Rethinking MAX BOFs
"BOF" stands for "Birds of a Feather", and MAX BOF sessions are informal meetings on a variety of subjects. Unlike core MAX sessions, BOFs are usually not driven by Adobe and the MAX team. Rather, the community defines topics of interest, and MAX provides facilities and publicity to drive attendance. Most BOFs are focused around core products and technologies, but many are on other topics. Again, BOFs are driven by the community.We've hosted BOFs for a long time, ever since Allaire DevCon days. But over the years BOFs have evolved ...
- Year ago we added "Meet the Team" sessions, free-form open discussions like BOFs, but giving MAX attendees a chance to face product teams and ask, comment, criticize, suggest, and more. The "Meet the Team" sessions have become so popular and well attended that BOF attendance has suffered as a result.
- Then, as the number of products represented at MAX grew, so did the number of "Meet the Team" sessions. This resulted in fewer available rooms for BOFs, and thus fewer BOFs, despite growing attendance and greater attendee diversity.
- And on top of all that, the BOF schedules have had to change. We used to have BOFs on two nights and at two time slots each night. But in recent years we had to scale back to one night to accommodate the expanded MAX schedule. And last year the one night of BOFs started later, again because of MAX scheduling, which caused the second time slot to run way past 10:00pm, and that hurt BOF participation even more.
Lunch time is a full hour in the middle of the day, well, in the middle of all three days, actually. There are no sessions scheduled during lunch time, and just about every MAX attendee is in the lunch room. So what if we moved BOFs to lunch time? We'd have the big open seating area we usually have, but would also have part of the room sectioned off, round lunch tables in each, and signage designating what group is eating lunch together where. Attendees could get their lunch, head to a specific area, and then meet and chat while eating. The atmosphere would be easy and relaxed, attendees would get fed, and we could accommodate lots more BOFs over the three days of MAX. We'd leave the "Meet the Team" sessions as they are, in the evening, but move all BOFs to lunch time.
We've not hammered out all of the details yet, this is a work in progress. Still, we're interested in your thoughts on the dilemma and the proposed solution.
Labels: Adobe MAX, Birds of a Feather, BOF
posted by Ben Forta at
4:55 PM
4 Comments:
What about the noise factor? Lunches at MAX and other conferences are usually held in very large halls with the vendor area adjacent. This makes for a whole lotta noise. It's one thing to sit across a table for 8-10 people and talk, but it's another if you're trying to listen to someone talk who is 20 or more feet away.
I think it's a good idea to move the BOFs to lunch, but I'm concerned that people won't be able to hear each other.
Hi Ben,
More BoF is a great idea! Lunch sounds good too!
Ever since my first MAX, BoF sessions have always been my primary reason for attending MAX! BoF have been the "must not be missed" part of MAX. (Beneficial for me in ways that the "General Sessions" never have been.)
On the MAX 2009 scheduler I see "Meet the Teams" on Monday, October 5 from 8:00 pm - 10:00 pm. Great!
So I guess MTT is now preempting, BoF? I am fine with that. Years back, BoF was a primary venue for getting face time with Adobe employees. Now that so many sessions are now officially MTT, the members of the Adobe product teams are out in greater numbers than ever. Meaning the original concept of BoF morphing into MTT has been great. (That and Adobe's great decision starting in Chicago to both order in pizza and have an open bar for the BoF/MTT. Sheer genius ;-)
For people who may not be familiar with BoF, can you please list here a couple of the most likely BoF sessions for this year's MAX?
Also, can you please be sure that the schedule for both this year's MTT and BoF get posted as early as possible? (Ideally on the MAX site before the start of MAX?)
Thank you very, very much for all of your great work at making, MAX, Adobe and ColdFusion so great.
Warmest regards,
g
It is a good idea and can make people more feel comfortable sitting at a table of strangers. You wouldn't even have to make it an official "BOF Session" so much as just a way to encourage attendees to network with people of similar interests. I've seen this idea done before at weddings where there is a flag in the middle of the table with the topic of discussion for that table printed on it.
I'm all for more BoF sessions but lunch has always been a great time to network and meet other MAX attendees.
I've found these to be some of the most valuable MAX experiences. Where else do you get the mix of someone from the Fireworks team, sitting with some CF developers, a guy from Oracle and someone from the Federal Gov't all chatting and cross pollinating?
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