[PD] [OT] successful methods for PD seminars

[Daniel Heckenberg]

Hi All,

Related to the current thread about PD tutorials - I'm involved in
organising a series of seminars about patching software.  The audience is
likely to be a mixture from non-patchers through to experienced users of PD/
Max / jMax /Reaktor etc.

The conference in question is Electrofringe, a yearly electronic arts
festival in Newcastle, Australia.  www.electrofringe.org

Whilst I think that workshop/ tutorial style approaches definitely work best
for learning PD or patching in general, we don't have the facilities or
sufficient time to offer this.

Instead I'm curious whether people have had interesting and useful seminar
or lecture style sessions with patching software.

If so -  what was the content and approach?

We're hoping to run sessions which offer something to non-users, experienced
users and the presenters... perhaps not at all in a single session
obviously.

So far, and based on previous years' experience, we're looking at doing the
following:
- An intro session to explain the patching paradigm and give a quick tour of
software options
- A laptop gig/jam where patchers can turn up, plug in and produce audio and
video... exchange data, ideas and patches and where others may mingle,
examine running patches, ask questions and so on.
- Various special purpose sessions exploring particular topics - focusing
more on what's possible than on patch implementation
    - surround sound
    - video
    - interconnection (OSC, net streaming etc)

Any ideas, experience greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Daniel