make it happen in Nantes, France. I would come :-) - Pierre Lindenbaum

Pierre, is Warsaw close enough to Nantes? (Neil, it doesn't seem to make a difference for you ;) ). - Pawel Szczesny

Could run a hack fest as a parallel fringe event or co-locate with another, more-technology centric event? - Dan Hagon

Deepak, are you talking about technology sessions, or about tech-interested people attending the conference? Feel free to make suggestions for Science Online London - we will have at least twice as many sessions as last year. I would for example be interested to talk about DataCite, a project that works on a DOI for research datasets. - Martin Fenner

Both. The current conference was dominated by folks on the journalism/communication/policy side. Nothing wrong with that per se, but there was a lack of (outside of the usual crowd and some new folks like Pawel and Steve Koch) of those practicing science and technologists. - Deepak Singh

Amazon should support it and pay for a "selected" group of few "star" group of geeks to participate. - pn

I don't participate at these events as an Amazon Employee, but purely in my own capacity, so it doesn't make sense to do that, even though that would mean I wouldn't have to pay for my ticket :). - Deepak Singh

I was joking, hence the quotes and the Amazon support. But some support from some company would help doing that, bring more geeks in. - pn

Sorry ... didn't pick up on that :). On the attendance issue, I don't buy that. After all all the non-geeks do show up. - Deepak Singh

Maybe if some company support the event, there might be some talks related to geek-ish stuff, bringing more of the crowd in the area. But I think it's difficult because there's no time (=money) to attend all conferences/event one wants. - pn

i think the point is to have a nice balance of scientists/engineers/technologists/whatever and journalism/communication/policy types... you're probably right that scio has tipped away from the first, toward the second. - Christina Pikas

oh, and BTW - scio got lots of support from a bunch of corporate sponsors as well as non-profit sponsors so ... - Christina Pikas

Christina, definitely agree you need a balance. It's too much the second right now - Deepak Singh

People go to #scio10 because there's something or someone there of interest. Fewer scientists than teachers/journalists/librarians are currently interested in doing things online, so I don't see any way around these sorts of demographics for some time to come. - Bill Hooker

I disagree. The web is an integral part of modern science, and that includes the software that we use, how we work, even within closed commercial companies. We need to be able to capture that audience. - Deepak Singh from IM

Better advertisement in scientific circles is also needed. I had not heard about the conference before I started seeing people tweet from it. - Lars Juhl Jensen

Actually, my experience from #scio09 also supports that it was a great conference, but now, with some time to digest, one thing that could make it even better is to shift the balance towards an equal representation of those that work with science and those that work in science. - Björn Brembs

My experience was pretty similar to others but I'm afraid that balancing representation is not going to help. People were going to the sessions that were of interest for _them_. Science journalist types didn't really care about the most important thing happening right now in science (I mean Open Notebook Science), neither I cared to go on the session on how to increase readership of my blog. Maybe mixing parallel sessions with single lectures (for all) would be a better idea? - Pawel Szczesny

I like that idea, Pawel: let each parallel session contain one journalism talk, one science, one teaching etc, but include a couple of lectures which "force" the journalists to learn about ONS and the scientists to think about how to talk to the public. The conference is already a great cross-fertilizer by way of hallway conversation, but perhaps a couple of shared sessions would improve that even more. - Bill Hooker

I also agree that such parallel sessions with interspersed "plenary sessions" could really enhance the content for everyone! - Björn Brembs

About the lectures: part of my feedback was that we had too many and lost the unconferencey feel. Slides are fine as anchors but you lose the creativity - Deepak Singh from iPhone

We tried to avoid parallel tracks at #solo09 to have more cross-fertilization and have everybody talk about the same session. Worked in a way but was probably too strict. But we had a very geeky Google Wave plenary session with Cameron Nyelon, Chris Thorpe and Ian Mulvany. - Martin Fenner

And who uses Google Wave? Is still on? - pn

Actually, even though I am not a fan, Google Wave does keep getting used by people I am working with (and not just this crowd), so it's got some legs - Deepak Singh

I tried, I can say I tried, but I didn't like it at all. - pn

So many things I could comment on -- #1 - I personally did not miss the geeky, science discussions since I have those at the other 20 conferences I go to each year though I get everyone's point #2 - I think slides should be banned - I felt uncomfortable using the 4 or so I did in the "open access" session and really disliked the sessions that ended up being talks not discussions #3 - I really like the idea of adding a couple of plenaries to mix things up (even w/ #2 above - even a plenary does not need too many slides) - Jonathan Eisen

Well, there has to be a balance. But the program is really dependent on the composition of the people who register (or intend to). More geeks you can recruit to come - and suggest/volunteer sessions - more geeky sessions there will be. Each year has a different focus due to this: see my explanation here: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

Bora, great post and absolutely agree on the composition part, hence the question. How do we get the geeks to come? Maybe I should start recruiting Lars and Martin and Pierre and Rajarshi and Rich right now :) - Deepak Singh

Yes, use your networking skills to get ppl excited. Tell them all about scio10 and why they should come next year. Organize. Then it will happen. - Bora Zivkovic

Of course with my track record, the moment I start doing that I'll have to travel to Japan and miss the event (to date a 100% track record of not being able attend any event I get actively involved with). But yes, something needs to be done - Deepak Singh

#scio11 is already on my schedule, don't want to miss such a great event again. This discussion is really helpful, because Science Online is also about making conferences more interactive, more diverse, more online and more fun. - Martin Fenner from iPhone

I totally agree with Jonathan's comments above re slides (bad idea when the session is in an unconference format) as well as plenaries. However, I do think there's a difference between the science geekery we get at other science conferences and science tech geekery. Maybe instead of workshops on Friday afternoon, there could be a small tech expo .. that would entice sponsors (since they could show off their products) and provide more tech on show for participants. - Walter Jessen

the ieee escience conf had the demos during the poster session, not competing against paper sessions. I really, really wanted to go to some of the demos, but they were up against other very attractive sessions. Maybe we could have the demos during a reception or breaks or while people are milling around? - Christina Pikas