AusNOG 2018 Survey results

As part of AusNOG 2018 we asked participants to provide feedback on the event.

For a couple of questions a slider was used and the participant was asked to respond as to whether or not they agreed with a statement relating to the event. The slider was equivalent to the following scale:

• Strongly disagree
• Disagree
• Mildly disagree
• Neutral
• Mildly agree
• Agree
• Strongly agree

The slider was initially placed in the neutral position and so there may be bias to it as it is not possible to detect if the participant actively selected that value or just ignored the question (and thus it took the default value). In the graph the mean value of the responses is indicated by a thick red line. The orange shaded region represents the standard deviation around that mean value. A thinner black line indicates the median value.

88 individual responses were received.

Q1: What type of organisation do you represent?
A1: (based on 85 responses)

• 47 Service Provider
• 12 Equipment manufacturer/reseller
• 6 Consultancy
• 5 Academic/Research Institution
• 4 Content Provider
• 3 Not of profit
• 3 Hosting Company
• 1 Unspecified
• 1 Government
• 1 Mobile Operator
• 1 End User
• 1 Internet Exchange Point

Q2: What is your role in the organisation?
A2: (based on 85 responses)

• 25 Network operator
• 20 Engineering manager
• 13 CxO
• 9 Consultant
• 3 Non-engineering staff
• 3 System administrator
• 2 Non-engineering manager
• 1 network engineer
• 1 Programmer
• 1 Non Executive Director
• 1 Product Architect
• 1 Architect
• 1 Network Architect
• 1 Student/Intern
• 1 Capacity Planner
• 1 chairman
• 1 Lecturer/Researcher

Q3: How did you find out about AusNOG 2018
A3: (based on 86 responses)

• 55 Mailing List
• 26 Friend/Colleague
• 3 Other
• 1 LinkedIn
• 1 Search Engine

Q4: Where do you live?
A4: (based on 82 responses)

• 30 NSW
• 17 Victoria
• 17 Queensland
• 5 New Zealand
• 5 WA
• 3 SA
• 2 Asia
• 2 Tasmania
• 1 ACT

Additionally the following comments were received:

• While the coffee was good, the demand was much higher it could serve. My suggestion is to keep the coffee machine but also have filtered coffee (similar to the tea option) available too. Though, this was just an observation. Not a big deal at all.
• As we get bigger it may make sense to break the event into streams and do keynotes and a bunch of smaller more specialised sessions.
  This would probably help maintain the intimacy that we had while smaller and give a chance for a heap of other content and activities.
• livestream the talks for those who can't get a ticket
• Thanks heaps for organizing the event!
• Enjoyed it. Good opertunity to meet with peers.
• Very informative two days. Very enjoyable.
• Thanks guys was great!
• BrisNOG2020
• Lack of vegetarian / vegan options with the food was disappointing
  Please no more polo shirts. No one wears polos any more. Except maybe Mark Newton
• I don't feel that the added attendees this year brought down the conference at all, the general talk around town and my personal feeling was that the content this year was fantastic and well presented. I think the majority of people who attend don't specifically care about the location, I know there had been a Brisbane push etc and if that makes some people happy then so be it, I'd attend no matter where it was.
• Suggest a couple of larger slot talks for the more valuable / in depth topics. There were several discussions around the automation pieces that would have benefitted from a 45min slot. Maybe better evaluation of sessions to prevent more of the clear sponsorship/sales pitches.
• Well done guys. Thanks for all your work.
• vegan options please
• Love the informal, grass roots nature of AusNOG. Important to keep variety in the presentations as well as requiring speakers to give real world, concrete examples / use cases.
• Vote #1 AusNOG 2019 in Perth to celebrate ASC/Indigo... hey hey! Also - great work on the internet, couple of teething issues first up on Day 1 but otherwise worked well.
• didn't think much of the speaker who kept asking for speaker evaluations (j/k) :)
• Brilliantly organised and ran perfectly.
• Realise is lots of extra work, but to manage numbers while enabling a wide range of people to attend, perhaps 2 AusNOGs a year would reduce numbers at each one.... SpringNOG and AutumnNOG?
• Thanks for organizing a coffee stand!!
• Nice work as always boys
• Can you please swap the polo shirt for a cool t-shirt for just one year?
• Would be interested in having the social at the end.
• Avoid convention centres, stay with hotels.
• Amazing function. Well organised, run, and catered. Thank you for your hard work.
• Please hold a NOG in Brisbane!
• Great job, one idea would be for the social event to have some sort of icebreaker to get people to talk to each other since people in our industry aren't overly social
• Cairns 2019! :)
• I would have no objection to increasing the number of available tickets as long as there was still an option to have a table and power for those that want/need to work during the conference.
  I found the session on NBN FttN provided the most instantly usable information of any session, and would love to see similar presentations in future.
• Great work, thanks!
• what happened to filter coffee on day 2??
• appreciate the sponsors and they are perfect - low key but available to talk to in breaks and social events..
  definitely the best networking conference in australia and amazing value for money (speaking as someone who pays for this personally, including travel/accomodation costs.
• Keeps getting better and better every year. Was annoyed early bird sold out so quick being a little guy.
• I have a feeling that 'Peering Forum session' is not so useful. It would be great to see if it helps people at all. It will be great to have a talk/presentation how to do a proper peering instead (tools, format (open|selective), etc).
  Food at lunch was not good, especially comparing to AusNOG 2017 in Melbourne.
  A Westin Hotel's room was excellent.
  if we see/believe a networking is transforming into NetDevOps it will be great to provide some master classes on tools a day before. Example: how to grab telemetry data from devices and build informative graphical charts using popular stacks.
  An idea about transforming into AusNOG into non-profit with members is good.
  I will be great to have broader talks around networking. This year it was great to learn about Submarine networks/cabling while last year we heard about satellite networks projects. It will be great to listen about them each year :)
  I think there is no enough coverage on topics about applications running on networks and how they influence (HTTP family, DNS, SSL, etc).
  All in all it was great, thanks for that!
• Vocus is amazing and really impressive to see their support
• Pre conference social seemed like a semi official event. But organised separately, way in advance, so those not ?in the know? didn?t get included (filled up early, with less than whole conference). If it?s unofficial maybe don?t list on website. If it?s official, should probably be open to all attendees.
  Maybe consider holding two events a year, in two locations, about 6 months apart. So more people can get to one. Eg like NANOG, APNIC/Apricot, etc do.

Speaker Evaluations

The following summary is the average response across all speakers to each question on the speaker evaluation:

• The speaker provided content that was useful: Agree
• The technical level of the presentation met my expectations: Agree
• The speakers presentation skills were engaging: Agree
• The speaker was knowledgable and experienced: Agree
• The presentation had a real world orientation: Agree
• The visual aids were easy to read: Agree
• The subject matter was relevant to my work: Mildly agree
• I would be like to see this speaker next year: Mildly agree