Archive for Smofcon 30 - Program

Overview

To develop Program for Smofcon 30, I asked for panel ideas from Smofcon members and then asked for feedback on the ideas, letting people vote for their favorite items. In that way, Smofcon members, generally, got the programming opportunities they were most interested in. Anyone who was interested in being on Program was on at least one item. Panels sorted by vote total.

The rough program schedule was announced on 11/9 and the final was announced a few days before the con.

Thursday afternoon started off with the opening of the con suite and an informal local beer testing, led by beer fan Jim Mann. About 20 attended. A number of us then walked over to Jim's Steaks on South Street.

Friday featured afternoon workshops, including the Budget Bootcamp and the Program Masterclass. Both workshops were well-attended.

Program items started officially at 4pm (though a quick look at "Drupal for Registration" and a "Welcome to Smofcon" panel both started before 4).

Instead of a standard Friday icebreaker, we encouraged people to explore the city in groups. Laurie led a group over to the historic City Tavern


Mo Starkey, Adrienne Foster, Steven Silver, Patty Wells


Bill Thomasson, Alexis Layton, Leslie Turek

We learned that Benjamin Franklin experimented with tofu (and seems to have served it with tomatoes and pasta) and that Thomas Jefferson brewed a pretty good wheat beer.

Jim led a pub crawl. The pub crawl planned to go to the following places, depending on how crowded the bars were early Friday evening:

  • Eulogy Belgian Tavern (136 Chestnut)
  • Triumph Brewing Company (117 Chestnut)
  • National Mechanics (22 S 3rd)
  • McGillin's Olde Ale House (1310 Drury)
  • Nodding Head Brewery (1516 Sansom)

Dinner hours:

  • Friday: 6pm -- whenever (Cocktails, then cake in the Con Suite beginning at 8pm for the Smofcon Memorial)
  • Saturday: 5pm -- 8pm (Fannish Inquisition starts at 8pm)

The Con Suite was mobbed for the Smofcon Memorial. As it would have been Danny Lieberman's birthday a few days later, we bought a cake in his memory.

We ran items on Sunday until 5pm. The Con Suite was open Sunday night, and closed down noon on Monday.

Schedule/Materials

Smofcon 30 Convention Guide

Priscilla's Program Workshop Materials:

Panels and workshops ran all day Saturday. James Shields ran a 3 session workshop on using Drupal to build your convention Website. The hotel served an informal lunch of hot sandwiches, salad and cold drinks at 1pm. Saturday afternoon and night, we had two sessions of Worldcon/NASFiC Fannish Inquisition, led by Helen Montgomery, with help from Deb Geisler and Stephen Boucher.

Glenn Glazer included some hand-outs for the How to Run a Fan Table panel.
Mark Olson had a hand-out for Evaluating Others.

Theme: Building a Winning Team: The Right Player for the Right Position


How to create and keep a functional, diversified organizing committee for any size convention, including:
  • defining the skill sets needed for a particular job
  • identifying a person's skill sets (people, data management, logistics & planning, money handling, marketing and publications, computer and internet, theatrical, etc)
  • matching people to jobs to get the most enthusiasm and effort
  • identifying a person’s preferred working and communication style (face to face, telephone, E-mail, Skype)
  • matching staff and supervisors with sufficient overlap to make a functional team
  • keeping a geographically diverse committee together
  • evaluating yourself - figuring out which convention job(s) you're best for