2. SS 2013 STORY
• Seminar 8.6.2013 at ITMO, St. Petersburg, Russia
– 19 presentations in 3 tracks
– 8 hours including lunch, breaks and networking
– 50+ participants (70+ registered - 20 no show)
– 7 nationalities
• Off-seminar program 7.-9.6.2013
– Data Art and Yandex excursions
– Dinners, lunches, breakfasts, hostel, party
– Walking on the rooftops of SPB
– Riverboat tour and sightseeing
• 25 responses to feedback, offline and online
– Online form was open for one week
3. AVERAGE GRADES (sort by grade)
2.89
3.17
3.90
4.09
4.17
4.24
4.25
4.30
4.32
4.33
4.33
4.38
4.40
4.50
4.50
4.50
4.56
4.58
4.63
4.64
4.65
4.67
4.71
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00
Program [Milyutin]
Program [Co-operation between…
Program [Dorozhkin]
Organisation [Sign-in to workshops]
Program [Team motivation]
Program [Business speed-dating]
Off-seminar [Data Art excursion]
Program [Lavrova]
Program [Akdemir (Follow me!)]
Organisation [Registration to seminar]
Organisation [Lunch]
Off-seminar [Saturday party]
Off-seminar [Sunday tours]
Program [Collado-Ruiz]
Program [Tsarev]
Off-seminar [Helping with foreign visitors]
Organisation [Coffee breaks (1,2,3)]
Program [Demura]
Program [Akdemir (Finding Passion...)]
Off-seminar [Yandex excursion]
Program [Hartikainen]
Program [Kurhinen]
Organisation [Walking tour]
4. PROGRAM
What was good about program?
Interesting workshop topics and good presentations.
The program of the seminar was very intresting and helpfull for me.
Content wise it was good!
Visiting the companies Data Art and Yandex
Presentations from people working in the russian business world, it was
interesting to see russian businesslife and values tied to it up close.
Well organized program, with locations, guides, food, hostel, everything
practical went very smoothly
Programs were very intresting.
good presentations and well connected with seminars topic. cultural
program was good and interesting.
information, meeting, opinions, experiences
all
fun
organization; lots of speakers
Organization, food and people
interesting topic in general (motivation), ability to see and meet people
with different point of views and large companies working from
inside, practial workshops
a good mix between experienced and successful newcomers
Very interesting topics, would have liked to hear almost all of them!
Meeting of new people and new ideas.
Organization, a lot of food, very nice and positive people
How could we improve the program?
Some presenters have very interesting topic, good cards, but were very
nervous, as it was their first public presentations. I believe suggesting
presentors to make 'test-drive' before event can help.
too many topics and its like 3 themes not one...
too squeezed.. need more time in between talks..and workshops should be
longer.
3 parallel was too much 2 would be much better... and it might be 2 day
instead of one day...
Some presentations were not about motivation. It would have been
interesting to know more for example about how to motivate yourself and
others from a organizational psychology point, or from a scientific point
(the one that talked about science had nothing to do with motivation), or
from a project management point, group dynamics, leader vs employee
motivation drivers, motivation as a critical success factor for doing business
and so on. Many presentations had these themes but felt that some of
them didn't get to the point.
make sure speakers really speak about topic as they promisse
It was difficult to choose between workshops. More time? =)
Please don't repeat same things in each lecture of seminar
better seminar trainers
be in SPb more
The first thing that comes to mind - remove so many parallel threads. It's a
shame everyone had chance to see only 1/3 of everything.
Unfortunately, a couple of very interesting workshops were parallel. I
would like to have all visited. One way to avoid this could be none-parallel
speaking Keyspeakers.
Make sure that the titles for the presentations have some correspondence
to the actual content. Now it seemed that the titles had very little
information about what it is about. The lower grade on Milyutin's
presentation is because the presentation ended where the title suggests it
would start from. There was actually no talk about motivation, but a model
that could be used in context of motivation.
Invite more interesting speakers
5. ORGANIZATION
What was good about organisation?
Program was well planned. Many options and
suitable group sizes for workshops.
Everything!
Attitude of organizers and intuition. Starting on
time...company visits.
Well organized program, with locations, guides,
food, hostel, everything practical went very
smoothly
Obvious schedule, tips and trick in the program
useful e-mail, nice people (organisators)
There are good guys big thanks for organization
WShop
Organization in general, friendly atmosphere,
interesting topics covered, good excursions, no
noicable technical flaws
Things ran pretty smoothly during the event!
We were kept well informed about things.
How could we improve the organisation?
Registrations to workshops (stickers) was a bit
confusing as some of the workshops were shorter
than others.
it would be great if program contains not only info
about presenters, but some keynotes of their topics.
More time for speakers..more time for rest and
digestion!
It could maybe have been better to sign up for the
presentations, lectures and workshops before the
seminar to avoid overcrowded and too little
participants in different workshops and
presentations.
More time management during workshops
You can differetiate themes and authors
bad coffee!
The only thing coming to mind - attract more
releavant people. Somehow i've got impression that
half of listeners were actually either speakers
themselves, or organizers, or their friends. It
deserved a broader audience.
Easier registration. I got desperate at some point
when there was just so many things to do (visas,
tickets, payments, confirmations, forms,...)
6. ORGANIZATION
What was good about the off-seminar
program?
Local "guides" were excellent during the weekend!
Roof kliming
The attitude of Rusian friends. It was obvious that
they were trying and doing their best. I like the
company visits.
Well organized, fun, everything practical went
smoothly. Not too much and too little, well
balanced. The local guides were a big help and very
devoted and generous to the participants and fun
to see spb from a locals perspective and not only a
tourist perspective.
roof climbing
interesting exciting
That it was there and was relevant
there was enough time to have very good
conversations with the whole crew
Roof climbing was nice although somewhat
expensive
I loved to see the city ass well.
How could we improve the off-seminar
program?
The schedule was quite tight.
More free time for people to rest, to do their own
program and not to miss general programs in that
way.
It would be great if there will be a handout about city
with map and important places to visit and so on
would be great..
At the Yandex excursion it would have been fun to
meet with a project manager like we did at Data Art
to compare practises in the finnish and russian
working environment
fulfill your promisses
Just do it!
Yandex's speaker barely spoke English and came
unprepared. Good that he had someone to back him
up :) Nonetheless that was rather good.
maybe a bit more of the announced program ;)
7. FINAL WORDS
Final words for organisers of Summer Seminar 2013 - and 2014!
Thanks a lot for an awesome weekend!
The seminar was fantastic :)
The seminar was perfect.
Thank you for your excellent job.
Thank you very much! You rock ; )
Thank you!
It was a successful event. what could be better from my point of view is there were quite alot speakers but they
did not have enough time. 45 minute .1.5hr is not a good workhsop duration its just speech time. It might be 2
days with same number of speakers 2 parallel sessions and more time in between events...time of digestion and
rest...
Well done! Thank you for a really nice seminar!
We'll meet again :)
Thank you very much for such perfect Seminar. It was really nice.
well done! to organise SS in St. Petersburg was great idea.
It was awesome - Thanks
Do it again!
Seminar 5+, Off seminar OK, Very good
Thank you and keep it up!
To Mikko and all the rest of the organisation crew: Many THANKS!
Good work :)
It was great seminar thou it took bit too many steps to take part. Speed networking was a great idea as well.
Networking is an important part of YC events.
8. ANALYSIS
• Biggest minuses
– Failed to attract more people (resulted in chaotic
registrations system and less interaction)
– Failure to give enough time and be concise with
presentations
• Biggest pluses
– A good mix of different program and off-program
– Friendly and efficient organization
– A lot of interesting program (so much that it was a
minus when one person cannot see it all)
9. CONCLUSIONS
• Corrections
– Better and earlier marketing, easier joining (one
registration)
– More volunteers to help with marketing, speakers
preparation and sponsorship
– One person to have a holistic responsibility for seminar
program (tempo, themes, time slots) and organisation
• Must keep
– Relaxed and interesting off-program
– Build such a great team of volunteers
– Professional content
