Barbie

London Perl Workshop 2011 Survey Results

I'm please to say that the survey results from the London Perl Workshop 2011 are now online. Slightly delayed due to Christmas and my new job, but worth the wait I think. This is the first time we've had a survey for the London Perl Workshop, so I was interested to see how the results differed from YAPCs. The attendees for the workshop differ from YAPCs, as although around 40% of attendees are well know within the Perl community and have attended YAPCs, most of the sttendees, like attendees for many other workshops around the world, don't have the resources or availability to attend a 3-5 day conference event. However, a one-day event, and especially a free event, makes a workshop much more accessible.

It was a shame that we only had 27% of attendees responding, but having said that while my personal aim is always to achieve more than 50% response, 27% is still a great response. As I've said previously, anything more than 10% is a good result. However, now we've done one, hopefully we can encourage more to respond this year :)

The demographic responses interestingly followed what we often see for YAPCs. I guess that may be because most of the respondees are YAPC attendees, but we still had several responses from those who have only attended London Perl Workshops, or for whom this was their first major event. The balance of Perl knowledge, although slightly weighted towards the more experience developeres, was also very pleasing to see with several beginners attending the event. Every year we have been looking to encourage newcomers to these events, as well as into the Perl community. After all, those learning Perl now are the Perl community's future. It was also great to see people being nominated or recommended to attend by colleagues and managers. The promotion of these events is obviously having the right effect.

I was intrigued to see that of all the respondees, 65 of them weren't speakers, with 30 willing to consider being a speaker in the future. Again this is something we should be encouraging, as newer speakers often have a different perspective on a subject, and can bring something new and fresh to the event. It was also encouraging that primary motivations for attending are to get together and meet other Perl developers. Events like The London Perl Workshop are a great way to introduce yourself to other developers you may have spoken to online, or are collaborating with on projects. They are a great way to promote your project, or get to know more about other projects.

In response to the question "What aspects of the conference do you feel gave value for money?", I was actually quite surprised to see comments along the lines of "Since it was free, I do not understand what "gave value for money" means." For those attendees who wondered that, how much did it cost you to attend the event? If you think your answer would be "nothing", consider the question beyond the attendance fee. How did you get there, did you walk, get the train, drive? What about your time, what would you have done that Saturday if you hadn't have gone to the event? Just because the event had no attendance fee, doesn't mean it cost you nothing to attend. Also think about what value it has given you in terms of enhancing your knowledge. Did you see talks or meet people that have inspired you, or given you a better understanding of something you were working on. There are lots of ways "value" can be interpreted beyond any monetary value.

It took a lot of people a lot of time and energy to put event like the London Perl Workshop on, not just Mark and his minions, but also the speakers and the sponsors. From their perspective it is good to know their efforts were appreciated. Thanks you to all those who did respond, and of those that didn't, hopefully we can encourage you to contribute your thoughts this year :)