Maemo Summit participants: we hope you enjoyed the event!

http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Summit_2009 becomes now the archive of videos, presentations and other materials related to the conference. It's a wiki page so feel free adding your own interesting materials, from a blog post to a picture of a specific session.

The videos shot during the conference will be uploaded as time permits, hopefully during this week.

Speakers: you need to upload your own slides wherever you prefer e.g. http://slideshare.net and then link them in the schedule. To be clear: we won't host your slides. You can link anything else you find interesting next to your session.

Post here your impressions about the Summit and also ideas to improve next year. Thank you everybody!

Yes, thanks everyone for a great summit!

I was kind of left thinking after the summit about summits and presentations in general.

It's a bit like in school. The old school way of ... well, schooling, is to have a lecturer speaking and "people learning" from what the speaker says.

When I was studying in HUT we were actively focusing on doing something different, i.e. avoiding lectures and more doing groupwork or being active in any way possible, through multiple different means.

So, I don't really have any super-concrete proposals, but it did leave me a thought of would it be possible to do much less "one person talks" presentations and a lot more "all interested parties are involved" type of sessions. Many presentations were nice recaps of what a project has done recently, but ... in theory, if all of those presentations would be available beforehand, people could read through them and then select from them the topics they are interested in, and then participate in active two-way sessions about those topics. Splitting into many more than 3 or 4 threads going on at once.

Or saying it in another way, if the presentation is only about reading through the slideset, people know already how to read. It is missing on further potential.

There was a reasonably large percentage of "old skool" text only slide style presentations, and for intros to a topic that is sort of OK. The twin screen use in the N810 room was good (as if the presenter was a "read the slide" type you could put more focus on what the techie was doing on the other screen)

I saw from the schedule that there were a couple of Hackathons listed, anyone know how they went?

Have you heard of the concept BarCamps (or Unconferences)?

Maybe combining an initial Ultra-lightning talk (30 second - 1 minute to intro a session idea), followed by the sessions, a show of hands following the intro could determine if it happens.
Each session is then 45(?) minutes long with 15 minute break between.

Benefit's of this is (as i see it are;

• easier to organise (done by participants on the day)
• more sessions
• people who are attending the event decide what will happen
• more participation (can ask to hold brainstorming type sessions!)

Downsides are;

• need more "rooms" to hold the tracks
• new way of doing conferences
• hard to film? means attendees need to document (blog?) sessions more
• some people are disapointed as "their" topic got no interest

It was a great summit! Very interesting talks. I only wish that speakers include real demos on hardware instead of screen shots in their slides. A few people actually used real devices in their talks.

My pictures of summit and Amsterdam are here:
http://alexeysmirnov.name/photo/thumbnails.php?album=35

My pictures from the Summit can be found from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainist...7622422850623/

My colleague Marko was also taking pictures, his pictures can be found at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/markosa...7622548660960/

Thanks to all the organizers who helped make the Summit happen. Was a great first-hand view of the vibrancy of the community that really gives Maemo a soul and an identity--an honor to meet everyone, really.

Looking forward to the year ahead!

Fantastic summit. I've said to anyone who'll listen that I enjoyed it immensely more than 2008 (and I enjoyed that a lot). Seeing new faces, and catching up with people I'd met and hung out with last year was great fun. And the professionalism on display in the N900 room was great.

Some thoughts on next year:

• More tracks/longer summit perhaps
• A "pavillion" where people can have a table, some posters, a power socket and a device to show off their device and discuss it with users/developers etc.
• An opportunity for everyone to get together with some music and some beers but to brainstorm/blue-sky stuff. It can ramp up to a loud party later (I still think a band doing a set provides a good focal point for everyone sharing a good time)

Thanks to Peter, Quim and all the Nokians for the trust and support they've given the community in organising this year. And I'll echo the thanks Quim read out at the end of the grand finale.

First comment from my wife on returning home (and this is with it peeking out under a jumper): that t-shirt's very bright :-)

Well, I kind of regret I didn't attend - initially I didn't see many particularly interesting topics coming up, but now that I've been following these live blogs etc. there were lots of interesting stuff - not just phone-oriented things.

I too want to thank Nokia, people who approved my sponsorship and everyone else at the summit. I had a very good time there and I would have never imagined that fremantle would turn out to be a freemantle.

I must have been the only one that unboxed it at home, but I got to see enough of them there and it helped me concentrate on all the talks.

I'm now trying to figure out how to give something back to Nokia in the form of software.

I also thought it was very cool, congrats to all the organisers, and was great to attend, talk to community members new and old and also catch up and chat with the Nokians. Not to mention seeing some cool community and up-coming Harmattan stuff!

In terms of things to think about adding for next time:

I agree with Jaffa, an evening with beer + music, but also seats and tables and not too loud to allow people to chat and hack at the same time would be ideal. This also makes it easier to catch those people you've been wanting to have a word with (which can be hard with the 3 session streams and needing to walk back and forth).

(online) attendee list (perhaps even with a photo [taken when you come to register]) to make it easier to work out what the people you want to talk to look like.

Presentation abstract list!