Thanks to all who provided feedback during and/or after the XLDB-2011 event! We received 43 comments through the online survey and many more comments either orally during the event or later through email. Virtually everybody found XLDB-2011 very useful (even better than the last year event!), and it looks like we will see almost all of you back at XLDB-2012 – we are glad to hear this! The most favorite parts included lightning talks, focus on practical solutions, the industry/science mix, and the opportunities to network with others. Lack of power outlets, as we expected, was the least favorite part of the event (we knew it would be, but were unable to fix it in time). We will try to do better next year! Some suggested the poster session could be improved… yes, we noticed… 
So, what about the next conference? The 2-day conference length is fairly non-controversial – almost everybody wants to stick with 2 days, only some would prefer 2.5 and very few would like to see full 3 days. Overall, in terms of lenghts of various sessions, we were told: “keep it the same”, “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. We should definitely not introduce peer-reviewed papers (yes, we heard you!). Most people do not want parallel tracks. Introducing birds of feather and real demos seems very welcome. Short surveys are welcome too. But when it comes to tutorials and 15-min “open talks”.. errr… the answers vary from “absolutely yes” to “absolutely no” with everything in between, so that is a tough one!
Now, what about the topics? Big-web companies were well covered already, and more diversity is needed next year, telecom, manufacturing, healthcare were mentioned. Many asked us to bring hardware people and ask them to cover their long term plans and hardware trends. Will do!
New activities? By far the most highly demanded activity is collecting test cases, use cases, and starting to put together “reference architectures”. We will certainly look into this. (Hey, look at the menu above this blog, did you notice the “use cases” section? We hope to grow it substantially, maybe YOU have a use case you’d be willing to share with us?)
We observed mixed feelings inside the community about considered satellite workshop in Asia… surely it’d be useful to connect with that community, but we were warned by many about language barrier, visa issues, long travel, and so, we will probably take it easy and do more research before going ahead…
The feeback received is super useful, it gives us many ideas what topics to introduce, how to fine-tune future XLDB events and what to focus on.
Stay tuned, we have already started thinking about the next event.
Jacek Becla
XLDB-2011 Organizing Committee Chair
