Code Camp Speaker Reviews

Code Camp Speaker Reviews

One more blog post where I am just linking to someone else.  But again I think the quality of this link warrants it.

I recently attended the NYC Code Camp which was an excellent experience for me and was a very well run code camp.

Stephen Bohlen wrote an excellent article about the review system they used and the benefits it had over other review systems I have been subjected a part of at various events.

As a speaker getting good honest feedback is very hard.  One of the things I really liked about their system is I was able to see my reviews in comparison to the other reviews that attendee gave.  So it helped me put in perspective the feedback I received.  For example if the feedback I get from a particular attendee is much better (or much worse) than the general feedback given to the other speakers then I know it is significant.  If an attendee says all the sessions are great than I know that he is just being nice.

I also received much more tangible and actionable feedback than I normally do.  On a “normal” review I will get one actionable comment (eg The way you demonstrated x was good/bad or if you would have done y I think I would have followed along with z better) for every 50 reviews.  I would say that 1 out of 10 from this system gave me actionable feedback.  Of course maybe that is the difference between New York and California cultures also

If your involved in organizing technical events or speak at technical events I highly recommend you read the article NYC CodeCamp Winter 2010: Session Evaluation Process, Results, and Conclusions.