Packing for Portland

[azurelunatic]

This entry is the start of a packing list so that things I meant to bring might not get forgotten. Suggestions are welcome.

Necessary:
* Clothing
** whole conference or plan on laundry?
** some socks in case of the chill
** Driving days outfit
*** Comfortable boob containment
** Attending days outfits
** Speaking day outfit
* Grooming equipment
** Hairbrush
** shampoo
** Makeup
** Deodorant
** razor
** face goop
** toothbrush, toothpaste, flossers
** more menstrual pads than I think are going to be necessary
* my own actual pillow(s)
* Walking shoes
* Tech
** Laptop & cord
** our presentation deck
** Phone & charger
** Fitbit & charger
** Power strip
** Football field (can use phone charger)
** Tablet & charger (three devices on one charger is too many)
** Chargy brick
** spare chargy brick?
* Medicinals
** ibuprofanity
** Orange soda
** Ginger of some description
** Breathing
*** Cough drops
*** decongestant
*** allergy meds
*** chest-clearing
** routine
*** the whole box in case needed
* Snacks
** Protein
*** Beef jerky
** Carbohydrate
*** Chocolate covered caramels
*** Chips (assorted)
** Fiber
*** Fruit (can get more there)
** Caffeine
*** Energy shots
*** Chocolate-covered espresso beans
** Sweets
*** Ghirardelli squares?
*** Fruit jellies
* paper and writing implements
* water bottle
* unbreakable coffee cup
* Business cards
* important addresses, phone numbers, and shit



Recreational:
* Cards Against Humanity
** Discard bin
** Markers
* Perfumes
* A book
* Nailpolishen?

Comments

[azurelunatic]

This makes tons of sense. I may wind up making a scaled-up version of my meeting bag, and I should probably make sure that I have the nicotine gum in it, because my group at the conference will include a smoker. (I've never, and Kat is in the Rescuing Angel role for this group in general, but it doesn't hurt to have a backup.)

I may take you up on the presentation thing. Since this is an extension of Storytime With Kat And Azz (a phenomenon that I don't think you've ever been present for, but it tends to get the #dreamwidth channel sitting in a circle with hot cocoa) I am fairly confident that we could do this with two notecards with bullet points on them and a ball (for turn-taking purposes) but it would be very nice to have a deck to back that up.

[nadyne]

Storytime is a hard presentation style to get right. It's really good when done well, because people like stories. It's a difficult presentation style to get right because it's very easy to get lost in a story, or overload the story with too many details that aren't relevant to a larger audience, or forget to be very clear what the moral of the story is. Your session description is a really good one, which bodes very well for getting this style of presentation right.

For the user experience of your audience, it should be transparent to them about how you choose which person is speaking. I don't think a ball will work because it will make your audience focus on the ball itself ("when will it be the other person's turn?") instead of what you're actually saying. You don't want them focusing on the mechanics of your talk, you want them to hear your content.

You could structure a deck around the morals of your stories, and determine in advance what stories you're going to tell and how you're going to make them compelling stories to people who don't know anything about Dreamwidth or its history or its politics or its userbase. I think that the challenge that you are going to face is that you have a lot of stories to tell. Figuring out which are the best stories to tell to this audience such that they'll get something out of it that they can take back to their own projects is going to be difficult because you have so much material to choose from. And you want a really strong finish to wrap up your session, it's what people remember, so figure that one out in advance.