TechEd Session Placement

Efficient Space Allocation

Problems

• Gathering Data

• Allocating Space

• Communicating Changes

Gathering Data

• Given (External) data– Registered attendees– Room layout– Session schedule

• New Data Sources– Recent CommNet console login location.– Last session RFID scan.– Speaker tracked by active RFID.– Opt-In Wireless tracking (WiFi, PocketPC) via

downloaded software.

Extend Data

• Correlate non pre-registered attendees session attendance history to pre-registered attendees attendance history. Use correlation with pre-registered attendees schedules to predict non pre-registered schedules.

• Perform a similar process to weight selections for multiple pre-registrations. (i.e. 3 “interesting” sessions were selected in CommNet for a single time slot).

Allocate Space

• Phase 1: Determine required room size for all sessions.

• Phase 2: Use location data, pre-registered schedules and predicted schedules to optimally allocate largest rooms/largest sessions.

• Phase 3: Allocate other rooms by mixing the weighting of individual users locations with a tendency to favor placing related sessions around the big rooms.

Communicating Changes

• CommNet– Redesign UI to always show upcoming events first.– Add RFID reader to each terminal. Allow login via RFID swipe.

• Personalized updates via SMS, email or RSS subscription.

• Display upcoming room schedules on LCDs outside of conference rooms, after scheduling (30 minutes prior), airport style.– Display rooms closest to room (that LCD is outside of), first.

Show others by their code.– Airport style in this case would be by row, with code, truncated

description, and room.

Final Thoughts

• Might not be a good idea– Walking is good exercise!– Often go to expo hall in between– Often scheduled for 3 sessions, and make

final determination from PowerPoint review.