No not negative at all. It's not the right fit for you. What would you go for out of interest?

Anyway your idea about collecting questions ahead of time is great. I would love to just react to the audience with questions and allow people to get on with things but not everyone will be self directed.

Having questions or topics of interest up front could help strike a balance though!

Yeah, in the workshops I've run in the past (not tech related), having upfront questions that you can curate and research ahead of time can really help get the conversation going. But also leave time for in-person questions, because otherwise the audience can feel ignored when they really want to ask you something.

And as you said, not every workshop is the right fit for every participant, and that's fine! In my case, if your workshop happened to be nearby, I'd probably go check it out "just cuz". I don't meet a lot of data viz people in my rural area (Central Oregon).

If it required travel, I'd gladly go if my employer would pay for it (they won't, because it's not relevant to my current job). For me to be willing to take a day off work and pay for travel expenses & registration fees myself, probably the only thing that'd get me to attend is what I mentioned already, namely real-world expertise from people who use D3 a lot, not a beginner's workshop. To be clear, I AM a beginner at D3, but I've used a lot of other charting solutions in the past, and I probably wouldn't attend a workshop just to learn the basics. I generally learn basic usage better from written tutorials, but I still enjoy real-life conferences if there are more advanced panels/discussions. The difference (to me) is that the advanced discussions are less "how-to"s and more "here's stuff you probably never even thought about... avoid these pitfalls".

Good luck with your workshop though, and thank you for running it! Sounds like a great opportunity for people who learn well that way.

'The difference (to me) is that the advanced discussions are less "how-to"s and more "here's stuff you probably never even thought about... avoid these pitfalls".'

great distinction here, thanks!

This is interesting. For future I'm thinking I need to set up trading days that are as much self directed as instruction.

Yess! All these things. My goal is to make it hands on as possible. Numbers will be capped so I can get around everyone. If more people sign up I'll have an assistant.

When I've done this before it works well. The only snag is where people are at different levels and want to go different speeds. But this is where bonus exercises/stretch goals can set challenge for those racing ahead.

Thanks for your thorough answer!

What's been your favourite item that you've picked up at an event?

i would say the top 3 things I’ve acquired are pens, notepads and keyrings. Some of the pens though are like really more just novelty items for promotional purposes than something you would actually use to write with (1 is 50cm tall with a hand on the top of it) - from a hand hygiene course I went to.

I went to an infection control course once that had pens that doubled as spray bottles of alcohol gel. Also got a key ring that’s a bottle of alcohol gel.

I also went to a blood transfusion course one time and got fridge magnets that had important facts you need to remember for blood transfusions, a reusable bag, that when folded back into its pouch takes the shape of a drop of red blood, I got a stress ball that is a big red blood cell, a note pad that has the blood bank logo and contact details at the very bottom, a red blood drop plushie, and I also got a really useful little book with all the information I could possibly need for doing blood transfusions. It’s still sitting on my bookshelf 6 years later and I still look at it from time to time to remind myself of stuff.

The transfusion book is probably my favourite freebie because it’s really relevant to my job. But some of the other items were still novel and also bring a little moment of joy acquiring them.

One point I’d make is that you can’t use random objects to be the main attraction, or main value of your course. The value still has to come from what it is you’re actually teaching, it needs to be really relevant, and teaching stuff that people in the industry actually want to know about, and take value from.

That last point, combined with a few things others have said really has me thinking.

I'm not sure what it could be but some sort of physical element, setting or some 'toys' would be really interesting.

Ugh that's a bit frustrating. Indeed a little bit a prep could've gone a long way to making that a better experience.

Ok keep it simple before doing any zany stuff

Oh I had no idea I'll check it out.

Ok so you'd be happy with it just being online. That's fair enough.

Quite understandable. Would 2 days be minimum?