Memoirs of a Roadie

How Soon Is Now?

Posted on 27th November 2011

The YAPC Conference Surveys site has now been updated with the results of the Pittsburgh Perl Workshop and the German Perl Workshop.

The site has also been update to provide a tabbed display of the different types of event, to make it a little easier to find results. Over the next month or so I am looking to get more of the past data online, as well as the feedback that I normally send to just the organisers. I have lots of data waiting in the wings, and its only been my lack of free time that has prevented me from finishing off the sanity checks.

There are also plans for the future surveys, and as previously mentioned, the German Perl Workshop has given me the push to work with other languages. There is still some work to be done, but the first non-english language survey did seem to go very well. Perhaps understandably there are translations that I missed, so my next step is monitor (particularly for the results pages) London Perl Workshop what was missing, and provide Max (if he doesn't mind of course ;)) with the additional text for translation. I will then use this as a basis for all future workshops, which I will then provide via a git repo for anyone wishing to use the surveys in other languages. Note that for the short term the survey results will be presented in the same language the survey was presented, although in the longer term I would like to be able to allow switching the text (at least the questions) to english or other available languages.

The London Perl Workshop is still running, and has another 2 weeks to run. If you attended the LPW this year, and haven't completed the main survey or the talk evaluations, please take the time, as it really does help the organisers and speakers to make the events better and better.

If you're interested in running a survey for your event next year, please get in touch (barbie@cpan.org) and let me know in plenty of time, particularly if you'd like to run the survey in a non-english language.

Die Mensch-Maschine

Posted on 10th November 2011

German Perl Workshop 2011 - Speaker Evaluations

I have now sent out all the talk evaluations from this year's German Perl Workshop or more correctly Der 13. Deutsche Perl-Workshop. If you were a speaker and haven't received an email, please check your spam folders first, and let me know (barbie at cpan . org) if you don't find it. The mail will have come from barbie at birmingham . pm . org.

My thanks to all the organisers of GPW2011 and everyone who took the time to respond to the evaluations. From previous experience the speakers have very much appreciated your feedback. I would also like to extend extra special thanks to Max Maischein aka "Corion", who took the time to translate all the questions, templates and emails into German for me.

The results of the main survey will be published soon on the YAPC Conference Surveys site.

This is the first survey that I have undertaken in a non-English language, and for the most part it has been very successful. While there have been some slight problems due to byte vs character lengths (I'll save my 'why-oh-why did we ever start with ASCII and not UTF-8' rant for another day), the work Max has done to provide all the translations has started me on a path to be able to accommodate other languages.

At the moment the plan is to create a GitHub repository of all the necessary files, with language branches containing the appropriate translations. Then should anyone wish to request a survey instance in the future in a non-English language, their first step will then be to provide the necessary translations for me. It currently takes roughly a day to set-up an instance, so drop-in replacements for these files will ease the set-up process. It will also mean that as time goes on and questions get added, refined or deleted, we can replicate these changes across all languages.

I'd like to see the survey site get more use in the future, and although I'm happy to run the survey sites, with the support of Birmingham Perl Mongers, the longer term goal has always been to allow others to create their own instances. With the official release of Labyrinth this year, much of the tool set is now Open Source. I still need to release the Survey Plugin for Labyrinth and the additional command-line tools used, but getting the language translations moving will be a big step forward. Hopefully I'll have more news in the new year.

Do You Remember the First Time?

Posted on 4th October 2011

YAPC::Europe 2011 Survey Results

During August this year, in Riga, Latvia, YAPC::Europe brought together 285 people to learn, discover and discuss Perl. As previous attendees know the YAPC conferences are a perfect opportunity to introduce yourself to the Perl community. YAPCs are now held all around the world and each is very different another. Each has their own charactistics, and they all get better and better thanks to the feedback from attendees old and new, which is why the YAPC Conference Surveys are well placed to concentrate that feedback for future organisers.

For YAPC::Europe 2011, the survey results are now online.

Although the responses where down from previous YAPC::Europe events, we still had over 50%, so thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. Interestingly of those who took the survey, none recorded themselves as coming from Latvia. I suspect this is in part due to the language barrier. As the surveys are in English, those that don't feel quite comfortable with the language might feel less inclined to feedback their thoughts and experiences. I'd like to be able to have the surveys available in different languages, but accumulating some of the responses, particularly the free text ones, may prove difficult. However, this is a goal for the future.

Unsurprisingly these days, we saw a large number of people attending who are regulars either to the YAPCs and Workshops or to the Perl community generally. At the conference itself we did ask how many attendees were at their first YAPC, and it was quite significant. However, we are still seeing roughly the same numbers, so we are not necessarily able to keep those new attendees coming back as regular attendees. In this survey however, no-one stated that they wouldn't attend another event in the future, so hopefully next year we should start seeing more familiar faces.

This year I plan to get the free text feedback sections online, and may well provide these for previous years too. I normally only provide these to the organisers (both current and succeding), but I think everyone could benefit from the thoughts and ideas, whether a YAPC organiser or an organiser of any other technical event.

Many thanks to all those who took the time to respond, both to the Conference Survey and all the Talk Evaluations. Your time is very much appreciated.

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

Posted on 8th September 2011

YAPC::NA 2011 Survey Results

During June this year, in Asheville, North Carolina, YAPC::NA assembled 251 people together to learn and discuss Perl, Perl projects and meet Perl people. The YAPC conferences are a perfect opportunity to tell the Perl community of your latest project, or to talk to other Perl developers face to face. YAPCs have now been running for 12 years, and each gets more focused and exposure than the last. In part in this thanks to all the previous organisers who have gone before, offering help and advice where they can. However, the YAPC Conference Surveys also help to provide value feedback to future organisers.

For YAPC::NA 2011, the survey results are now online.

While only 34% of all attendees responded, the feedback has still proved very helpful and provided me with some additional questions for the future. I was recently asked how I thought the YAPCs had changed, and one of the changes I noted, as is hinted at in the feedback, is that many of the talks now focus more on Perl frameworks and applications, rather than specific modules or techniques. In a way it highlights how Perl has grown up. Perl is still a language and tool to get jobs done, but now there are more stable and constructive ways of getting those jobs done.

Many thanks to all those who took the time to respond, both to the Conference Survey and all the Talk Evaluations. Apologies for the delay in getting the results online, but events with CPAN Testers have taken most of my free time over the last 2 weeks :(

Are We the Waiting

Posted on 27th August 2011

With over a week gone since the end of YAPC::Europe 2011, I'm please to see we already have 102 Conference Survey responses and 541 Talk and Course Evaluations submitted. This is once again a fantastic start to the responses and very much appreciated. However, there are still a further 165 who can still submit their Conference Surveys, and everyone still has time to submit feedback to the speakers of the talks and courses they attended.

If you haven't received your keycode email, please contact me and I will resend it. You still have 3 weeks until the close of the surveys, so please try and take some time to complete them. It really does help to improve the conferences for everyone.

For those interested in the results of the YAPC::NA 2011 surveys, although the speaker feedback has been sent out, I had to postpone my work on the Conference Survey due to some CPAN Testers issues and my attendance at YAPC::Europe 2011. As such, I am now preparing these results for the YAPC Conference Surveys website and hope to have an announcement within the next few days.