[penguicon-general] A couple of thoughts about programming

[Matt Arnold]

Cathy,

This is a good place to discuss it. The only way for Penguicon to get
the kind of programming one wants to see, is to ask the general
population of attendees to provide it. The schedule is largely
crowdsourced-- in other words, it consists of whatever volunteers step
forward to do. That grassroots method is why we had a hundred program
participants this year.

That having been said, there is a way to formally encourage there to
be more programming of one kind or another. That is to recruit a
deputy of the programming department to run that programming
subdepartment.

For instance, I had computer, literature, gaming, anime, music, sword,
webcomic, and food deputies. I handled the science/futurics/crossover
programming myself.

Some deputies organized more programming than others, but what
mattered is that the quality was quite high and we tried to spread out
each track and keep it from clumping up. Some of these were light,
such as costuming, but at least they were not nonexistent. We would
have been very weak on media programming had not Ferrett's wife Gini
Judd (a Nifty Guest) saved my bacon by coming up with some ideas for
that. I suspect that when you talk about having game, music, and anime
tracks, what you mean is panels talking about these topics. Volunteers
to come up with topics they would like to speak on would absolutely be
welcome. It's great to come up with ideas on the list, get some people
excited about them, and get those excited people signed up to speak.

The science track has been increasing year by year, although mostly in
medicine. This time we had our first Science GoH Christine Peterson,
who spoke on Life Extension, and Nanotech Safety. There was also
"Cellular Visions: The Inner Life Of A Cell", and The
Brain-As-Computer Metaphor. I'll be very pleased if we continue this
trend.

To segue onto a related topic, crossover has not been mentioned here.
Although concom roles are highly fluid this time of year, the incoming
conchair and I have been talking about whether or not I want to head
up programming again, but at the very least I would like to be the
deputy for crossover/futurics programming for 2008. This would be one
of the hats I would wear. (Minister of Communication plays to my
strengths, was never really replaced, and is a role I intend to
reprise.)

One thing I realized from several comments over the course of the year
is that different people mean different things by "crossover
programming" but they often don't realize there are other definitions.
I frequently hear from prospective panelists, "I can't be on that
panel because I only know half of it", and I tell them the other
panelists know the other half and getting them together to learn from
each other is the whole point. That's how I know a crossover panel
when I see one.

Since the two main tracks of Penguicon are computers and science
fiction, a more restrictive definition involves events at the
intersection of real-world technology with inspiration from futuristic
imagination and vision. Look how The Future Of Spyware was a panel
with a security expert and a science fiction author. The podcasting
panel was simultaneously about the computer tech of podcasts, and the
fiction content some of them offer. The presentation on the current
project of self-replicating 3D-printers was so visionary it was a
realization of the political and economic renaissance many SF stories
look forward to in the 21st century, but the hacker community is
making it real.

Others definitions are more restrictive, but no evaluation of the
state of crossover programming can be effective without an
understanding of what one means by the term.

-Matt


On 4/24/07, Catherine Olanich Raymond <cathy at thyrsus.com> wrote:
> This year's Penguicon had a boat load of program items of a bunch of different
> kinds. Some cons refer to similar types of items as program "tracks."  I was
> thinking today about the "tracks" we had, and a few we *might* want to
> consider adding for 6.0.
>
> By my count (which could easily be wrong) these are tracks we had:
>
> *  Technical Track (items about Linux, or computer/technological issues);
>
> *  SF Track (items about fannish stuff);
>
> *  Martial Arts Track (courtesy of Aegis, mostly, but I thought I saw at least
> one Tai Chi workshop, so that adds to the variety);
>
> *   Food Track  (impressively successful; the Dark Chocolate Tasting ended
> after about 40 minutes because 9 of the 12 varieties of chocolate I brought
> to sample were already all gone);
>
> *   Gaming Track --i.e., special events associated with gaming.  This
> included, impressively, not only Celebrity Munchkin and the slate of GMed
> games but also the miniatures workshops.  It might, or might not, be
> interesting to add a few gaming-related panels to the schedule too.  (E.g.,
> a "new developments" or "upcoming products" panel, which maybe some game
> manufacturers would want to do).
>
> And here are a few tracks it might be worth adding:
>
> *  A costuming track.  We had, I think, two costuming panels.  Possibly there
> isn't more demand for more, but it may be worth checking out.
>
> *  A science track.  Neat developments in the world of science.  A good number
> of the General Technics folk are professional scientists (Bill Higgins,
> Jordan Kare, Charles Lane, Brother Guy, to give a few examples off the top of
> my head) and have given panels/talks at SF conventions in the past.
>
> *  An anime track.  Since the anime room was so dead this really may not be
> worth doing.  If we feature an anime GOH next year, we may want to consider
> supporting him/her with some related panel items.
>
> *  A music track?  This should, I think, include filking, but could include
> performances by pro and semipro musicians (not just The Great Luke Ski,
> please!) or even panels about things like the history of filking or
> music/technology crossover issues (e.g., DRM).
>
> We already have a bunch of workshops (writing, belly dance, martial arts,
> minatures) and I think this is a trend to continue, though I think it would
> be inappropriate to consider them a "track" per se.
>
> May as well do some brainstorming while everybody's still high on the sucess
> of the con....
>
> --
> Cathy Raymond <cathy at thyrsus.com>
>
> "You've got to have the proper amount of disrespect for what you do."
> -- George Mabry
>
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