Please Provide PASS with Feedback on its Speaker’s Resource Pages
DBA Career,PASS | March 3, 2010 | 5:35 pm
The PASS Program Committee is gearing up for the 2010 PASS Community Summit “Call for Speakers”, and it would like your feedback on its Speaker’s Resource and its Online Speaker Resources web pages. (Yes, I know the names of these pages are confusing, and this is something that will be fixed). I’m a member of the PASS Program Committee, and participate in the role of Speaker Management, so I have been asked to be the focal point for collecting this feedback. Once I get your feedback, I will then summarize and present it to the committee.
Please offer any feedback you would like on the two web pages in question. Below, I have suggested some areas where we would specifically like feedback, but feel free to offer any feedback that is related to the PASS “Call for Speakers”.
Below are the areas where we would like your feedback.
1) PASS offers a Speaker’s Resource Page that provides information for PASS speakers about the “Call for Speakers” process, and other related information. Currently, it has not been updated for 2010, but if you could review this page, and tell us what you think about it, it would be very helpful. Specifically, tell us what is good about the existing content, what needs to be improved with the existing content, and what content is missing. This web page can be accessed without having to log onto the PASS website.
2) PASS also offers the Online Speaker Resources web page. This page is very different from the Speaker’s Resource Page web page in that it only lists online resources that can be helpful for any speaker, whether they are for speaking at the PASS Community Summit, or speaking at a local users group. We would like your feedback on the existing resources on this page, plus if you have any suggestions for additional speaking resources, please tell us. Because the Online Speaker Resources web page is so closely related to the Speaker’s Resource Page, we also want your feedback on whether or not you think these two pages should be combined, or if they should remain separate. To view this web page, you have to log onto the PASS website.
Because this blog in syndicated to more than one website, please post all of your comments at my blog, www.bradmcgehee.com, which will make it much easier for me to collect and summarize all of the feedback. While comments have to be approved before they are published (to prevent spam), they will all be approved and published as soon as possible. If you want to give your real name, that’s great, but you can also provide your feedback anonymously. If you have any questions, please post them along with your feedback.
So whether you have been a past PASS Community Summit speaker, or you are thinking about becoming a speaker, we would like to hear from you.
- Tips for Submitting Speaking Abstracts to the 2009 PASS Community Summit
- As a PASS Member, Don’t Forget to Vote in the 2010 PASS Board Elections
- Summary of What PASS Members Want from the 2009 PASS Community Summit
- PASS European Conference 2010 Call for Speakers is Open
- PASS Summit 2010 Call for Speakers Closes Saturday, June 5
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Brad,
I’ve only looked at the Speaker Resource page so far, and then again I only spent a little time looking at the page. Here are my first thoughts. Excellent information, here are some comments.
Things I like:
- A link to prior summit sessions
- A link to get on a summit speakers email list
- A link to sample abstracts
- A link to tips on writing abstracts
Possible things to Add:
- Dates when abstracts can be submitted and the date that abstracts submission is closed.
Possibly mistakes:
- In the Announcement dates there are some 2009 references that seem out of place
Additional comments:
- Some links require me to login, while other do not. Might be nice if all links didn’t require signin, or all link did require signin.
Greg
Gut reaction: the Speaker’s Resource Page is crowded and uses white space poorly. I like the boxes on the left for special topics. Can the ads on the right be removed from this page or placed in a different area? They make the center column really squished. Also perhaps the center column information should be boxed similar to the left side to help group it better, or change the spacing between titles and the body above/below. Perhaps collapse the Why Should You Speak into a link.
What is the purpose of the Call For Speakers Result section? Presumably the submitters know whether they were accepted or not, and everyone else is mostly interested in the online program guide when it is ready.
The Online Speaker Resources could probably be merged onto the other page if managed well, but it could also easily get too cluttered. Maybe things like the Call For Speakers Results and Content Survey results from page 1 should move to this page and again manage the white space / boxing better for visual grouping of information.
I’ve always liked the advice and tips given out by Garr Reynolds on his PresentationZen blog about speaking and especially slide creation. A couple of links to consider: http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/index.html, http://www.presentationzen.com/presentationzen/2006/04/slideuments_and.html, and http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/11/the_zen_estheti.html.
Thanks to Greg and Mark for taking the time to provide feedback. It will be incorporated into the refresh of the Speaker’s Resource page on the PASS website.