael Monschau)