(Notes courtesy Charles Merriam)

SHDH 34 August 22    Post Mortem

Lots of thanks to all the amazing work.

This was the last SHDH before the Dojo opens, and some of the lessons

learned will apply to the Dojo.   It was one of the largest with about

150 people attending.

This was the most social SuperHappyDevHouse to date!  What made it

social is a bit unclear:   journeying downstairs to the food area

meant taking a more substantive break from coding; the huge turnout

meant people ran out wireless Internet and places to sit in the

upstairs rooms; the extra comfort of being in someone's home increased

the turnout of women to about 25%; and the reach-out to non-coders

changed the vibe a little bit.  Each of these is its own lesson.

- Food worked with some hiccups.  Many either failed at knowing it was

a potluck or knowing what to bring to a potluck:  too much beer, not

enough food.  Being clearer in the announcements would help.  Casey G.

rationed food well.  Ms Harrison redirected incoming people to the

local Safeway and cooked huge amounts of food.   The signs helped.

One suggestion is to keep cups for water upstairs with everything else

downstairs.

- Wireless choked a bit.  The Comcast side, recently upgraded, held up

really well.   The wireless routers could have used a bit of love and

number.  There wasn't any scaling down of radio power.  Tom just ran

out of time.  Mostly there just lots of people.   Many people ended up

hacking on the lawns and other comfy places.  There was only one

smoking issue, quickly better.

- Women were present in larger numbers.  Most of the discussion

focused around feeling comfortable and safe.  Being in a cozy familiy

home instead an industrial building helped.   Some ideas for the Dojo

were around additional exterior lighting and having people come in the

cozy front doors rather than the big industrial garage.   Also for the

Dojo, keeping it clean will be far more welcoming:  many women will

feel guilty about not cleaning otherwise.  Listen to suggestions

carefully and implement them is the only persistant advice.

- Reaching out to non-coders, the puzzle game, and Joel being a guide

all helped in the social vibe.  There are still ideas for games, SDHD

one night projects, large post it notes to attract people by project,

coding contests or slightly more organized teaching BoFs.  More

experimentation required.

-  Adding the thirty second Job match to lightning talks seemed to work as well.

In logistics, setting up the night before helped.  Also Ms Harrison

had a checklist that people ran through to get everything done.

Announcing the set-up to a wider audience would help. A somewhat

antique table got sat on, broke, some responsible parties are probably

paying for it.  There were fewer hardware projects, probably because

of Burning Man.

Future events should include a SHDH 34 1/2 at the Dojo, the 35th at

Microsoft in January, Nasa after that.   Four blow-out events per year

is the plan.  Expect planning meetings with Microsoft in September and

November.

Dave Briccetti says: May I tack on some feedback here? This was a great event. I loved it.

May I suggest carefully setting the volume on the lightning talk amp. When David started

his talk the mic was so hot he got feedback, followed by a lot of wrong advice from the crowd.

The solution was to turn down the volume, and have him hold the mic closer. Also, try to

encourage a consistent volume level among all speakers, which is of course a function of

amp volume level, speaker voice volume, and closeness of the mic. One guy was so loud

I had to step away. Others were far too soft. Perhaps a moment of instruction at the

beginning, followed by someone taking the job of ensuring audio quality throughout.

-- end of Dave Briccetti comment

As always, send email to David Weekly, david@pbworks.com to be on the

sdhd organizers list.