Has anyone looked at the WordCamp model for local conferences? They are somewhere in between a KubeCon and a meetup.

There are several benefits to this model like:

• They are local and can be on work time. Meetups cut into evenings and are short. Large conferences require travel. As someone outside a tech bubble city I see the appeal for locals.
• It builds up local ecosystem of cloud native folks. In particular end-users
• These local conferences are a great way for people to learn and hone speaking skills so they have the confidence to do a great job at the larger ones
• It helps build more and more capable end users

They aren’t hard to organize.

-- 
Matt Farina
mattfarina.com

+1 end users often struggle to make their talks as appealing as the “real ones”. Coaching here will help.

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 11:52, alexis richardson <alexis@...> wrote:

+1, great idea

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018, 11:27 Richard Li, <richard@...> wrote:

There seems to be a recognition that more real-world / end user / practitioner talks would be good, because we don't want an echo chamber of ideas.

One suggestion would be to provide more support & coaching for end users who want to submit talks. The vendors & hip cloud companies generally have cultures that are very supportive of speaking at conferences. But many other kinds of companies require more cajoling and support. A lot of times when I talk to an engineer at one of these companies and suggest a talk, the feedback they give me is "No, my stuff really isn't that interesting, and I also have to talk to my manager to get approval, and PR, etc." If we could find ways to support these folks in terms of helping them with their abstract, iterating on a presentation, etc. -- I think we could improve both diversity & quality.

--

+31 652134960

CEO www.implicit-explicit.com

Co-Founder www.softwarecircus.io

Marketing Chair www.cncf.io

+1, great idea

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018, 11:27 Richard Li, <richard@...> wrote:

There seems to be a recognition that more real-world / end user / practitioner talks would be good, because we don't want an echo chamber of ideas.

One suggestion would be to provide more support & coaching for end users who want to submit talks. The vendors & hip cloud companies generally have cultures that are very supportive of speaking at conferences. But many other kinds of companies require more cajoling and support. A lot of times when I talk to an engineer at one of these companies and suggest a talk, the feedback they give me is "No, my stuff really isn't that interesting, and I also have to talk to my manager to get approval, and PR, etc." If we could find ways to support these folks in terms of helping them with their abstract, iterating on a presentation, etc. -- I think we could improve both diversity & quality.

There seems to be a recognition that more real-world / end user / practitioner talks would be good, because we don't want an echo chamber of ideas.

One suggestion would be to provide more support & coaching for end users who want to submit talks. The vendors & hip cloud companies generally have cultures that are very supportive of speaking at conferences. But many other kinds of companies require more cajoling and support. A lot of times when I talk to an engineer at one of these companies and suggest a talk, the feedback they give me is "No, my stuff really isn't that interesting, and I also have to talk to my manager to get approval, and PR, etc." If we could find ways to support these folks in terms of helping them with their abstract, iterating on a presentation, etc. -- I think we could improve both diversity & quality.

I agree that asking for more talk information up front would be useful.

I also agree that we should be considering what is important to a conference attendee.

Chiradeep, there are plans to run one day events but I don’t have more information to hand.

Perhaps Dan can help?

On Thu, 4 Oct 2018 at 04:59, Chiradeep Vittal <chiradeep.vittal@...> wrote:

Is it feasible at all to hold more Kubecons? Minikubecons? The mini version would be more like a day-long meetup, I guess, but with a little bit of backing from CNCF (marketing). Wouldn’t expect people to fly over from all over the world to attend though.

This is like autoscaling for conferences. For emerging /exciting areas it is natural that there are a lot of submissions, and for things to change a lot. By the time a conference presentation actually happens, a lot of information could be obsolete / uninteresting. Mini-conferences would have a shorter time between CFP and conference day. The CFP acceptance rate, I expect, would be closer to 100%.

 

--

Chiradeep Vittal

From: <cncf-toc@...> on behalf of Bob Wise <bob@...>
Date: Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 8:23 AM
To: "alex@..." <alex@...>
Cc: "nchase@..." <nchase@...>, "quinton.hoole@..." <quinton.hoole@...>, "bryan@..." <bryan@...>, "anthony@..." <anthony@...>, CNCF TOC <cncf-toc@...>
Subject: Re: [cncf-toc] Thoughts on KubeCon

 

The point of double-blind is not to increase diversity, it is to improve quality.

Turns out bias leads people to select based on things other than the quality of the work.

 

 

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 4:21 PM Alex Clemmer <alex@...> wrote:

I think it's important that tactical measures (e.g., double-blind, vendor talk limits, etc.) should be in the service of a general goal. IMO the first responsibility of conference organizers is to the conference attendees. A primary goal might look lie: make an engaging and useful conference, that fosters community development of cloud native software.

There is always a push among talk proposers to have a completely "objective" admissions process, but (1) an "objective" admissions process may well make for a worse conference, and (2) it is impossible for the committee to not impose some editorial view in the talks they select. So you may as well embrace it.

To the issue at hand: IME the best reason to have double-blind reviews is that it increases the amount of diversity, both in submissions and in balance of accepts. I reckon this is for much the same way that blind auditions helped diversity in orchestras.

What I very seriously doubt is that double-blind reviews will have the affect Bryan seems to think it will. In practice, most talks proposed about interesting technology (linkerd/Istio/Envoy, say) will be inextricably linked to the vendors that produce the technology, and the authoritative credibility they carry. Likewise most "customer success" talks will be linked to the customer itself. It will be harder on balance to judge talks on their merit without some idea of the "believability" of these authors. This is in contrast to scientific papers, where the submission process is geared towards papers that explore some idea abstract the people involved, excepting talks from industry, which will carry more weight because they have operational expertise, even though they are therefore less anonymous.

There may be other reasons to do double-blind review, but personally I can't think of them.

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 2:20 PM Nick Chase <nchase@...> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 4:35 PM Quinton Hoole <quinton.hoole@...> wrote:

I also think that it would be super-useful for submission rejection notices to be accompanied by a few brief reviewer notes (e.g. “too much marketing pitch”, “not open source”, “previously presented”, “duplicated submission”, “off topic" etc) to help submitters to improve their chances in future (and perhaps also clarify any possible misperceptions by reviewers, as the submissions are by necessity brief). As just one illustrative data point, all 10 of my submissions to KubeCon China and US were rejected, and none of the rejections seem explainable by any of the “how to improve the odds” guidelines.  So I have no idea what to do differently in future.

 

I recognize that it's not always that cut-and-dried, BTW; I've been on the selection team for several conferences and sometimes it's just a matter of "there were 10 slots and you ranked #11".  But not always.   

--

+31 652134960

CEO www.implicit-explicit.com

Co-Founder www.softwarecircus.io

Marketing Chair www.cncf.io

Is it feasible at all to hold more Kubecons? Minikubecons? The mini version would be more like a day-long meetup, I guess, but with a little bit of backing from CNCF (marketing). Wouldn’t expect people to fly over from all over the world to attend though.

This is like autoscaling for conferences. For emerging /exciting areas it is natural that there are a lot of submissions, and for things to change a lot. By the time a conference presentation actually happens, a lot of information could be obsolete / uninteresting. Mini-conferences would have a shorter time between CFP and conference day. The CFP acceptance rate, I expect, would be closer to 100%.

 

--

Chiradeep Vittal

From: <cncf-toc@...> on behalf of Bob Wise <bob@...>
Date: Thursday, October 4, 2018 at 8:23 AM
To: "alex@..." <alex@...>
Cc: "nchase@..." <nchase@...>, "quinton.hoole@..." <quinton.hoole@...>, "bryan@..." <bryan@...>, "anthony@..." <anthony@...>, CNCF TOC <cncf-toc@...>
Subject: Re: [cncf-toc] Thoughts on KubeCon

 

The point of double-blind is not to increase diversity, it is to improve quality.

Turns out bias leads people to select based on things other than the quality of the work.

 

 

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 4:21 PM Alex Clemmer <alex@...> wrote:

I think it's important that tactical measures (e.g., double-blind, vendor talk limits, etc.) should be in the service of a general goal. IMO the first responsibility of conference organizers is to the conference attendees. A primary goal might look lie: make an engaging and useful conference, that fosters community development of cloud native software.

There is always a push among talk proposers to have a completely "objective" admissions process, but (1) an "objective" admissions process may well make for a worse conference, and (2) it is impossible for the committee to not impose some editorial view in the talks they select. So you may as well embrace it.

To the issue at hand: IME the best reason to have double-blind reviews is that it increases the amount of diversity, both in submissions and in balance of accepts. I reckon this is for much the same way that blind auditions helped diversity in orchestras.

What I very seriously doubt is that double-blind reviews will have the affect Bryan seems to think it will. In practice, most talks proposed about interesting technology (linkerd/Istio/Envoy, say) will be inextricably linked to the vendors that produce the technology, and the authoritative credibility they carry. Likewise most "customer success" talks will be linked to the customer itself. It will be harder on balance to judge talks on their merit without some idea of the "believability" of these authors. This is in contrast to scientific papers, where the submission process is geared towards papers that explore some idea abstract the people involved, excepting talks from industry, which will carry more weight because they have operational expertise, even though they are therefore less anonymous.

There may be other reasons to do double-blind review, but personally I can't think of them.

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 2:20 PM Nick Chase <nchase@...> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 4:35 PM Quinton Hoole <quinton.hoole@...> wrote:

I also think that it would be super-useful for submission rejection notices to be accompanied by a few brief reviewer notes (e.g. “too much marketing pitch”, “not open source”, “previously presented”, “duplicated submission”, “off topic" etc) to help submitters to improve their chances in future (and perhaps also clarify any possible misperceptions by reviewers, as the submissions are by necessity brief). As just one illustrative data point, all 10 of my submissions to KubeCon China and US were rejected, and none of the rejections seem explainable by any of the “how to improve the odds” guidelines.  So I have no idea what to do differently in future.

 

I recognize that it's not always that cut-and-dried, BTW; I've been on the selection team for several conferences and sometimes it's just a matter of "there were 10 slots and you ranked #11".  But not always.   

I think it's important that tactical measures (e.g., double-blind, vendor talk limits, etc.) should be in the service of a general goal. IMO the first responsibility of conference organizers is to the conference attendees. A primary goal might look lie: make an engaging and useful conference, that fosters community development of cloud native software.

There is always a push among talk proposers to have a completely "objective" admissions process, but (1) an "objective" admissions process may well make for a worse conference, and (2) it is impossible for the committee to not impose some editorial view in the talks they select. So you may as well embrace it.

To the issue at hand: IME the best reason to have double-blind reviews is that it increases the amount of diversity, both in submissions and in balance of accepts. I reckon this is for much the same way that blind auditions helped diversity in orchestras.

What I very seriously doubt is that double-blind reviews will have the affect Bryan seems to think it will. In practice, most talks proposed about interesting technology (linkerd/Istio/Envoy, say) will be inextricably linked to the vendors that produce the technology, and the authoritative credibility they carry. Likewise most "customer success" talks will be linked to the customer itself. It will be harder on balance to judge talks on their merit without some idea of the "believability" of these authors. This is in contrast to scientific papers, where the submission process is geared towards papers that explore some idea abstract the people involved, excepting talks from industry, which will carry more weight because they have operational expertise, even though they are therefore less anonymous.

There may be other reasons to do double-blind review, but personally I can't think of them.

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 2:20 PM Nick Chase <nchase@...> wrote:

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 4:35 PM Quinton Hoole <quinton.hoole@...> wrote:

I also think that it would be super-useful for submission rejection notices to be accompanied by a few brief reviewer notes (e.g. “too much marketing pitch”, “not open source”, “previously presented”, “duplicated submission”, “off topic" etc) to help submitters to improve their chances in future (and perhaps also clarify any possible misperceptions by reviewers, as the submissions are by necessity brief). As just one illustrative data point, all 10 of my submissions to KubeCon China and US were rejected, and none of the rejections seem explainable by any of the “how to improve the odds” guidelines.  So I have no idea what to do differently in future.

I recognize that it's not always that cut-and-dried, BTW; I've been on the selection team for several conferences and sometimes it's just a matter of "there were 10 slots and you ranked #11".  But not always.   

I'm not sure going with double blind for Kubecon talk submissions is a good idea. In academic conferences, the paper itself is a good enough justification as it includes all the information needed to make a fair judgement. Kubecon submissions are short abstracts, and can't be judged the same way. Speaker's presentation skills, the projects he/she is involved in, the presentations given in the past should be taken into consideration. Unless we ask to include slides and transcript of the presentation as a part of the submission, there is not enough basis to do double blind voting.

A disclaimer: some of my talks were accepted to kubecon, some were rejected. As a speaker (and I don't consider myself to be a particularly good one) I'd really like to know the reasons behind both decisions.

---

From: cncf-toc@... <cncf-toc@...> on behalf of Dan Kohn <dan@...>
Sent: Wednesday, October 3, 2018 5:29:27 PM
To: Camille Fournier
Cc: Brian Grant; Bryan Cantrell; cncf-toc@...
Subject: Re: [cncf-toc] Thoughts on KubeCon

 

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 8:14 PM Camille Fournier <skamille@...> wrote:

What percentage of end user talks were accepted?

27.8% of talks are from end users.

https://kccna18.sched.com/

--

Dan Kohn <dan@...>

Executive Director, Cloud Native Computing Foundation https://www.cncf.io

+1-415-233-1000 https://www.dankohn.com

I'm not sure going with double blind for Kubecon talk submissions is a good idea. In academic conferences, the paper itself is a good enough justification as it includes all the information needed to make a fair judgement. Kubecon submissions are short abstracts, and can't be judged the same way. Speaker's presentation skills, the projects he/she is involved in, the presentations given in the past should be taken into consideration. Unless we ask to include slides and transcript of the presentation as a part of the submission, there is not enough basis to do double blind voting.

A disclaimer: some of my talks were accepted to kubecon, some were rejected. As a speaker (and I don't consider myself to be a particularly good one) I'd really like to know the reasons behind both decisions.

---

From: cncf-toc@... <cncf-toc@...> on behalf of Dan Kohn <dan@...>
Sent: Wednesday, October 3, 2018 5:29:27 PM
To: Camille Fournier
Cc: Brian Grant; Bryan Cantrell; cncf-toc@...
Subject: Re: [cncf-toc] Thoughts on KubeCon

 

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 8:14 PM Camille Fournier <skamille@...> wrote:

What percentage of end user talks were accepted?

27.8% of talks are from end users.

https://kccna18.sched.com/

--

Dan Kohn <dan@...>

Executive Director, Cloud Native Computing Foundation https://www.cncf.io

+1-415-233-1000 https://www.dankohn.com

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 8:14 PM Camille Fournier <skamille@...> wrote:

What percentage of end user talks were accepted?

27.8% of talks are from end users.

https://kccna18.sched.com/

--

Dan Kohn <dan@...>

Executive Director, Cloud Native Computing Foundation https://www.cncf.io

+1-415-233-1000 https://www.dankohn.com

Please remember that "vendors" are also in many cases the primary contributors to CNCF projects. 

I talked to one of the co-chairs. There are vastly more talks submitted by project contributors than by end users. Perhaps that should be an ask to our end-user community -- submit more talks.

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 12:59 PM Bryan Cantrill <bryan@...> wrote:

One per vendor might be too acute, as some vendors are doing much more than others.  But having some system that limits the number of submissions per vendor (and therefore force the vendors to adopt some process to determine their best submissions) would probably help -- and would also help address the too-low acceptance rate...

        - Bryan

 

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 11:54 AM Anthony Skipper <anthony@...> wrote:

I would agree with double blind.  But a max of 1 talk per vendor might also go a long way. 

On Wed, Oct 3, 2018 at 2:47 PM Bryan Cantrill <bryan@...> wrote:

On the call yesterday, Dan asked me to send out my thoughts on double-blind reviewing.  My e-mail quickly turned into a blog entry:

  http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/10/03/should-kubecon-be-double-blind/

Something that I probably didn't highlight well enough in there is Kathryn McKinley's excellent piece on double-blind review:

  http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/mckinley/notes/blind.html

There are certainly lots of ways to attack this problem, but I view double-blind as an essential piece -- but probably not sufficient on its own.

         - Bryan