Close but no cigar

A month or so back I noticed that Pycon was looking for talks for the conference in March. Since it was going to be in Chicago which is pretty close, I decided I'd throw my hat in the ring and see if I could do a talk on Satchmo. The bad news is that they did not accept my talk. The good news is that the reviewer comments were generally pretty positive on the talk. I'm assuming there were just too many talks and I didn't put together a compelling enough story. I can respect the difficult position they were in.

One thing I noticed in the reviewer's comments was this statement:

"I've heard Satchmo described as 'Django's killer app.' As I'm a believer that Django is bringing a lot of people to Python, this seems like a good extension of providing some content that appeals to our new audience. I'm willing to champion it."

Wow! I'm obviously proud of Satchmo and would like to see it as Django's killer app but I don't quite think I can claim that yet. Maybe when we finally get to 1.0!

Despite the fact that I won't be presenting, it does look like at least one of the presentations will give some mention to Satchmo in the context of the rich Django-based environment of apps out there.

I may still try to make it to Chicago. If I do, are any of the other Satchmo folks going to be there and would you be interested in trying to do a Sprint or some other get-together? Let me know.

Posted on December 12, 2007 by chris django satchmo

4 Comments

Doug Napoleone commented on December 12, 2007 at 9:52 p.m.:
Please do come to PyCon. It was a very very difficult process. Each program committee member spent on average 20 hours reviewing discussing, and deciding. I blogged about part of it over at www.dougma.com At the end of the day (or meetings in this case) we had to go for a balance of talk subjects. Be assured you are in very good company with a declined talk. I really can't say much more than that. We do want to see these talks held as open space talks, with a lightning talk lead-in. Especially for the application talks where attendees can interact with the speakers, code and the applications. much better than they could at a podium talk. I also expect there to be another Django BoF. I don't know if you were at the ones this past year, but seeing Ned Batchelder dig into the guts of tabblo.com was something that could never have happened at a normal talk. I would love to see something like that for Satchmo.

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Chris commented on December 12, 2007 at 10:26 p.m.:
Doug, First off, thanks for taking so much time to review the talks and for taking the time to reply to this post. In no way, did I mean to question your decision or say anything negative about the process. If anything, I feel I didn't put enough work into my proposal. I've never been to Pycon so I struggled to figure out the best way to develop the proposal. In truth, I probably spent less time putting my proposal together than you (and all the reviewers) spent looking at it ;) The whole experience has been great. I'd much rather be part of a demanding review process and not get selected than be one of the few people that actually submitted something (and get selected to fill a slot by defaults). I'll try to make it so that next year we can develop and even better proposal. Thanks again and hopefully I'll get a chance to see you in Chicago.

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Catherine Devlin commented on December 31, 2007 at 4:15 a.m.:
I also hope you'll come to PyCon. There were enough great talk submissions for *two* great PyCons, and unfortunately, only one PyCon is scheduled. Decisionmaking was heartbreaking. Actually, the PyCon organizers are very much hoping that the Open Spaces will be used heavily, forming a sort of second PyCon within PyCon. This means you! And, speaking of two PyCons, one thing we've been discussing is that the Python community really needs to do more regional conferences. I hope you'll look into showing Satchmo around off at them. If you're anywhere near Ohio, for instance, I'd love to see you at CodeMash 2009 (too late to submit for CodeMash 2008).

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Ben Scherrey commented on January 3, 2008 at 11:54 p.m.:
I'm rather surprised, given the significance of an app framework like Satchmo, that it wasn't selected for PyCon2008. As Doug pointed out, however, each year there has been a significant increase in proposals and a lot of good stuff just doesn't make the cut - often mistakenly. But those guys & gals work their butts off to strike an impossible balance so its quite understandable. I've attended the last two PyCons (sadly my wife is due with our 2nd baby right when PyCon2008 is going on so I'm not gonna make this one) and I know your product would receive enthusiastic interest in a BoF/Open Space gathering. As soon as you arrive sign up for a lightning talk so you'll be one of the first and give a brief on the product and announce your BoF/Open Space meet. I'm certain that a LOT of independent python consultants are gonna see $$$ potential and come participate. Then next year you might be the next major product. Good luck and enjoy. PyCon has consistently been the best bang-for-buck conference I've ever attended. -- Ben

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