Speaker Guide
First of all, thank you for speaking or paneling (that's not a verb) at Accento 2021. Without you investing your precious time, energy, and expertise, the conference couldn't happen and we (Uta and Nicolai) are very thankful for your contribution!
To see what you're planned to contribute when, find yourself in the speaker list and click your name. Below your profile, you can see when you need to be where.
Now let's dive right into what you need to know about Accento 2021 when you're
Backchanneling with Rocket Chat
You should already have access to Accento's Rocket Chat. If you don't, reach out to Nicolai via mail or Twitter DM to get a registration link.
Please have an eye on Rocket Chat while you're "at the conference". This is where moderators and organizers will get in touch with you and where we can communicate any last-minute changes or emergencies (but of course there won't be any because nothing can go wrong at a live event).
This is also the best way to reach us organizers. Nicolai, aka nipafx in Rocket Chat, is our secretary, so ping him with any question and he'll find a person that can help. If you've never DM'ed anybody, click the pen and paper symbol in the top left corner, hit Direct Messages, and search for the name. Alternatively, write a message in the #general channel and include @nipafx.
We don't have a speaker room in Hopin, but all speakers are in Rocket, so if you're looking for someone, try it there.
If Rocket breaks down, we will resort to communication via Twitter DMs. Please DM @AccentoDev, which more people have an eye on than Nicolai's account.
Giving a Talk
The three tracks - named 🏝️Java, 🏝️Borneo, and 🏝️Sumatra - take place in what Hopin calls booths in the expo area. These booths are connected to a YouTube live stream that we will feed from StreamYard. To talk to the moderator on stream, you need to be in StreamYard; to read the audience's chat, you need to be in Hopin. Here's how to use the two tools and how we combine them to fill a slot.
Tools
Let's introduce you to StreamYard and add a few details to Hopin.
StreamYard
On your end, StreamYard works pretty much like a conference call. There's one studio for each track and during your talk you and the moderator will be in there. All you need to do is share your camera and mic and you're ready to go.
The moderator has a few more options than you. They can add you or themselves to the broadcast, share a screen, choose a layout, etc. StreamYard then feeds the combined broadcast to the YouTube live stream that people can see in the booth.
Here are the studios for each track (check the schedule to see what room your talk is in - careful, not all Java stuff happens in 🏝️Java!):
You don't need anything else to enter.
Once you do, you're backstage: The audience can neither see nor hear you and the moderator sees your cam but can't hear you either. So in case you enter a studio while a discussion is going on, don't worry, you're not interrupting or disturbing the conversation.
If you want to communicate with the moderator, use the Private Chat button on the right or Rocket Chat.
Hopin
For more on both, please read the conference guide that we created for our attendees.
We're using Hopin as the platform to host Accento. As a speaker, you need a Hopin account and access to the event via a ticket link that Nicolai should have sent you. It would slo be very helpful to know your way around it. The conference guide covers it in detail - please read the following sections to find your way around:
- Preparation is Key: Technical Requirements
-
The Details: How Hopin Works
- Account and Registration
- Recorded Talks (important because it explains the Q&A)
- Accento's Core: The Expo Area
Just one detail to add: Since we'd like you to be active in chat while your talk is playing, you need to be in the right booth during your slot. To avoid confusion, we recommend to mute the stream's audio during your introduction and Q&A (see below).
Your Slot
Here's the timeline for a slot:
- before your slot, a moderator will ping you in Rocket Chat to make sure you're available
- five minutes before your slot, enter the correct studio (see list above)
- when the slot begins, the moderator makes some small talk on their own to give the audience a minute to settle in without missing anything
- then, they will pull you into the broadcast to talk to you about yourself and your talk
- after a few minutes (no more than five) of introduction, the moderator will play our talk and both you and them will be off stream with cold mics
- during the talk, please be active in chat and Q&A and reply to questions and comments — easy questions can be answered then and there, more complex ones can be left for the closing Q&A
- after the talk, the moderator puts both of you back in the broadcasts for a closing Q&A/conversation
The closing Q&A is where we hope to spark a conversation between you and the audience. Well, the audience has to push their thoughts through a chat window, but still. The slots are 60 minutes long, so there's ~15 minute time for Q&A. We hope for a lively conversations.
If after the 60 minutes you are still at it, there are two options:
- if the next slot is a break, you can just keep going
- if there's a follow-up talk, move the conversation to one of the sessions (details in the conference guide under Hang Out Together: The Session Area)
Of course you may have a follow-up appointment or one of myriad other possible reasons to cap it at 60 minutes and that's perfectly fine as well. If so, let the moderator know before your slot starts in Rocket Chat or StreamYards private chat.
Participating in a Panel
Panels are mostly like talks without the recording. They are also recorded in StreamYard (same studios), piped to YouTube, and then show up in Hopin (same booths). The timeline is also very similar:
- before the slot, a moderator will ping you in Rocket Chat to make sure you're available
- five minutes before your slot, enter the correct studio (see list above)
- when the slot begins, the moderator makes some small talk on their own to give the audience a minute to settle in without missing anything
- then, they will pull you and the other panelists into the broadcast to introduce you
- after a round of introductions, the moderator starts the conversation with an introductory question
- then it's mostly on the panelists to talk about the topic with the moderator throwing in the occasional audience question, a follow-up question, or their own thoughts
- after about 60 minutes the conversation will (have to) come to an end
Hanging Out
We know that you're all busy, so we perfectly understand if you're "just" at Accento to give your talk. But maybe you want to hang out for a little longer than strictly necessary 🙂, in which case here are a few things that you can do.
Networking
As mentioned in the conference guide, Hopin has a "business speed dating" feature, where people are randomly paired for a few minutes to get to know one another. We'll turn that on during specific times of the day (check the schedule for details) and it would be very cool if you would participate. I'm sure it would make a few conference visitors very happy to have "personally" met one of the speakers.
Participating
If any of the talks or panels interest you or touch on a topic you can contribute to, feel free to do so! We'd love to have lively discussions and while conference attendees may hesitate to jump into a conversation to share their opinion or ask a question, I'm sure most of you have an easier time doing that. So if you feel like you can contribute, please do.