<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:tahoma,sans-serif"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><i><font color="#0000ff">Just posted the note below to the "Comments on Philadelphia proposal..." thread, but it also covers some content in this thread...It's the same exact text, but now in two places...</font></i></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><i><font color="#0000ff">MT</font></i></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><i><font color="#0000ff">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</font></i></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px">OK, this thread (actually two threads) are moving really fast and while I intended to have this post cover just the "Boston's story" perspective, I do believe it is appropriate for Boston to comment on some of the other issues that have been raised on the other "Call to discuss..." thread.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px">Philadelphia and Ottawa have told their story so it seems appropriate for Boston to tell ours as well<span style="font-size:12.8px">:</span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> </span><span style="font-size:12.8px"> </span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><ul><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Boston has had a thriving "geo community" through various meetup groups (e.g. AvidGeo and Maptime) but has never had an OSGeo chapter.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Increasing numbers of people in the community have been to FOSS4G events (both global and North American) and have felt the energy.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Boston is known as a great "conference town" and has a somewhat unique blend of academia, government and high tech and we knew it could be a great venue.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Several of us began informal discussions to study the OSGeo selection process and to see what it would take to mount a bid.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">To assess interest, and also to understand whether there were any dissenting opinions, we issued a broad-based letter of explanation and survey to the Boston geo community with the local meetup groups sharing their mailing lists. Our basic questions were: Is this a good idea? Could we get it done?</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Over 100 people took the time to respond to the survey, and the response was overwhelming support and interest.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">In the survey, we asked who would be interested in volunteering at the event and who would be interested in joining and "organizing committee". Through the survey we had 17 people volunteer to be on the Boston Location Organizing Committee (BLOC). Another 20 people relayed interest in "volunteering at the event" (if we were successful in bringing it to Boston).</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">We then conducted four BLOC planning meetings as we initially submitted the LOI and then built the full proposal. Inevitably, some people were not able to volunteer their time and did not make any of the planning meetings, and they were not included in the final BLOC. And, as described in the proposal we have a very strong and experienced BLOC and we also have BLOC members who have taken leadership on some of the sub-committees and wrote sections of the proposal document.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">We had always planned to have a PCO and did some research on PCO's who had worked at other FOSS4G events in North America. During the process and as part of the Q&A on the LOI we were encouraged to look at <i>local</i> PCO's and we reached out to Delaney Meeting & Event Management. Cindy Delaney was excited by the prospect and volunteered some of her time to help us address key questions and to get good bids from hotels and conference venues. Many of us have known Cindy for a long time through her work with other New England-based geo events and she immediately added value to our team.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">And then we submitted our proposal to host with a committed set of hands-on, local volunteers and a strong and experienced PCO.</span></li><li style="margin-left:15px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">We are ready for the next chapter of this story and we want to make both OSGeo and Boston proud. But, win, or lose, we know we have built a great team and put in a strong proposal and vision that we're all proud of.</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">While we agree there are some fundamental issues that the selection committee faces (see below), we also ultimately agree that this is </span><u style="font-size:12.8px">not</u><span style="font-size:12.8px"> just about the kind of PCO that helps with 2017. We know that Boston is one of three very strong proposals that were prepared with great thought, care and effort. The proposals deserve close reads and scrutiny across the full variety of ideas presented.</span></div></div></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><br></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px">Now, we'd like to raise a couple of questions/comments on two things that Robert has brought up and also on Andrea's latest comment to the thread.</span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px">1. <b>Volunteer fatigue:</b> I've seen that mentioned several times - Robert uses the term "burned out volunteers" - but can that be taken as universal fact? Perhaps Boston is idealistic, but that's not necessarily what we've observed and several of us have served in various capacities on volunteer driven conferences. There's no doubt that the amount of work that goes into a conference takes a toll, but from our vantage there are many positive residual effects on the hosting community. Indeed, one of the drivers in Boston pursuing the event is to strengthen our geo open source community for the long haul. In addition, we see continued, significant volunteerism from many, many people (including most on the "conference_dev" list) who have participated in running past conferences. As we see it, the lesson learned is that a strong PCO <i>is required</i> to help with the logistics and take some of the load off of the LOC itself. Indeed, all three 2017 proposals have such a PCO partner.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:12.8px"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">2. <b>2016 FOSS4G North America bids: </b>As has been observed, FOSS4GNA has a very different (and new) structure, and also for 2016 a very different venue selection process (i.e., no LOI, no proposals from interested host cities). I would guess I may not be the only one who was a little surprised to read that: "<span style="font-size:12.8px">Philadelphia worked with LocationTech to put together a bid for the FOSS4G-North America 2016 event and was short-listed." Indeed, no bids were solicited from anyone except from hotel/conference venues that Location Tech identified (there is an extensive thread on this subject on the foss4gna_selection listserve [Google group]). Rather, as per the process, Location Tech conducted an "venue RFP" and then announced the short-list based on their <i>internal</i> decision making (without receiving proposals from LOCs). Indeed, many people in Raleigh - ultimately, the winning location - were unaware they were even being considered until the short-list was announced by Location Tech. I don't doubt at all the Philadelphia and Location Tech worked together on the Philadelphia "bid", I just think it needs to be acknowledged it was a very different kind of bid, and process (i.e., there's no Raleigh or Philadelphia "proposal document" from an LOC).</span></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><span style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">3. In Andrea's recent post there seems to be an implied assertion that only Location Tech can potentially <b>broaden the conference</b> to include other participants. Indeed, it was acknowledged that this has happened to some degree already with the current model. The FOSS4G agenda is <u>not</u> only about FOSS4G projects. In addition, the Boston proposal talks extensively about "broadening" participation including specific outreach activities aimed at the Boston/New England startup and technology (non-geo) communities. The point is, this is a choice for OSGeo and the Philadelphia and Ottawa proposals are not necessarily the only way to attract new participants and sponsors to FOSS4G.</font></span></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.8px"><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">Again, best of luck in the call today, and in the voting over the week to come...</font></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif"><br></font></span></div><div><span style="font-size:12.8px"><font face="tahoma, sans-serif">MT & the BLOC </font></span></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Venkatesh Raghavan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:venka.osgeo@gmail.com" target="_blank">venka.osgeo@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="">On 2015/11/09 10:44, Dave McIlhagga wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
HI Guido,<br>
<br>
Thank you for the good question.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
Agree. My other comment at the end of the mail.<span class=""><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
First of all I should point out that the $90,000 cost is an at-cost fee for provision of these services. Keep in mind they will be doing a lot of the open source geospatial leg work that is often handled by the LOC volunteers, such as sponsorship recruitment, marketing activities, program logistics support, etc...<br>
<br>
In addition, they have agreed to financially backstop the event, ie. put up any of the seed funds required to move this forward, and cover shortfalls in the worse case that this should take place.<br>
<br>
I think the best way to think of this is:<br>
<br>
1. The 90,000 is to cover the internal labour costs for LT to provide these services, so that the organization will at least be cost-neutral in providing these PCO services<br>
2. The LT visibility items are compensation for putting up seed funding, and financial insurance.<br>
<br>
<br>
Another way to think about it — it’s just a good way for two open source geospatial organizations to give each other a hand.<br>
</blockquote>
<br></span>
Dave, thanks for putting it in another way.<br>
Two open source geospatial organizations giving each other a hand is great, but giving 90,000USD to the other to hold hands beats my logic.<br>
<br>
Best<br>
<br>
Venka<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
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