<html><head></head><body>Hey Jeff, Everyone<br>
<br>
I'd like to comment briefly.<br>
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I feel a 800+ person conference is of a sufficient size that it's not a good idea to burn out volunteers organizing. To throw a new team to the wolves each year is extremely risky.<br>
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The obvious options are to not have such a large event, or choose a different model to organize.<br>
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I feel that a conference of such size is very important. It's what draws the ecosystem together and helps it grow. Not having the large event would be a loss.<br>
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It is simply too big to hold at most Universities, and especially in the fall.<br>
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For what it's worth, I also feel smaller regional and plenty of local events are important too. That's orthogonal to the global event though.<br>
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I've been open about what the Eclipse Foundation & LocationTech can do. It has full time staff with experience to run a consistently great technology conferences with lots of camaraderie.<br>
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Let's work together. FOSS4G NA 2015 will be a nice opportunity, test, and display. For those who are highly motivated, feel free to go back to the D.C. bid and provide feedback. I feel it was a great bid, credible, and a good indication of the kind of event we'd hold in the future. Maybe this is a good option to address many of the issues? Worth exploring a bit in any case.<br>
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Andrew<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On August 14, 2014 9:54:49 AM EDT, Jeff McKenna <jmckenna@gatewaygeomatics.com> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<pre class="k9mail">Hi Darrell,<br /><br />I can say that in 2011 I did bring this issue strongly, and very <br />publicly, to the OSGeo Board. I even proposed a part-time position to <br />manage the main FOSS4G conference (google 'foss4g advisor' for some <br />history and fun reading, all there outlined in a public wiki page forever).<br /><br />Well, that didn't happen. And as you just mentioned, it's still needed.<br /><br />Or, if that cannot happen, we need to realize this, and change our <br />mindset, back to the origins of FOSS4G: a meeting of the tribe, cheap <br />admission, affordable university venues, bare-bones (essentially what <br />our FOSS4G regional events are doing now).<br /><br />Because yes I agree, to assume a bunch of volunteers can run a ~1,000 <br />attendee event in the best conference venue in the city and still make <br />it affordable for the tribe to attend, will not work.<br /><br />-jeff<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />On 2014-08-14 12:10 AM,
Darrell Fuhriman wrote:<br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #729fcf; padding-left: 1ex;"> I’m trying to formulate a response to this, but it ties into an e-mail<br /> that I owe this list, but haven’t had time to send because I’ve been<br /> busy finalizing the conference preparations. Also, I’m well into my<br /> third pint this evening, so it’s probably not the best time. :)<br /><br /> While I agree the early bird discount is important for the reasons you<br /> state, there actually aren’t that many commitments that can be avoided<br /> after the deadline. Frankly, the only significant contracts unsigned by<br /> our early bird deadline of June 15th were the catering contracts. Though<br /> admittedly, that’s a substantial portion of the budget – if we were on<br /> that red line, we’d be jettisoning coffee breaks like ballast in a<br /> sinking ship.<br /><br /> I think right now the quickest thing I
can say is that OSGeo has so far<br /> shown minimal interest in actually taking responsibility for FOSS4G. If<br /> OSGeo is going to increase the demands made on the committee, OSGeo<br /> needs to be stepping up and taking a more hands-on approach to<br /> conference organization.<br /><br /> For the record, I believe OSGeo needs to step up and take such a more<br /> hands on approach. I’d love a chance to talk about in person at the<br /> board meeting.<br /><br /> <a href="http://SotM.us">SotM.us</a> <<a href="http://SotM.us">http://SotM.us</a>> runs very different, and I know from talking<br /> with the organizers that it was a challenge to break-even this year. The<br /> difficulty is that as conferences get bigger, they get more expensive to<br /> put on (primarily because the supply of possible venues shrinks very<br /> rapidly, and the per attendee costs go up substantially). They also get<br /> logistically more challenging, and having dedicated resources,
either<br /> employee or outsourced, can vastly decrease the workload on the LOC.<br /> Frankly, unless something changes on this front, it’s just a matter of<br /> time until there’s another 2012. To be honest, I’m not sure <a href="http://SotM.us">SotM.us</a><br /> <<a href="http://SotM.us">http://SotM.us</a>> would have been a success if Mapbox hadn’t devoted<br /> significant employee resources to making sure it was (as they have for<br /> the past three <a href="http://SotM.us">SotM.us</a> <<a href="http://SotM.us">http://SotM.us</a>> conferences). Conferences take<br /> huge numbers of hours to organize. The inefficiency introduced by having<br /> someone re-learn the job every year is substantial, wasteful, and<br /> incredibly risky.<br /><br /> Anyway, I’m supposed to be on vacation.<br /><br /> Greetings from Yellowstone,<br /><br /> Darrell<br /><br /><br /> On Aug 13, 2014, at 13:41, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter@gmail.com<br />
<mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com>> wrote:<br /><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #ad7fa8; padding-left: 1ex;"> I'm open to the idea of providing benefits to osgeo charter members,<br /> but suggest having an early bird discount apply to all ticket<br /> categories. I'd suggest something like a 5% discount for charter<br /> member tickets instead.<br /><br /> Note: conferences organisors need to decide whether they will also<br /> give such a discount to professional bodies as well (such as<br /> professional institute of surveyors). Such organisations often<br /> aggressively request a discount for their members in return for<br /> publicising foss4g to their membership.<br /><br /> There is a very important reason conferences have a early bird<br /> discount. It means that conference organisors get an early indication<br /> of the number of attendees coming to the conference. This helps<br /> significantly with
regards to making financial decisions about the<br /> conference. In particular, it enables organisors to decide to cancel<br /> the conference before having to lock into key financial commitments<br /> and potentially sending OSGeo bankrupt. This was very important for us<br /> in FOSS4G 2009, the year of the global financial crisis, when<br /> registrations were much lower than expected. At the early bird<br /> deadline, we were aware that we had enough people attending that we<br /> would loose less money by going ahead than if we cancelled, so we went<br /> ahead. Without that confidence, we likely would have decided to cancel<br /> the conference. (In the end more people did register, and we were just<br /> able to make a modest profit.)<br /><br /> On 14/08/2014 4:56 am, Kate Chapman wrote:<br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid #8ae234; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hi All,<br /><br /> I think the comparison between the SotM model
and the FOSS4G model is<br /> interesting, but it is important to think about the financial<br /> objectives of each conference. My understanding was that FOSS4G<br /> provides most of the funding for OSGEO over the year, this isn't the<br /> case for SotM. Though successful sponsorship programs could possibly<br /> make up the difference between the discounted tickets.<br /><br /> One note, I've worked for a few organizations that have paid my<br /> ticket for SotM. I've also paid the mapper price myself previously as<br /> well. I would have not been able to get them to pay for FOSS4G<br /> though. Some of you may have noticed I have given a workshop every<br /> year I've attended FOSS4G. I would not be able to attend otherwise.<br /> Not that it is conceivable for everyone to give a workshop to be able<br /> to attend.<br /><br /> Best,<br /><br /> -Kate<br /><br /><br /> On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 11:46 AM, Daniel Kastl <daniel@georepublic.de<br />
<mailto:daniel@georepublic.de>> wrote:<br /><br /><br /> SotM finances are based on the expectation that most people<br /> attending will be ‘mappers’ who pay the lower rate, I doubt<br /> they make much money from the business tickets.<br /><br /><br /> Hi Steven,<br /><br /> I agree that SotM is a bit extreme in the price difference. It<br /> doesn't need to be that much. But I can speak for SotM Tokyo,<br /> where I was involved, and there were more business tickets sold<br /> than I expected and they made up a large share of the total<br /> revenue through ticket sales.<br /><br /> My main point is, that for delegates, who get paid the conference<br /> by their employer, a slightly higher price doesn't really matter<br /> (it's just a fraction of the total cost anyway), because they<br /> just pass the costs to the employer. For the employer it has a<br /> value, if one can see the company name on
the badge.<br /> But someone from nearby for example or tries to keep the travel<br /> costs low and takes a holiday to attend FOSS4G, such a discounted<br /> community ticket makes a difference, whether the person is a<br /> charter member or not.<br /> I think we should strengthen the value of the community, not the<br /> "club" of charter members. ;-)<br /><br /> Daniel<br /> --<br /></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><hr /><br />Conference_dev mailing list<br />Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org<br /><a href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev">http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev</a><br /><br /></pre></blockquote></div></body></html>