Balkans/Events:2010/Ljubljana/Postmortem individual responses

Individual feedback

Please share your thoughts on what worked, what didn't work at at the Balkan Meetup Ljubljana and your suggestions for improvement as we plan the next Balkan Meetup.

Format

First and Last name

- WHAT WORKED:

• Good thing

- WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

• Not so good thing

- SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT:

• We should do this next time

Milos Dinic

- WHAT WORKED:

• Hostel in a good position - near to Ljubljana downtown, near to bus and train station, near to the venue
• Venue was perfect - main room big enough and small enough; a few other rooms when we needed privacy
• Equipment was fantastic, we had everything we needed, and a few more things over it
• Venue was provided by open-source community, so there was an additional stimulus
• New community members played amazingly well
• We had experienced community members helping out, as well as an intern(myself)
• Due to the lack of strict management, community members felt empowered enough to shape the event flow
• Excellent participation from all community contributors
• Employees(along with the ones who joined us for the dinner) were all community members, behaved as such and therefore contributed to a relaxed atmosphere
• Partying wasn't pushed(say necessary), and we had a nice dinner hours (7-9) so we could get enough rest if we wanted
• T-shirts printed - helping in strengthening the mozbalkans identity

- WHAT DIDN'T:

• No swags nor promotional material(badges, stickers etc) for contributors to bring home
• Only ~5 mins per community to talk about it's achievements and plans
• No discussion on how each particular community will continue its work
• Sandwiches for lunch are not considered a meal for Balkans people
• No community business cards made for contributors
• No note that laptops shouldn't be used during sessions
• Thunderbird wasn't mentioned almost at all at the event

- SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT:

• Everything was about the community, but we kind of focused on the contributors, but not communities. We missed a strong and long brainstorming about how to build and strengthen communities, how to recognise and solve problems, how to attract more community members...
• Just one session related to community promotion, which is the most important bit in getting more community members. No(or in case I missed it, very short) time spent on Marketing and engagement
• We should have someone explain Mozilla's(or Mozilla Europe's) global next 2 quarters plan, to get contributors more aware of what path are we taking, so they could adjust their plans to such goals
• No promotion before the event. We should plan a marketing campaign before the next event to let everyone know it's happening so they could watch the stream and presentations. Just a few blog posts before this event, as opposed to the promotion for Mozilla Balkans in Skopje
• No way for participants to give feedback in real time. We should set up a wiki page, or private google doc for that(for things like: we didn't like the juice, WiFi connection was bad, chairs were not comfortable)
• Not much AMAZING stuff, like Demo Wizard's demos

Kostas Antonakoglou

- WHAT WORKED:

• Good accommodation and in overall very pleased with our stay in Ljubljana.
• The composition of people that attended the meeting was a mixture of experienced people (put aside the surprise guests) and new community members which worked quite well.
• We put our hands into code (e.g. at the jetpack session)
• We covered a decent number of projects (we can't cover everything and the schedule already existed)

- WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

• Skype sessions have no protocol (interrupt someone while he is speaking etc) at all plus we are people with different pronunciations. No proper documentation afterwards.
• We missed a great chance for a good public event all over Balkans.
• No reason to search something special to have in common in Mozilla Balkans. There isn't because if one country fails to share something special with an other the whole statement for the case of Balkans just fails and many do fail.

- SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT:

• We should definitely move to IRC and use a bot (e.g. zodbot) for documenting the meeting minutes and other meeting functions. Pierros and I have such knowledge. Plus, we can have a meeting protocol (+1 to agree, ! to request to speak etc). We can use Skype for important announcements etc.
• As I proposed at the meeting I suggest we have a public event at the same day (somewhere around the Balkan's community meeting) all over the Balkans. The time zones are pretty close or the same. It will work with video conference (in pairs). We were 15 community members who could probably promote Mozilla to people but did not. This way is more localised, so it can bring more people to the event. So, 1 day for promotion (public event) 1 day for organization (community members event).

Novica Nakov

- WHAT WORKED:

• Accomodation and everything else about Ljubljana +1
• Hands-on work sprints +1

- WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

• I'm still confused over the overall mission of the Balkans meetings - though I'm not sure if this should go down as "what didn't work".

- SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT:

• More communication on IRC and logging everything so the communities can see what are we up to.
• I think there should be a open session/no agenda/shower of thoughts where communities/contributors from different locales can see or try to do something together.

Gorjan Jovanovski

- WHAT WORKED:

• Transportation
• Accommodation
• Organization
• Venue
• WiFi
• Work Sprints
• William on Skype :P

- WHAT DIDN'T WORK:

• Food - a sandwich for lunch left some of us a bit hungry

- SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT:

• Limit the sessions, I know time is very limited but a whole day from 9 to 18 takes a lot out of you, and I started loosing concentration near the end of the day.
• Make sure that all requirements for work sprints are done the day before, so all can go smoothly.