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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">I'd like to hear thoughts from people
who organise FOSS4G regional events about the two year global /
regional / global rotation.<br>
<br>
In particular, would large regional conferences such as FOSS4G-NA
or FOSS4G-EU or FOSS4G-CEE be interested in only holding events
every second year?<br>
<br>
<br>
On 16/04/2013 9:46 PM, Bart van den Eijnden wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:8F97AC48-5F1D-41AC-9A63-F9255D7FA9D3@osgis.nl"
type="cite">
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I think Barend's suggestion of a two year scheme (regional in year
X, global in year Y) deserves some more discussion / attention.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Personally I can see the benefits of this scheme (no big
competition from large regional conferences in the global year).<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Also, does OsGeo currently get money out of the big
regional conferences (such as FOSS4G-CEE and FOSS4G-NA)?<br>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best regards,</div>
<div>Bart</div>
<div><br>
<div apple-content-edited="true">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse:
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-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; ">-- <br>
Bart van den Eijnden<br>
OSGIS - <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://osgis.nl">http://osgis.nl</a></span>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<div>On Apr 15, 2013, at 11:34 AM, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:b.j.kobben@utwente.nl">b.j.kobben@utwente.nl</a>
wrote:</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">Hia ll,<br>
<br>
I am not a board member nor a conference committee
member, but I feel an<br>
urgent need to give my opinion here.<br>
<br>
I grow uncomfortable by some of the trends that seem to
"logically follow"<br>
(note the quotes, and yes I am exaggerating on purpose)
from this<br>
discussion:<br>
1)- FOSS4G events are there to make money<br>
2)- non NA/Europe events don't make (enough) money<br>
3)- non NA/Europe events get badly organized (see
Beijng)<br>
<br>
Proposition 1 already makes me feel itchy. How can you
'charge' FOSS4G<br>
main event organizers with being a cash cow ("expecting
a $50K profit") if<br>
at the same time encouraging (allowing?) other events to
be organised that<br>
almost certainly will cannabilise the main event
(Foss4G-NA, FOSS4g CEE)<br>
on which events you put no obligation to make money? I
think we need a<br>
two-year cycle: one year the main conference and other
years regional ones<br>
(i.e. ones actively supported by OSGEO "central", what
the regional<br>
chapters do on their own is their own responsibility).<br>
<br>
Proposition 2 is touching a nerve because I work at an
institute that is<br>
about capacity building for lesser developed countries.
I think part of<br>
OSGEO is promoting the use of FOSS, and bringing
knowledge and experience<br>
and enthousiasm about that to the places in the world
that would profit<br>
most from it is a good cause that is worth doing even if
it brings you<br>
less or no money. By all means subsidize the LDC
meetings with profits<br>
from the Europe/NA ones. Call me a specialist, but I
prefer some<br>
solidarity in this...<br>
<br>
Proposition 3 is plain not true. The South Africa FOSS4G
was excellent in<br>
my opinion, the Beijng one failed because of
insufficient control<br>
mechanisms (either in place or just not followed up on)
to check on a<br>
local organisation that chooses to do its own thing
completely independent<br>
of 'OSGEO central'. Could have happened with
self-centered stubborn Dutch<br>
organizers just as well, and certainly at least part of
the blame should<br>
be on the 'OSGEO central' shoulders...<br>
<br>
Yours truly,<br>
<br>
--<br>
Barend Köbben <br>
Senior Lecturer, ITC - University of Twente,<br>
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation<br>
PO Box 217, 7500AE Enschede (The Netherlands)<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 13-04-13 14:30, "Cameron Shorter" <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Frank,<br>
I agree that a compelling proposal should include
meeting foss4g<br>
financial expectations.<br>
<br>
For the record, the last board meeting discussed
changing guidelines for<br>
foss4g budgets from expecting a $20K profit under
conservative estimates,<br>
to a $50K profit. (This would typically result in a
$100K+ profit under<br>
expected conditions).<br>
<br>
David Bitner, pointed out that a $100K profit spread
across 1000<br>
attendees equates to $100 extra per delegate, which is
a good point, but<br>
should be tempered against the variability of FOSS4G
attendees, and the<br>
high impact on profits this has. Looking back at<br>
an old foss4g budget, I extrapolated some profit
figures:<br>
<br>
Attendees: Profit<br>
1000: $58K<br>
900: $35K<br>
800: $11K<br>
700: -$11K<br>
600: -$35K<br>
500: -$58K<br>
<br>
While I made some gross generalisations in my
extrapolation, the take<br>
home message is that fixed costs of a large conference
such as FOSS4G are<br>
very high, and consequently, a small percentage
increase or decrease in<br>
attendance has high impact on profitability.<br>
So if we want to ensure a worst case scenario of 500
delegates will break<br>
even, then we should expect to make a $110K profit for
an expected<br>
attendance of 1000.<br>
<br>
On 13/04/13 08:10, Frank Warmerdam wrote:<br>
<br>
<br>
Cameron,<br>
<br>
<br>
I feel this question ties into the expected revenue to
some degree. I'm<br>
personally fine with your suggestion with the caveat
that we should<br>
expect a "compelling proposal" to meet our revenue
generation guidelines<br>
which is (IMHO) going to be hard<br>
to do if aim for $50K revenue in the conservative
case.<br>
<br>
<br>
I'm also fairly flexible on this who issue, but I
*feel* like every time<br>
we have a revenue discussion we come up with one set
of conclusions, but<br>
somehow we fail to actually apply those conclusion
when setting<br>
requirements for the conference.<br>
<br>
<br>
Best regards,<br>
Frank<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Cameron Shorter<br>
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
In the last board meeting, the question was raised
about global FOSS4G<br>
rotation.<br>
<br>
we currently have a 3 way rotation policy: Europe 2013
/ North America<br>
2014 / Rest of world 2015<br>
<br>
It has been suggested that we should revisit this
rotation policy, and<br>
consider:<br>
<br>
Europe / North America / Europe / North America<br>
<br>
Reasons:<br>
* Previous global FOSS4G events have attracted more
people and been more<br>
lucrative in Europe / North America<br>
* Europe/North America could be argued to be less
financially risky. Our<br>
one cancelled FOSS4G was in China in 2012.<br>
* FOSS4G (global and regional) events traditionally
draw half their<br>
attendance from the local region. Europe and North
America both have<br>
large populations with established OSGeo communities.<br>
<br>
I'm in favour of continuing our current 3 way
rotation, on the proviso<br>
that there are proven OSGeo communities outside of
NA/Europe. By proven,<br>
I'd suggest that we would consider regions which have
already<br>
successfully staged a FOSS4G regional event (or
similar)<br>
and who can put together a compelling justification
that they can<br>
attract comparable attendees and sponsors to
Europe/North America.<br>
<br>
Looking at: <br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History"><http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History></a><br>
I see that there have previously been regional FOSS4G
events in:<br>
Argentina<br>
India<br>
Korea<br>
Malaysia<br>
Japan<br>
<br>
So for 2015, I'd suggest that our FOSS4G pre
qualification should invite<br>
responses from "rest of the world" and Europe, but we
should give a<br>
preference to "rest of world" assuming they can
provide a compelling<br>
proposal which is likely to attract similar success<br>
to past European and North American conferences.<br>
<br>
Generalising the rule. Our rotation policy should be:<br>
<br>
* We give a strong preference to a region which hasn't
had FOSS4G for 2<br>
years<br>
* We next consider the region which had FOSS4G 2 years
ago<br>
* Only as a last resort would we consider a region
which had FOSS4G last<br>
year<br>
<br>
Regions are considered as: Europe / North America /
Other locations<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Cameron Shorter<br>
Geospatial Solutions Manager<br>
Tel: <br>
+61 (0)2 8570 5050
<tel:%2B61%20%280%292%208570%205050><br>
Mob: <br>
+61 (0)419 142 254
<tel:%2B61%20%280%29419%20142%20254><br>
<br>
Think Globally, Fix Locally<br>
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and
Open Source<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a><br>
<br>
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<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
---------------------------------------+----------------------------------<br>
----<br>
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank
Warmerdam,<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:warmerdam@pobox.com">warmerdam@pobox.com</a> <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:warmerdam@pobox.com"><mailto:warmerdam@pobox.com></a><br>
light and sound - activate the windows |<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://pobox.com/~warmerdam">http://pobox.com/~warmerdam</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://pobox.com/%7Ewarmerdam"><http://pobox.com/%7Ewarmerdam></a><br>
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial
Software Developer<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Cameron Shorter<br>
Geospatial Solutions Manager<br>
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050<br>
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254<br>
<br>
Think Globally, Fix Locally<br>
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and
Open Source<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a><br>
</blockquote>
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<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a>
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