Although I agree with many of the positive overall comments about the Conference, I also believe there were some shortcomings that I would like to address.
Let me state right up front that Ira Perlow did an outstanding job. I thought it was definitely well worth everyone's time, effort, and money put forth to attend this well organized conference. However, I think all of us can learn and benefit from some constructive criticism and suggestions which I hope will be considered for our next get together.
Time Alloted Per Speaker:
-------------------------
I believe speakers were generally allotted only 45 minutes for their sessions. I was really getting frustrated when I heard almost every speaker preface their presentation with essentially the same comments:
There is so much that I wanted to show you, but I can't do that in the time allotted, so I will instead ...........
You can fill in the words, but essentially we received capsule summaries instead of extensive details and/or examples. I was very interested in some of the topics, I was hoping we would have some really in-depth discussions. But every speaker felt pressed for time and cut back on the depth of their presentation, so that didn't happen.
In retrospect, I felt the speakers should have been allotted 75-90 minutes [possibly more in some cases?] so all of us could have benefitted from more detailed presentations.
And that brings me to my next point.
Speaker Topics:
---------------
There are some topics that are appropriate for everyone. The perfect example was Selwyn Rabin's outstanding, well received presentation on version 5. Having said that, I think we should have had a more organized division of topics divided into A5 beginners and experienced A5 developers.
For example, I thought two of the best presentations during the weekend were Francie Peak's talk on "Action Scripting" and Steve Working's "Form Design" talk.
However, from my point of view, I never have and probably never will use Action Scripting. In addition, I've already seen Workings' excellent Form Design presentation several times in the Maryland area. Although both presentations were excellent, I would haved much preferred the OPTION of going to a small group, in-depth XBasic workshop where we weren't pressed for time.
Does anyone else have any comments and/or suggestions.
Robert Tishkevich
Let me state right up front that Ira Perlow did an outstanding job. I thought it was definitely well worth everyone's time, effort, and money put forth to attend this well organized conference. However, I think all of us can learn and benefit from some constructive criticism and suggestions which I hope will be considered for our next get together.
Time Alloted Per Speaker:
-------------------------
I believe speakers were generally allotted only 45 minutes for their sessions. I was really getting frustrated when I heard almost every speaker preface their presentation with essentially the same comments:
There is so much that I wanted to show you, but I can't do that in the time allotted, so I will instead ...........
You can fill in the words, but essentially we received capsule summaries instead of extensive details and/or examples. I was very interested in some of the topics, I was hoping we would have some really in-depth discussions. But every speaker felt pressed for time and cut back on the depth of their presentation, so that didn't happen.
In retrospect, I felt the speakers should have been allotted 75-90 minutes [possibly more in some cases?] so all of us could have benefitted from more detailed presentations.
And that brings me to my next point.
Speaker Topics:
---------------
There are some topics that are appropriate for everyone. The perfect example was Selwyn Rabin's outstanding, well received presentation on version 5. Having said that, I think we should have had a more organized division of topics divided into A5 beginners and experienced A5 developers.
For example, I thought two of the best presentations during the weekend were Francie Peak's talk on "Action Scripting" and Steve Working's "Form Design" talk.
However, from my point of view, I never have and probably never will use Action Scripting. In addition, I've already seen Workings' excellent Form Design presentation several times in the Maryland area. Although both presentations were excellent, I would haved much preferred the OPTION of going to a small group, in-depth XBasic workshop where we weren't pressed for time.
Does anyone else have any comments and/or suggestions.
Robert Tishkevich
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