[OSGeo-Conf] Cameron's comments: FOSS4G 2011 Proposal

[Eric Wolf]

Cameron sent these comments/questions last Friday:

Eric and the rest of your foss4g 2011 team,

You have put together an excellent proposal and I'm 100% supportive of
Denver's 2011 FOSS4G proposal.

I'm writing down random suggestions and comments as I read so I don't
forget. Feel free to use or ignore as you see fit.

I really like seeing FOSS4G partner with GITA. I expect GITA's experience
running conferences will be very valuable to the local team. GITA should
also be very valuable for helping obtain sponsorship, and in marketing -
both very important for a conference.

The LOC looks strong, with a breadth of experience and connections across a
number of geospatial communities. Do make use of this in your marketing if
you can.

For the budget:
* I would like to see some more detailed analysis to determine how many
people should be coming to FOSS4G.
* Do you have access to GITA conference metrics? What can you learn from
them?
* Look at previous FOSS4G metrics and try to deduce the number of attendees
based on previous metrics rather than gut feeling.
Factor in population density, and proximity to location.
Up to 2009, the US have been well represented at FOSS4G, but mainly because
the US is so large. If you compare metrics based upon population density of
the country, the US only sends a relatively small proportion of its citizens
to FOSS4G. Consider this in your estimation of attendees, and think of ways
to attract people locally.

When selecting a date for FOSS4G, note previous comments in Lessons Learned
about budget cycles and when people will be able to access money.

I really like the emphasis on targeting business.  Note from FOSS4G 2009
metrics [1] that business attendees were relatively low. It would be great
to change this, but it will take a few years to change. I don't have metrics
on people/presentation room at the conferences, but there were a couple of
 "Open Source Case Study presentations" at FOSS4G 2009 which only attracted
~ 10 people.

It will be very valuable for you to have as many metrics as you can get hold
of from FOSS4G 2010. I suggest that you offer to help collect metrics for
the foss4g 2010 LOC (as they will be flat out doing other things).
One thing that would be very valuable is:
* Have an online webpage which every delegate can fill in after they attend
a presentation. 3/4 of delegates have a laptop, and 1/2 of them have a
laptop open during the presentation, and will likely fill in a feedback form
at the end of each presentation.
* Ask whether the presentation was good, whether the presenter was good, how
many people were in the room, and profile themselves as techie, business,
manager, scientist, etc

For the program:
* Paul Ramsey suggested that FOSS4G 2009 have 2 days of workshops (which we
over ruled and only had one day).
* After chairing foss4g, I mirror Paul's suggestion. Your closed Source GIS
techies will be attracted to the workshops.
* I suggest 1 day of code sprint instead of 2. By the end of FOSS4G,
everyone is drained, and not in the mood to write lots of code. This will
free an extra day for workshops.

[1]
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Al9zh8DjmU_RdEZoOUtSeVZRVWtKQzV6R2N5ekdSdlE&hl=en_GB

Cameron Shorter, foss4g 2009 chair.

Eric Wolf wrote:

> Conference Committee members:
>
> On behalf of the Denver Local Organizing Committee, I am pleased to submit
> the full proposal to host FOSS4G 2011 in Denver. I will email the sample
> budgets directly to Jeff McKenna.
>
> I look forward to your questions and anticipate your decision. I hope
> you'll find that Denver is a great place to make FOSS4G a success in 2011.
>
> On behalf of the Denver LOC
>
> -Eric Wolf
>
> -=--=---=----=----=---=--=-=--=---=----=---=--=-=-
> Eric B. Wolf                    New! 720-334-7734
> USGS Geographer
> Center of Excellence in GIScience
> PhD Student
> CU-Boulder - Geography
>
> GPG Public Key: http://www.h4h.net/ebwolf.public.key.txt
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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-- 
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
http://www.lisasoft.com
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