[Board] [OSGeo-Conf] On the creation of permanent OSGeo/FOSS4G CRM

[Paul Ramsey]

I agree w/ Steven. Tools at hand are better than tools that need
someone else to manage. This organization has few enough resources w/o
adding more things that need volunteer labour to keep the lights on.
Keep it simple.

P.

On Fri, Mar 28, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Steven Feldman <shfeldman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmmm
>
> I don't agree that what we received from the Denver team or the records that
> we handed over to the Portland team are a "complete fucking disaster".
>
> Yes a spreadsheet of sponsorship prospects may not be as robust as a CRM but
> it was very flexible. We updated the spreadsheet with the 2013 sponsorship
> outcomes and identified all the dead mails etc from the old list. Many of
> the names on that list were probably inherited from old lists prior to 2011
> and were of little use, inevitably lists get out of date. You don't get
> sponsorship from massive mailing lists, it comes through a combination of
> personal contacts, advertising and social media promotion, a good dose of
> serendipity and a lot of effort. A CRM may sound like a useful tool but I
> doubt it will make much difference in securing sponsors.
>
> Building a CRM database of all the delegates who attend a FOSS4G may have
> more value in terms of communication with delegates although we found a
> spreadsheet that was extracted from our booking system to be adequate for
> our weekly comms with delegates.
>
> If we create a CRM it will need a lot of management to keep records up to
> date and to ensure that people have opt out options etc. and for us EU
> people we will need to jump through several data privacy hoops before we can
> import old data into a system and start mailing people.
>
> Incidentally we put our sponsorship targets and delegates spreadsheets into
> Google Docs, easy to use, multi user accessible and free (yup I know it's
> not open source but it worked well for us) in the planning, marketing and
> though out the event.
>
> My 2 cents
> ______
> Steven
>
>
> On 27 Mar 2014, at 20:50, Darrell Fuhriman <darrell at garnix.org> wrote:
>
>
> One of things that has become apparent in going through the process of
> getting sponsorships for FOSS4G is that the current system is rather
> unwieldy. In fact, the use of the word "system" implies a type of order
> which does not exist.
>
> There are no designated contacts at each company, no consistent tracking of
> past sponsorships or expressions of interest, no tracking of non-functioning
> e-mails, or people who have left a company.
>
> In short, it's a complete fucking disaster.
>
> This is a problem because:
>
> 1) FOSS4G is dependent on sponsorships to finish in the black
> 2) OSGeo is dependent on FOSS4G events (not just the big annual conference)
> for a large portion of its income
> 3) We should be making it easy, not hard, to keep FOSS4G/OSGeo solvent.
>
> We have individuals who have expressed an interest in getting all of the
> past and current data into a CRM so we can more easily track this in the
> future. However, unless there is a future for such a system, it's probably
> not worth the non-trivial amount of effort it would take.
>
> Hence, I propose:
>
> The 2014 LOC will work to configure an instance of SugarCRM, including
> entering the data we have collected on current and past sponsorships.
>
> After the conclusion of FOSS4G 2014, OSGeo would agree to:
>
> 1) Move the SugarCRM instance to be hosted and maintained by OSGeo
> 2) Strongly encourage (mandate?) its use by future OSGeo affiliated
> conferences
> 3) Give access to other geospatial related events as appropriate
>
> I realize there is some reluctance to "give orders" to the people who have
> volunteered to do these events. However in the long run having a central CRM
> will reduce the amount of work required by future LOCs, and by past ones who
> get requests to dig out contact information from events that occurred years
> ago.
>
> The use of a CRM could also be expanded to track contact information for all
> attendees including which events they've attended, so they can be contacted
> about future relevant events - another case where there is no coordination
> or sanity to any of the extant data.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Darrell
>
>
>
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