If you haven't heard of a tool, how can you vote on whether you want to learn it?

[mahesh-panchal]

We're tracking a lot of interesting tools for potential walkthrough sessions, but I suspect people aren't voting on some because the titles alone aren't descriptive enough. If you haven't heard of a tool, how can you vote on whether you want to learn it?

What can we do to make this selection process better?
Should we use extensive labels?
Should a title be more descriptive of a tools/concepts function?

[richelbilderbeek]

I think voting for tools is a well-intended, yet counterproductive idea:

• (as stated) no votes for tools that are not known
• people that present the most popular tools present most
• it gives the impression that tools come first and people second

I think a Tech Talk group should be people first, tools second instead. This would mean that any member of that group that wants to present gets to present. This is fine: I trust my colleagues that what they show is potentially useful, else they would not have presented it.

So my suggestion would be to remove the voting for tools altogether and focus on what a Tech Talk group is about: people.

As part of a group, sure, I will accept being in the minority with an opinion :-)

[mahesh-panchal]

This would mean that any member of that group that wants to present gets to present.

This is basically how it works in practice when it comes to scheduling the sessions. It'll come down to who is available and wants to present, but having the votes on the issues, means I get some direction as to what the audience wants to hear, and what we should focus on finding speakers for if no one feels confident enough demonstrating it. So the aim is to balance it out, and integrate a few more of these multi-speaker sessions of "Here's something I find useful in my work".