[Board] wondering about short interest in proposals this year

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

I think part of what you saw this year was also the global community  
recognising that Sydney could do a good job, so why compete, when  
others can wait until the following year?

Four bids last year was great to see, but it's not that much fun to  
have your bid rejected.  I suggest that next year, we have a brief  
"letter of interest" phase prior to the full blown RFP.  Proposers  
can then assess to what level they are willing to risk having their  
RFP tossed out.  It also helps this committee know what's coming down  
the pipe beforehand and it can help fuel competition between groups  
who know they are "competing".

I'm sure there are other factors too and will leave it to others to  
address those,
Tyler



On 28-Jan-08, at 1:35 PM, jo at frot.org wrote:

> dear conference list,
>
> I had a quick skim through the list archive to find out how the
> conference venue was selected for 2009. I was surprised to see
> only one proposal to host the main OSGeo conference in 2009.
>
> To be honest that concerns me a bit, as there were four proposals for
> the 2008 one. Is the bar raised too high by Victoria's amazing
> performance? Are local user groups struggling to get it together?
> Was there much followup/nudging of groups who've submitted proposals
> in the past which have not made it over the bar?
>
> I would appreciate it if anyone here could fill me in with their
> insight on this. I'm not criticising the Sydney proposal, from what
> little i saw it looks solid and there is some real dynamism behind it.
> However the board is being asked to "Approve Sydney's selection" this
> week, this seems like rubberstamping to me but is a big committment.
> I feel i need to know more about the organising and decision process
> before offering a +1 and i can't find anything on the wiki.
>
> cheers,
>
>
> jo
>