WordCamp NYC 2010

Speakers, Sessions, and Scheduling: Oh My!

So many to choose from! In a running-late fashion, I’m finally getting in touch with all the people who submitted proposals. My work-in-progress speaker grid is somehow even more complicated than last year’s! Most of the proposals made in the comments on the call for speakers post will be represented one way or another, though not every single person/topic will be on the official program. Here’s how it’s breaking down:

– Almost all the potential speakers will be part of the WordCamp community show-and-tell and will give a 5-minute lightning talk on their proposed subject on Saturday morning in front of the full WordCamp audience. Last year people wished they’d seen the lightning talks first, so they could have chosen sessions from a more informed position.

– Some proposals are being scheduled for longer regular sessions Saturday afternoon (ranging 30-60 minutes) based on community feedback on the proposal as well as feedback from last year. In some cases, where people proposed the same or overlapping topics, we will ask them to work together as a panel for the follow-up, if a follow-up is put on the schedule.  These sessions are the more official ‘speaker’ slots.

– Most of the rest of the time (Sunday, and a room or two on Saturday) will be organized at the event unconference style.

Last year the unconference portion didn’t get much love, b/c proposed sessions were kind of unknowns and it was early on Sunday (when, let’s face it, many people were “recovering” from Saturday night). This year the unconference portion will get more attention, and the proposals not given a scheduled session will be put on the unconference session list for attendees to sign up for/vote on, which is why participating in the community show-and-tell is a good idea, to generate interest in the unconference sessions. If no attendees sign up to attend an unconference session, that session will not be given a room assignment.

I’ll start posting the confirmed sessions/speakers tonight and tomorrow, but it’s looking like a pretty cool lineup so far. I know I’m psyched for it! So if you haven’t bought tickets yet, do it now! (unless you are a sponsor, then wait until tomorrow’s email)

Instructions for Buying Tickets

We're using a new WordPress plugin for selling tickets, developed pro bono by 9seeds. If you have signed up to be a sponsor or have applied to be a speaker, please do not buy a ticket until you hear from Jane (by Sept 27, honest), as you'll need to use a special code to register if confirmed. If you're not sponsoring/speaking, go ahead and buy a Regular Admission ticket.

If you only buy one ticket, you'll fill in your attendee info right away. If you buy multiple tickets (like for a bunch of people from your company), you'll just fill in the billing info now, and you'll get an email with links for each attendee to go and fill in their own attendee profile (t-shirt size, email address, twitter ID, etc). This is a new system, so if you have trouble purchasing tickets, email jane/wordcamp/org for help.

P.S. The form styling will be fixed in the next plugin update. Beta, baby! :)

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