Team Miro

As a summer intern at the PCF, I was responsible for organizing last week’s chat event. I’m proud to say that it was a great success. About twenty people attended, some of whom were active and asking great questions. In my first blog post of many, I’ll detail the process behind organizing Tuesday’s event, and how it could have been done better.

Planning started approximately a week prior to the event. I drafted the mass email and blog post advertising the session on a legal pad during the week, but didn’t have them ready for users’ eyes until the weekend. I would have liked to get the date/time out there a little earlier… I will make sure to keep this in mind for the next event. Giving only one day’s notice is probably responsible for the absence of many users who would have otherwise attended.

We chose the Live Question Tool for question entries. It was a perfect match for this type of event; it almost seemed as if it was designed for it! The tool accepts prior submission of questions and, as the name implies, live submission while the event is in progress. I couldn’t have asked for a better means of taking questions.

Last week’s featured guest ,Will Guaraldi did a great job responding to the several questions that were posed to him (transcript available on our Wiki ).

As far as IRC discussions go, the session was structured and under control. Operator privileges were unnecessary, as everyone was self-moderated and respectful. Hopefully we get a larger audience next time around (the discussions are weekly, held Tuesday’s at 4:30 EST), and I thank everyone who attended on Tuesday!