Bruce, I can't speak to your issues with the normal sessions, but your bad experience with the lightning talks was my fault. And, in apologizing to you, I hope that all the others on this thread who have expressed similar sentiments hear me too.
Ultimately, we miscalculated in certain respects. It wasn't any particular thing, but rather there were a couple of issues that came together here: 1 - We had an incredible amount of sponsorship. Higher than expected by anyone. This wasn't bad in itself (I think it was very good!), but it set the stage for some of the issues later. 2 - As part of the sponsor package, we promised the sponsors priority for a lightning talk. Our thought was that the sponsor lightning talks from last year were well received, so they probably would be this year as well. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case - at least having *that many* was not well received. 3 - We had a very limited time when some of the sponsors would still be here - basically Friday and Saturday. The major problem on Saturday is that we *had* to stack the sponsor talks that way or else we would not fulfill our obligations to our sponsors. We offered lightning talks this year because a) we didn't know how well the expo hall would go, and b) that was the only way for the sponsors to connect with the audience last year - so we assumed that it might be the same way this year. This was discussed and generally agreed-to in September. IIRC, the sponsor lightnings were not an issue that was subject to much debate back then, most people were accustomed to the generally positive 2007 experience.* I think that with the success of the expo hall, we can remove the lightning talks from the sponsor benefits for next year, and at this point I am in favor of doing so. Personally, I was *very* disappointed that some of our sponsors didn't prepare or even show up for their assigned slots. I think that the sponsors are members of our community, and I expect them to act as such. Taking slots and not showing up - or not showing up prepared - isn't how I would hope a community member would act. Thanks, Van *(On the other hand, the Diamond keynotes were the subject of substantial debate - but I thought those went well; I would like to keep them for next year.) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list