Comments on: GDC Guide 2009, Part 1: The First Morning

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 05:05:00 +0000

What happened with breakfast this year!? Grrrrr….

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:17:00 +0000

Not sure if this link went up after your blog post or if they were just really good at keeping it hidden. The GDC09 Schedule Builder is here:

http://mygdc.gdconf.com/scheduler/

Not to undermine your original suggestion, though.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 15:39:00 +0000

If you're down on Sunday, I am pretty sure like last year you can register then (and therefore get the pass stuff) right? Or if you're going to do wed-fri, you can work on it the day before if you go register.

I think the online one is okay for finding the "must go to" sessions (once they finally upload the times - it's nearly march and they haven't yet), but I too like looking through the guide. Helps find the ones you don't immediately look at on a website since they're in tracks you rush through or somesuch.

Make sure you have some decent breakfast if you get down early though. GDC only provide basically bits of bread to eat, and sadly not much to put on them.

By: David McGraw

David McGraw — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:23:00 +0000

I actually liked the schedule builder last year and I hear it has improved this year. It gives you a good idea of what your week is going to look like. I didn't have any problem checking it against the booklet when I was at the conference due to it giving me something to do, and something to chat about immediately.

Instead of...

Other: "So what sessions are you going to?"

You: "Erm... Not sure yet, I'm still looking..."

You can immediately be like: "Well, x from company zzxyxx is giving what looks to be an awesome talk about y."

I actually ended up telling somebody about a session that they were really interested in before they found it in the booklet.

I didn't run into any problems with changed times or canceled talks. 2008 was the first year the builder was around (I believe), so it's understandable that some people had some issues.

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:52:00 +0000

Mark: one “trick” like to use is to say hello, and then ask them what their name is, where they work, and what they do :) It’s not at all impolite to do so at a professional conference. It’s why most people are there in the first place.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:49:00 +0000

Right, they’ll probably be making their schedule as well anyway. Do you have any tricks on determining who might be interesting to you, besides staring at their badges, which may be impolite?

By: Darius Kazemi

Darius Kazemi — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:02:00 +0000

Mark: you certainly can. “So what are you going to this morning?” is a perfectly acceptable thing to ask *anyone*, even someone you just met.

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:06:00 +0000

So, when people sit down do you talk to them about their schedule?

By: Ian Schreiber

Ian Schreiber — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:45:00 +0000

Schedule permitting, I'd actually go farther and pick up the conference guide on Sunday. I think last year they opened everything around 3pm Sunday afternoon.

I would also recommend ignoring the schedule builder on the CMP website, but for a different reason: it changes before the conference. Times change, talks get canceled, new talks appear. It's just not worth building a spreadsheet only to have to double-check everything against the on-site conference guide anyway. And anyway, what else are you going to do Sunday afternoon if you get there early?

Also worth pointing out for those of us on the East Coast, getting up early on Monday (and the rest of the week) is an easy sell. We're jet-lagged in the right direction, so if you're used to waking up at 10 then you're up at 7 anyway.

As for coordinating with other people ("you go to this talk, I'll go to that one, we'll share notes later") I've only had limited success with this in practice. Most people don't take notes, or don't go to the trouble of typing them in and sending them out later. You can really get brownie points with people by doing this yourself (I send out a "GDC according to Ian" guide each year) but don't expect anyone to reciprocate -- it's a LOT of work.