... that would be mine, then. The parallel session was "Whose work is it anyway?" and was intended to address the issues of outsourcing (or insourcing). Unfortunately I don't think this time round the choice of subject struck much of a chord with the delegates - for some it was second choice, and some had misinterpreted the title. Certainly compared to the last session I did (which was on XML Publishing Frameworks), this was poorly attended.
I'd also be curious to know if listing my affiliation as "UEA honorary researcher" would have made a difference to numbers: going to a discussion of outsourcing led by someone from a commercial company could be construed as inviting oneself to sit through advertising. I tried hard to talk in generic terms and keep the issues away from the commercial perspective. I don't know if I succeeded in that - this is the first time I've tried to do a "business focussed" session rather than a technical session.
I felt the session went reasonably well, given the mix of people. There were certainly times when everyone seemed to be engaged in the discussion, and as usual quite a few ideas and viewpoints came out of the discussion that I hadn't anticipated. One particularly interesting point is the increasing use of methodologies such as Prince 2, or stripped-down versions of it. As Sebastian said to me afterwards when I pointed out this seemed odd in an academic environment, "I guess most universities are businesses now" (or words to that effect).
Posted by savs at July 6, 2005 6:44 PM