r2con2020

r2con was an online event on 2020 due to COVID-19: this repo contains the slides from the lectures and workshops, and the list of tasks performed by the congress organizators.

This will mostly be internal, but sharing as a resource to everyone on the internet and to our future-selves for the next event.

Online conference checklist

Before the event

• Setup web with info about at least: "WHAT", "WHEN", "WHERE" (youtube/twich), "HOW" (ctf, r2wars)

Resources, free images: https://pixabay.com , https://www.pexels.com

• Create tg (or other communication channel) for ctf, r2wars and any other competition

• Prepare logo for the conf and make it available in svg format in the web/shared cloud

• Open CFP (3-4) months before r2con ; ask humans submitting papers for day/hour of prefference for their talk (try to make it timezone friendly)

• Publish CFP in www.cfptime.org

INFO TO COLLECT FROM SUBMISSIONS

• Title, type (talk 30 min, talk 45 min, training 2/4/8 hours), description, notes, aditional speaker, reference links (optional)
• Public display name, twitter handle/personal webpage/GitHub (we will use this for tweets and promotion), name, bio

Lessons learned: people like to talk but the webpage space is finite, set up a character max for bio! e.g. (max 400 chars)

SPEAKERS

• Send ack mail to humans that submited a paper/walktrhough workshop
• Review CFP submissions, meet, decide which ones pass and communicate with speaker/trainer via mail

MUSICIANS

• Create communication channel & request music artists info: bio, personal web, instagram/twitter + bandcamp/soundcloud/mixcloud/spotify
• Set up promotion poster for chiptune/music artists to tweet and send instagram posts
• Prepare twich overlay. There's plenty of templates on the internet, with pre-defined aspect-ratios: play around, test.

CTF / R2WARS / HACKATHON / other competitions

• Brainstorm

• Meet, test and decide based on previous editions
  Lessons learned: this needs preparation meetings too, even if there's previous experience.

  Request specific info for the conf web: game instructions, when does it start, how does registration work, who wins, what are the prices...

• Setup info on the web: "WHO"

• Create telegram channel (or other: irc, signal, discord, slack ...) for speakers to be aligned

  • Try to adjust the talks to the speaker preference to make the event as timezone friendly as possible
  • Draft the schedule and check in telegram if the speakers can adjust (changes may be required as time goes by, so be flexible on this one)
  • Set a deadline for the schedule to be set up.
  • Publish the schedule on the web/twitter/telegram/irc ...

• Prepare logo miniature & setup slides template "Slides > Edit > Master" (https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6386827?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en)

  • Send slides template to speakers/trainers/competition organizers
  • "presenter tools with Q&A" + "gslides laser tool" live demo in a meet, with all humans that will be presenting at the event Resources: https://www.blog.google/products/docs/slidesqa https://youtu.be/weooOudyDuc?t=95

• Setup & test OBS (here comes the good old fun)

  OBS works in Win/OSx/Linux. OBS it's a universe in itself, get familiar with it:

  • Setup OBS scenes https://obsproject.com/forum/resources

  • Setup OBS sources

  • OBS studio mode allows transitioning between scenes

    Resources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA5uMiSk2MQ&ab_channel=CreatorFundamentals

  • Prepare lightweight mp4/gif to have it handly between talks, during breaks, or in case of tech issues from speakers/delay between talks

  • OBS guide for electro-music artists https://www.jeremydeprisco.net/blog/cosmic-stream-fest

  • To do: test streaming to several platforms at once https://restream.io

  Lessons learned: mastering OBS is complex, things to improve: normalize audio between talks.

  To do: find out if there's a way to stream to the same youtube stream (with no changed to the url) when sharing the stream key with other people.

• Meet with all humans that will present at least twice (timezone friendly) before the event to

  • Test everyones internet connection / audio setup / video setup
  • Make sure people can share the whole desktop when presenting screen in google meet
  • Take notes of the meeting, answer questions, allow brainstorm time.
  • Send a recap mail with all that was agreed during the meet!
  • In the mail include clear instructions "how to proceed during the conference"

• Send mail/pdf with clear instructions on how the event will take place and what is expected from the speakers/trainers

  • Set deadline for speakers to send the slides in pdf format, to be rewieved before the online event Lessons learned: do not collect slides in telegram/mail, allow people to send a PR to GitHub (otherwise you will be pinged and receive incremental versions with new changes)
  • Set deadline for pre-recorded talks. Allowing people to pre-record their talks is a good idea (people with low quality internet, humans in different timezones ...) Lessons learned: be flexible on talk lenght! Pressuring people to compress their talk in 30 mins if there's lots of content is not a good idea.

• Prepare at least one tweet per talk/workshop to have it handly for copy/paste during the event to be sent BEFORE/DURING the talk

During the event

• Make sure communication is effective: twitter hashtags, regularly check attendees telegram, youtube chat, email
• Send pre-cooked tweets for each talk with the youtube url (live streaming) and the slides URL for the audience to send questions
  • Send the slides url for audience questions in tg attendees channel, announcements channel, youtube chat, twitter
• Have a backup setup/plan in case internet breaks down or OBS makes the computer too hot

After the event

• Keep the communication channels open (discord, irc ...)
• Send a feedback form to listen and learn from the people that was at the other end of the screen!!
  If you're the OBS master in charge of the event, it's likely that you are not aware of possible glitches/mistakes that happened life in the video streamed to youtube/twich To do: Open a suggestion box of some kind

TIPS

• Test how to stream to youtube "scheduled events" before going live

• Mastering your skills in OBS takes practice, streaming keys can be saved with custom names in OBS, that's very useful!

• Allocating some holiday/free of work days, a month before a 4 day event may be a good idea. Lessons learned: Balance it out, you also need real holidays!

• Be organized: set up meetings with a clear title in gcalendar, add the meeting doc in the calendar event so everyone can edit it BEFORE the meeting

• Use document versioning on google drive and backup docs/images/resources

• For pre-recorded videos, people can upload it to their youtube account and set it as unlisted.

  Lessons learned: youtube videos set as private are only available to the uploader, request people to set videos as "unlisted" so people with the URL has access.

• Set up wesite DNS redirects (youtube, ctf, competitions ...) at least 1 week in advance, no need to add extra pressure to the event.

• Use telegram anonymous polls in groups to set up meeting day/hour, to ask for ideas, to get feedback...

• Use tweetdeck for effective communication, e.g. set up scheduled tweets for each day a few hours BEFORE the event with the schedule so people know when it starts

• There's other humans highly experienced in online events, learn from them: https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/tgik/tree/master/documentation#scheduling-on-youtube

• It's nice to have a backup for tech issues in talks, you may want to open a "lightning talk" slot when opening the CFP