MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas
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I am hoping to do a session on careers. Kind of a reboot of How to Get a Raise, but with more concentration on career development and advancement.
I was also considering a session on budgets and IT finance. I still believe many IT Pros have a hard time asking for money, and have a difficult time with budgets. Understanding that IT budgets are a huge waste of time and effort, but that many companies still require this approach leaves the IT pro in a sticky spot. Addressing how to handle budgeting and IT finance could potentially be an attractive subject.
Thoughts?
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@JaredBusch said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@JaredBusch said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@scottalanmiller said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@scottalanmiller said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@JaredBusch oh, offline I had proposed to the @Minion-Queen that the training hands on deep dives be a day earlier. Not overlapping sessions.
So, kinda like SW, SW training the day before the two day con.
Yes, like that. But for topical general IT... rather than for their specific helpdesk / network management product.
Not the day before. overlapping. for the entire conference.
I would easily take half a day (gods not A.M.) for a real in depth FreePBX setup training session.
Full on training on a product changes the purpose of the conference. Besides, you already said that considering our current size, If half the people were in the training, that only leaves about 20 in the panels.
And that is what a lot of people want. granted half a day is a bit extreme for an example, but it could easily be done.
I agree that they 'think' they want that.
So the next question is - how do you decide what classes to put on? What if I want to attend both a class and the panel someone puts on at the same time?
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@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
So the next question is - how do you decide what classes to put on? What if I want to attend both a class and the panel someone puts on at the same time?
You have to choose. This is normal. It is impossible to do all things. Or should be.
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@Mike-Davis said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@JaredBusch I think your presentation was about right. For those of us who had never set one up, we got a good idea of what was involved and you showed some of the caveats so we could see why we wouldn't want to bring in someone with experience for a production system.
For an on stage presentation, I feel it was on target. I hope others did as well.
But for a full on demo, that is different, but also a useful thing.
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@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
So the next question is - how do you decide what classes to put on? What if I want to attend both a class and the panel someone puts on at the same time?
I think after the initial survey of what courses, we should do a survey of registered attendees to see if the courses line up and if there is a track they would want to follow.
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@pchiodo said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
I am hoping to do a session on careers. Kind of a reboot of How to Get a Raise, but with more concentration on career development and advancement.
I was also considering a session on budgets and IT finance. I still believe many IT Pros have a hard time asking for money, and have a difficult time with budgets. Understanding that IT budgets are a huge waste of time and effort, but that many companies still require this approach leaves the IT pro in a sticky spot. Addressing how to handle budgeting and IT finance could potentially be an attractive subject.
Thoughts?
This would be grea, as I happen to agree that this is a huge issue in the SMB.
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@JaredBusch said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@pchiodo said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
I am hoping to do a session on careers. Kind of a reboot of How to Get a Raise, but with more concentration on career development and advancement.
I was also considering a session on budgets and IT finance. I still believe many IT Pros have a hard time asking for money, and have a difficult time with budgets. Understanding that IT budgets are a huge waste of time and effort, but that many companies still require this approach leaves the IT pro in a sticky spot. Addressing how to handle budgeting and IT finance could potentially be an attractive subject.
Thoughts?
This would be grea, as I happen to agree that this is a huge issue in the SMB.
yep, this gets back into what @JaredBusch and @scottalanmiller both feel is the main job of IT.
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@JaredBusch said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Mike-Davis said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@JaredBusch I think your presentation was about right. For those of us who had never set one up, we got a good idea of what was involved and you showed some of the caveats so we could see why we wouldn't want to bring in someone with experience for a production system.
For an on stage presentation, I feel it was on target. I hope others did as well.
But for a full on demo, that is different, but also a useful thing.
I really liked this demo - it showed how easy it can be to upset the old 'norm' and how much money it can save (from the monthly services fees) Install of FreePBX vs a traditional big name like Mitel should cost about the same from a services side. With any luck, you'll save a bundle on the software of FreePBX vs Mitel switch side.. and the phones will often be less expensive too.
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@pchiodo said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
I am hoping to do a session on careers. Kind of a reboot of How to Get a Raise, but with more concentration on career development and advancement.
I was also considering a session on budgets and IT finance. I still believe many IT Pros have a hard time asking for money, and have a difficult time with budgets. Understanding that IT budgets are a huge waste of time and effort, but that many companies still require this approach leaves the IT pro in a sticky spot. Addressing how to handle budgeting and IT finance could potentially be an attractive subject.
Thoughts?
This could be something really interesting, as there are not much on the best practices/approach on IT management on the business side. Things like Capex forecasting, management etc, something like use of ITIL practices in our daily operations. Deep technical things are always available everywhere and but things like this are rarely been discussed in IT forums i believe (I think these are not really a concern for SMB, but interesting things to know about). So topics i would love to see next year would be:
- IT Budgeting/Capex best practices (Also includes how to get the money/convince your boss to spend on IT)
- ITIL
- Change Management process (just remebered this old topic i posted a while ago
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@scottalanmiller said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Ambarishrh said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@scottalanmiller said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Texkonc said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@scottalanmiller said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
What about a full day of Linux training in the training room? Like a class training, not a session.
Yes! What platform, Centos?
Probably. But Ubuntu, Suse, would be great, too.
Could also do FreePBX, Solaris or something as well.
A session on FreePBX would be great! And may be complete Zabbix, ELK training as well?
Only so much time
You'd need a whole conference worth of time for all that. lol
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@DustinB3403 said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@dafyre Yeah don't, the wireless was horrid.
As I understand it the guy essentially up and disappeared after agreeing to get things configured for the conference. And was a no call / no show during all attempts to reach him.
We had an AV person lined up, but the "contracted hotel AV provider" threw a fit about us not using his services, so Danielle caved to keep the peace. Then, just about last-minute, he said he didn't have the equipment we required and so we would have to use someone else. In the meantime, our previously-engaged person made other plans. We more or less had my personal PA system, which is built around live music and not public speaking presentations. We did the best we could with what we had and a limited budget. Next year will not be like that!
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Lessons learned, I reckon! Still it sounds like it went pretty well otherwise!
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@dafyre said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
Lessons learned, I reckon! Still it sounds like it went pretty well otherwise!
I'd say it did from a technological standpoint. While internet access was crap, it wasn't required for the conference itself this year and I don't recall there being any other issues to really overcome other than the wireless microphones didn't seem to have enough batteries.
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Yeah we had a few AV snafus 2 weeks before the conference... Sound was ehhhh (more because we didn't have proper mics) and Presentations were a little hard to see. It's what happens when you have to improvise. But other than that no major disasters!
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@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
Yeah we had a few AV snafus 2 weeks before the conference... Sound was ehhhh (more because we didn't have proper mics) and Presentations were a little hard to see. It's what happens when you have to improvise. But other than that no major disasters!
Speaking of screen being hard to see - I wonder if running the laptops at a force lower resolution would have solved that? Assuming the TV was able to do that too.
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@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
Yeah we had a few AV snafus 2 weeks before the conference... Sound was ehhhh (more because we didn't have proper mics) and Presentations were a little hard to see. It's what happens when you have to improvise. But other than that no major disasters!
Speaking of screen being hard to see - I wonder if running the laptops at a force lower resolution would have solved that? Assuming the TV was able to do that too.
The main one was but when people switched to their own I didn't think to mention it
Oh well live and learn.Next year I am buying a projector so that I don't have to rely on anyone for anything! That and lapel mics.
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@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
Yeah we had a few AV snafus 2 weeks before the conference... Sound was ehhhh (more because we didn't have proper mics) and Presentations were a little hard to see. It's what happens when you have to improvise. But other than that no major disasters!
Speaking of screen being hard to see - I wonder if running the laptops at a force lower resolution would have solved that? Assuming the TV was able to do that too.
The main one was but when people switched to their own I didn't think to mention it
Oh well live and learn.Next year I am buying a projector so that I don't have to rely on anyone for anything! That and lapel mics.
Projector will still have the issue of swapping out laptops for things.
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@dafyre said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
Lessons learned, I reckon! Still it sounds like it went pretty well otherwise!
We had a great time!
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@scottalanmiller said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
Yeah we had a few AV snafus 2 weeks before the conference... Sound was ehhhh (more because we didn't have proper mics) and Presentations were a little hard to see. It's what happens when you have to improvise. But other than that no major disasters!
Speaking of screen being hard to see - I wonder if running the laptops at a force lower resolution would have solved that? Assuming the TV was able to do that too.
The main one was but when people switched to their own I didn't think to mention it
Oh well live and learn.Next year I am buying a projector so that I don't have to rely on anyone for anything! That and lapel mics.
Projector will still have the issue of swapping out laptops for things.
Which brings about the question - why was there swapping of laptops? Why not have everyone send their presentations to one person, who loads them up on a single, non changing device to run the presentations.
Also, was the monitor on the laptops not working? It appeared that most people had to read their presentation from the TV, which caused it's own issues.
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@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@scottalanmiller said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Dashrender said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
@Minion-Queen said in MangoCon 2017 Topic Ideas:
Yeah we had a few AV snafus 2 weeks before the conference... Sound was ehhhh (more because we didn't have proper mics) and Presentations were a little hard to see. It's what happens when you have to improvise. But other than that no major disasters!
Speaking of screen being hard to see - I wonder if running the laptops at a force lower resolution would have solved that? Assuming the TV was able to do that too.
The main one was but when people switched to their own I didn't think to mention it
Oh well live and learn.Next year I am buying a projector so that I don't have to rely on anyone for anything! That and lapel mics.
Projector will still have the issue of swapping out laptops for things.
Which brings about the question - why was there swapping of laptops? Why not have everyone send their presentations to one person, who loads them up on a single, non changing device to run the presentations.
Also, was the monitor on the laptops not working? It appeared that most people had to read their presentation from the TV, which caused it's own issues.
The swapping was because there were "supposed" to be more interactive things for people to show off (not just power points). However next year there will be more standardized things. Live and learn
