[OSDC Israel] feedbacks from the conference

[Omer Zak]

On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 13:11 +0200, Gabor Szabo wrote:
> I need feedbacks.
> 
> Please don't just go back to your daily work. Take the time to write a
> few senteces about
> the conference. Speakers want to know what did you think about their talks,
> organizers would like to know what do you think about the
> organization, the place,
> the schedule, the food, whatever.
> How would you improve things?

Gabor Szabo contacted me ample time before the conference in order to
ensure that inaccessibility would not prevent people with disabilities
from registering to it.

However, there was no interest from software developers with
disabilities in participating in the conference.  So except for
inquiring about accessibility to people with mobility disabilities
(read: wheelchairs) when looking for place for the conference, nothing
was done.

Conclusions:

1. Start now organizing a group of software developers with
disabilities.  The purpose would be to coordinate and ensure
accessibility of all future conferences; and to start having the mental
mindset that we can expect to attend a conference rather than think the
Big But thought ("... but it would be inaccessible").

2. Be more aggressive in advertising future conferences to relevant
professionals with disabilities.

3. For the deaf:  need to have a fund, which will provide budget for
notetaking during all the conference days.  To book a notetaker for a
small part of the conference, the schedule of lectures needs to be
frozen several days ahead of the conference, and I understand that it is
not The Right Thing to do in OSDC-type conferences.
If there are parallel sessions and more than one deaf attendant, we need
a notetaker for each parallel session (up to the number of attending
deaf persons).
Alternatively, it may be a good idea to try to recruit volunteer
notetakers.  Also, to find more uses to the transcripts in addition to
accessibility to the deaf.

Fortunately for me, the sound file comprising Larry Wall's lecture is
52MB long, so whomever will transcribe it to text will do a favor not
only to me but also to several people, who would not like to download
such a big file, even though they could hear it.
                                              --- Omer
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