[OSGeo-Conf] Firenze Full Proposal

[Luca Delucchi]

On Thu, 6 May 2021 at 11:21, María Arias de Reyna <delawen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I completely support this. One of the goals of FOSS4G 2021 is to
> experiment with tools we can own and reuse later. Our experiment using
> Pretix, Pretalx and Venueless has upsides and downsides... but more
> upsides than downsides. And the downsides are things we can easily fix
> given proper time. Some of the issues were discovered "on the fly" so
> difficult to hotfix in production. But as said, nothing that can't be
> fixed for future editions and adapted to our special needs.
>
> I easily foresee I will be burn out when 2021 finishes, but I can help
> in deploying/customizing/maintaining that stack in the future (maybe
> at least give some hints to 2022 and being more active for 2023?). And
> if OSGeo as an entity reach an agreement with the developers behind
> those projects, maybe for hosting, maybe for co-developing features, I
> think that would be great because our goals are very similar. We are a
> perfect testing use case for them.
>



> > The conference will be hybrid.
>
> Here I have serious doubts. It's true that the situation has improved
> a bit for online events since I wrote my initial analysis[1] but still
> a hybrid event will mean having two types of attendees. I have been
> for too long working on semi-remote initiatives to know that it is
> always better to be either fully online or fully face to face. Even if
> there is a team on the same office that use their own laptop for
> meetings to level the field, the moment they start interacting face to
> face it means the ones that are remote are in disadvantage. The
> frustration of being a remotee and trying to participate in a
> conversation from a laptop screen while the rest are talking face to
> face is... frustrating. Specially on heated conversations (people tend
> to forget you are there) which are one of the most attractive features
> of conferences: being able to have heated conversations on
> technologies and brainstorm the future.
>
> Unless we have very strongly in mind that remote attendees will be
> "readonly" and face to face attendees will be the only ones really
> interacting... I don't know, maybe I'm wrong but I still have to find
> some way of making the hybrid work. And I have tried for years on
> events with people that couldn't travel in person for different
> reasons. All of them had this "second class citizen" feeling at the
> end, no matter how much love and care we put into making them
> comfortable.
>
> The best "hybrid" approach I have seen is a normal FOSS4G pre-2020,
> where people travel there but you still have streaming services for
> those who couldn't/didn't want to travel. Which means remotees are
> "readonly" and they know it from the beginning, no false hopes of
> participating.
>

I think you are right in most of this (specially I read with much
interest your analysis), I'm not completely sure that remotees should
be only "readonly", they could quite easily:
- make questions (for example through an app)
- speak with other remote (and remote could be only physically present)

FOr example in this FOSDEM edition there was a good way to talk and
make questions

> Cheers and congrats on the proposal, Luca!
>
> [1] https://delawen.com/2020/10/are-online-events-the-new-normal/

-- 
ciao
Luca

www.lucadelu.org