So far we’ve had proposals to charge presenters and introduce a gong. I, for one, think DemoCamp is good just the way it is. I still meet new people, catch up with people I don’t see too often, and get a good overview of what people are doing technology-wise in Toronto. I like that there’s a mix of product launches and individuals’ geeky side-projects. It’s all interesting and inspiring to me.

Is there really a consensus that something is broken? If so, focus on what really is broken:

* Need to cover costs? Why not explore sponsorship and perhaps donations by attendees?

* Demos are boring? Feedback is a good thing but IMHO a gong is a bit aggressive, can we not weather the occasional less-interesting demo and use the feedback to help when selecting presenters next time? If you really want “sharing” and “geekery” let’s try not to discourage people who may have a cool little project on the side but who may not have experience presenting—they’re often not seasoned presenters like those who have something to sell.

There are geeks looking for technology, visionaries looking for ideas, VCs and investors looking for new opportunities.

It's great to be able to cater to them all. That's why I think the sales pitch is fine by me.

However, what makes a boring presentation is the lack of communication of the real benefits of what you are showing.

Think marketing.

Features are fine.

But Benefits, Benefits, Benefits is the way to go.

These can be benefits for the individual geek, benefits for your business or for your money, or benefits for the society.

The very fact that the audience is varied and the type of presentations can be diverse means that this contributes to the dynamism of the local tech community.

This said, I'm all for brainstorming world-changing breakthough ideas with bright people. Then, taking action about it all.

Best.

There are geeks looking for technology, visionaries looking for ideas, VCs and investors looking for new opportunities.

It's great to be able to cater to them all. That's why I think the sales pitch is fine by me.

However, what makes a boring presentation is the lack of communication of the real benefits of what you are showing.

Think marketing.

Features are fine.

But Benefits, Benefits, Benefits is the way to go.

These can be benefits for the individual geek, benefits for your business or for your money, or benefits for the society.

The very fact that the audience is varied and the type of presentations can be diverse means that this contributes to the dynamism of the local tech community.

This said, I'm all for brainstorming world-changing breakthough ideas with bright people. Then, taking action about it all.

Best.

It also sounds like there is a need to pitch things. Perhaps the pitching should be limited to one or two demos (pay-per-play), and the rest are all design/process/problem oriented.

I stopped attending DemoCamps around October last year, because the events lost this aspect. It was just about watching the demos, the crowd was too big to be able to meet anyone, and I am more interested in meeting people than going to a lecture.

In that sense, it might be a good idea to turn DemoCamp into a pay to present event and embrace this aspect.

That said, I believe there should be more focused, smaller Camps that allow people to actually share their ideas on a much simpler level.

My suggestion: reformat it to more of a BarCamp format where we have several (or all) demos going concurrent and for longer periods of time. That way people can use the BarCamp 'vote with your feet' ideology to reward the most interesting demos with attention & feedback.

'Press Release' style demos would be largely ignored, and Mark wouldn't have to stab anyone with his pencil, though that would be entertaining

Also, from the demo-er's point of view, it removes the time factor entirely and allows them to dynamically change the scope of their demo depending on the current audience.

I agree with Rohan that beer should be consumed…after the demos

I like Tom's idea of digging the demos before hand. This system would seem to allow us to prioritize the next 5 (or more?) demos we want to see @ DC. Maybe that would also help weed out crapulent demos? Maybe we could grade them such that only demos with a certain % of positive crowd feedback are asked to present?

Having a corporate sponsor once and a while of course would be good! And I happen to have some influence at Yahoo! Canada and we would happily sponsor a DemoCamp.

David: Maybe we can talk more about how this would work…

I think the problem is, as you said David, the association between DemoCamp and the Demo conference… People and especially presenters are viewing the former as a micro-event of the latter.

Would you care about our tublespace implementation…our real-time correlation engine or how cool or fun is the actual application / service…

I’m still left wondering…

Thanks for injecting a question mark in my head as we prepare to present at DemoCamp Montreal at the end of the month.

L8er – Martin

or maybe more tools. it’s unfortunate that at no regrets the wifi seemed limited, so there was no opportunity for backchannel.

ponders

Pay to play to me would seem to make your quality problem worse. Why would you pay to present unless you had an agenda (eg. pitch) to get across in order to make the money worth it?

I still prefer the idea to let the community vote on presentations digg style in advance of the event. The community may still not always get what they were hoping for but – they will get what they voted for.