That is, the Google IO conference starting today in San Francisco isn’t scaling very well. Registration was very, very slow for some reason, even though all that seemed to be happening was finding preprinted badges and giving them to attendees. They simply couldn’t get people registered in the 90 minutes from when they opened at 8:00 until the keynote at 9:30, so they decided to let people attend sessions most of today without badges. People need to go to the desks between sessions and get their badges by the end of the day.
Agenda scheduling doesn’t seem very practical. Sessions go on non-stop all day with 15 minute gaps between them. People are supposed to grab food during those breaks, but the food’s on a separate floor, and with such large crowds I don’t think you can even get to the other floor and back in that time. The other choice would be to skip a session to eat, but the agenda is very strong. I’m glad I ate a big breakfast.
The conference content has been great so far, with the most polished yet technical talks I’ve ever seen. I hope that keeps up for the whole time. Notes on sessions later as I get some breaks. I’m not going to write during the sessions themselves.
Charles Engelke's Blog 