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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Subject:
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<td>Analysing the downfall of FOSS4G 2011</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">Date: </th>
<td>Tue, 14 Aug 2012 06:07:30 +1000</td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">From: </th>
<td>Cameron Shorter <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com"><cameron.shorter@gmail.com></a></td>
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<th align="RIGHT" nowrap="nowrap" valign="BASELINE">To: </th>
<td>conference_dev <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org"><conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org></a></td>
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<p>The international FOSS4G 2012 conference, which was scheduled
to be held in Beijing in Sept 2012, <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2012-July/010519.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">was cancelled</a>. This
has been a disappointing setback for our OSGeo community, and
here I proposed to capture some of the key events which lead up
to this cancellation, and with our hind site perspective,
identify areas we can change to make future conferences more
resilient and successful. </p>
<p>The intent is to start this conversation on the <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">OSGeo Conference email
list</a>, then move to the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2012_Lessons_Learned"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">FOSS4G 2012 Lessons
Learned</a> wiki page as ideas start to consolidate. </p>
<p>I'd like to start out by laying out some discussion ground
rules. In particular, please avoid letting this discussion break
into a witch hunt, or blame game. Remember that almost all
people involved in FOSS4G 2012 were volunteers, giving of their
precious time freely. Instead, please identify an event or
decision, discuss the implications of the event, and ideally
follow up with some recommendations on what we can do in future.<br>
</p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline" id="Host_City_Selection">Host City
Selection</span></h2>
<p>Prior to 2012, OSGeo's Conference Committee had agreed to a 3
year rotation for the location of FOSS4G conferences, which
went: </p>
<ul>
<li> Europe (2010) </li>
<li> North America (2011) </li>
<li> Rest of the world (2012) </li>
<li> Europe ... </li>
</ul>
<p>The bid process involves cities providing a light, 2 page,
"Letter of Intent", followed by a comprehensive bid if the
"Letter of Intent" was approved. However by Letter of Intent
deadline for FOSS4G 2012 there were <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001285.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">no Letters of Intent</a>.
The deadline was extended, and Letters of intent were <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001295.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">received</a> from Rome
(Europe), Prague (Europe), Hanoi (Asia), and a <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001319.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">late entry</a> from
Beijing (Asia). </p>
<p>This was <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001339.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">summarised</a> by OSGeo
Conference chair, </p>
<dl>
<dd> What happened is that we did not receive any submissions
before the initial deadline, and then we opened the bidding to
all areas, and then we received 1 submission from the desired
region and 2 from Europe, and then a second late submission
from the desired region. </dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dd> My opinion is that the stated desired region is in fact
still the desired region, and that all OSGeo conference
committee members should keep this information in their head
as they vote. (meaning: all 4 letters are an option for this
voting stage, but the preferred region is 'anywhere other than
NA or Europe') </dd>
</dl>
<p>In the end, only Prague [Europe] and Beijing [desired region]
submitted a full FOSS4G bid, and when it came to a final vote,
the OSGeo Conference committee <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-August/001394.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">was</a> <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-August/001398.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">split</a> between a bid
from a more experience team in Prague, and following OSGeo's
established rotation with Beijing. In retrospect, we should have
put more emphasis on selecting the experienced FOSS4G team. </p>
<p>As has been noted by some [ref?], European and North American
conferences have traditionally attracted more delegates and
sponsors, which makes these conferences: </p>
<ol>
<li> More financially profitable </li>
<li> Less financially risky </li>
<li> Reach more people (although not necessarily reaching more
regions) </li>
</ol>
<p>As we move forward, we may wish to favour selection of
committees and cities with prior experience of holding local or
regional FOSS4G events before being awarded an international
event. </p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline"
id="Competing_regional_conferences">Competing regional
conferences</span></h2>
<p>In 2011, major regional conferences started in both Europe and
North America, which competed for international FOSS4G
attendance, along with some FOSS4G conferences from the region.
It was debated whether OSGeo should support and encourage these
new regional conferences, knowing that they would have an <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2012-January/010015.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">impact</a> on attendance
at Beijing. </p>
<p>As explain by in a <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-October/001540.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">post</a> by the Chair of
the OSGeo Board: </p>
<dl>
<dd> From all that I can tell, now FOSS4G Beijing will become a
local conference with support from "OSGeo international". This
and no more. It will not be the Global or World conference
that FOSS4G was before because we will have a FOSS4G CEE and
FOSS4G North America event (plus the regular local ones) in
the same year. There is no chance at all that Beijing can
attract the same vibrant global participation that we had at
the last global FOSS4G conferences. </dd>
<dd> The question is not whether we will have a FOSS4G in
Beijing or CEE or North America. From all that I can tell we
will have them all. There is no reason (and probably no way)
to stop the North American or CEE initiative or both. Instead
it is great to see so much interest and momentum - and we
would be stupid to stifle it. </dd>
</dl>
<p>Competing regional conferences included: </p>
<ul>
<li> October 2012, INTERGEO 2012 </li>
<li> October 2012, Smart Korea 2012 in conjunction with OGC
TC/PC Meeting </li>
<li> October 12, 2012, FOSS4G Korea 2012 </li>
<li> October 2012, GISSA conference </li>
<li> September 2012, Asia GeoSpatial Forum </li>
<li> 5 September 2012 Open Source GIS Conference (OSGIS) </li>
<li> August 2012, 34th International Geological Conference </li>
<li> 18-19 July 2012, FOSS4G Southeast Asia </li>
<li> July 2012, Third Open Source GIS Summer School </li>
<li> July 2012, International Environmental Modeling and
Software Society Conference (IEMSS) </li>
<li> July 2012, AGIT </li>
<li> June 30 - July 1, 2012, FOSS4G Hokkaido 2012 </li>
<li> June 2012, useR! The International R User Conference </li>
<li> June 28, 2012, OSGeo.nl Day (FOSS4G Regional) within
MapWindow Conference - The Netherlands </li>
<li> May 2012, FOSS4G-CEE & Geoinformatics 2012 </li>
<li> May 2012, FOSSCOMM 2012 </li>
<li> May 2012, HellasGI 2012 </li>
<li> April 2012, COMEM OGO course :: Webmapping with OGC
standards </li>
<li> April 2012, Geospatial World Forum 2012 </li>
<li> 23 April 2012, FOSS4G North America 2012 </li>
</ul>
<p>Source: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History"
class="external free" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History</a>
</p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline"
id="Local_Organising_Committee_experience">Local Organising
Committee experience</span></h2>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline"
id="Lack_of_Professional_Conference_Organisor">Lack of
Professional Conference Organisor</span></h3>
<p>The Local Organising Committee (LOC) had teamed with a
Professional Conference Organisor (PCO), starting from the
bidding for the FOSS4G 2011 conference. However, the PCO stepped
back from engaging for the FOSS4G conference. The LOC were then
unsuccessful in trying to sign up a new <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-July/000083.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">PCO</a>. </p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Loosing_key_LOC_members">Loosing
key LOC members</span></h3>
<p>One of the key FOSS4G LOC members, Professor Yu, passed away
shortly after Beijing was awarded the conference. This was very
unfortunate, both on a personal level, and organisation level. </p>
<p>Loss of key committee members is reasonably common (although
usually people step down for various reasons, rather than pass
away). For instance, a key FOSS4G-Sydney evangelist, who
promoted the Sydney event at prior FOSS4G conferences, stepped
back and didn't attend Sydney's FOSS4G 2009. The original
FOSS4G-Devar 2011 chair had to <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://geothought.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">stand down</a> for
personal reasons shortly after the bid was accepted. These
examples highlight the need for organizing committees to have
strength in depth, and in particular to have a backup plan if
the conference chair has to step down. This was a question that
was asked of the Nottingham FOSS4G 2013 contenders, who have two
backups to the conference chair, as well as a committee with
strength in depth overall. </p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Decision_Making">Decision
Making</span></h3>
<p>A conference chair is asked to make many decisions related to
the conference, and the majority of the time, there is no clear
understanding about the benefits or downsides of each option.
Usually the only sure thing is that not making a decision will
be detrimental to the conference. Consequently, it is important
for LOCs to become quick and efficient at analyzing
possibilities and then making decisions. </p>
<p>From what I can gather, the Beijing LOC would have benefited
from being more efficient in making decisions. For instance, in
mid-November 2012 the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://live.osgeo.org" class="external text"
rel="nofollow">OSGeo-Live</a> community asked the LOC to
commit to distributing OSGeo-Live DVDs at the Beijing
conference. The LOC took almost 3 months to <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-February/000014.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">confirm they would
support this</a>. Other conferences usually provide such
confirmation within a week, often within a day or two. </p>
<p>I suspect delays related to decisions would have contributed to
schedule slipages. The lesson here is that LOC's should be
structured and resourced such that they can make decisions
efficiently. A prior conference chair extended this observation
to note the importance of the conference chair: </p>
<dl>
<dd> [A key lesson is the] importance of an active LOC and even
more importantly an active CHAIR. Committees don't move, they
can't communicate, they can't move. People can, so an active
CHAIR is the single critical ingredient. And the more that
person in invested in both organizing and communicating the
event, the better it will be. </dd>
</dl>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Schedule_slip">Schedule slip</span></h3>
<p>As the deadline for the FOSS4G conference approached, there was
significant <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-May/001763.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">schedule slip</a> on key
milestones, such as the ability to accept conference papers.
This was providing a visible indication of some of the other
issues listed on this analysis. </p>
<p>I think the lesson here is quite simple. Make sure there is an
appropriately resourced project manager responsible for managing
the conference schedule. (This task is usually provided by a
PCO). </p>
<p>A second issue is that although OSGeo had identified concerns
with FOSS4G Beijing's progress reasonably early, intervention
from OSGeo was late in coming. A prior FOSS4G chair noted: </p>
<dl>
<dd> We need to put harder stops in place to short circuit
failure. If you don't have a call for workshops out by
February, [serious questions are asked, such as should the
conference be cancelled?]. If you don't have $30K in
sponsorship in place by April, [serious questions]. If you
don't have a call for papers out by May, [serious questions].
This [FOSS4G 2012 conference] dragged out longer than it
should of because there were no hard stop points. </dd>
</dl>
<p>During the build up to FOSS4G Beijing, one of the key
volunteers on OSGeo conference committee, who had previously
been very active, was showing signs of burnout and was not
contributing to his prior levels. This left a noticeable hole in
the OSGeo conference committee which was not filled by another
volunteer. The OSGeo Conference committee had previously
provided checks on conferences, such as reviewing and approving
the conference's budget and submitting to the OSGeo board for
approval, however this didn't happen for the FOSS4G Beijing
conference. </p>
<p>What are the lesson's here? It may be that the critical role of
approving finances should be covered by a paid position, funded
by profits of FOSS4G conferences. Something like this was
considered as described by the following section ... </p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="No_mentor">No mentor</span></h3>
<p>A <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2011-November/009180.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">proposal</a> was put to
the OSGeo board, which was eventually approved, to have an
experienced FOSS4G mentor support the Beijing Local Organising
Committee. (A funded mentor was not provided to previous
conferences). This proposal <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2012-January/009364.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">fell through</a>, and
although a some prior FOSS4G chairs were approached (and
others?), a replacement mentor was not found. </p>
<p>This left the Beijing FOSS4G LOC committee without some key
expertise which could have been very valuable. </p>
<p>What is the lesson here? I think this was a good idea which
fell through, and is worth pursuing again in future. </p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline" id="Communication"> Communication
</span></h2>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Language_barrier">Language
barrier</span></h3>
<p>From what I understand, Beijing LOC were most comfortable
speaking in Chinese, and had varying levels of experience with
English. I observed that finding the right English words to
support a conversation and convey important messages was a time
consuming task, often involving decisions being made in Chinese,
then translated to English. This communication overhead would
have produced a significant workload on the LOC, who were
already working on the difficult and time consuming task of
running a FOSS4G conference. </p>
<p>I believe this communication gap also contributed to many of
the other symptoms discussed here. Slow communication between
the LOC and community would have: </p>
<ul>
<li> Contributed toward slow responses to community queries,
hindering the international community contributing prior
experience toward the LOC, </li>
<li> Slowed decisions from the LOC resulting in schedule slip, </li>
<li> Caused difficulties getting the quality control of the
website correct, </li>
<li> and reduced marketing and communication to potential
international delegates. </li>
</ul>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Cultural_Differences">Cultural
Differences</span></h3>
<p>I question whether cultural differences contributed to
communication shortfalls. From my observations, it seems Chinese
are more circumspect about sending public communication, often
waiting for review from a superior before making a statement.
This contracts with open source communities I've observed, where
many opinions are discussed publicly, both amongst senior and
junior developers, until a rough consensus is reached. </p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Collective_Knowledge">Collective
Knowledge</span></h3>
<p>I believe our experience with this conference highlights how
much of our collective FOSS4G knowledge is stored in volunteers'
heads, and is passed between different events through our
various communication channels. When we constrict information
flow by introducing a language barrier, we have also constricted
access to our knowledge on how to run a conference. </p>
<p>A few suggestions on ways to address this include: </p>
<ol>
<li> Collect our conference running knowledge in a central
source, that can be handed on without the high level of
communication currently being used. In particular, I'm
suggesting starting to collect our processes in a <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_Cookbook"
title="FOSS4G Cookbook">FOSS4G Cookbook</a> or similar. </li>
<li> Set up a permanent FOSS4G coordinator role (one person, or
an international PCO, or similar) who are responsible for
coordinating conferences and personally remembering lessons
learned between conferences. (Note the risk of this person
resigning and loosing all collected knowledge) </li>
<li> Alternatively, ensure key members in the LOC can
communicate fluently with the rest of the OSGeo community. In
most cases at the moment, this would mean speaking fluently in
English. </li>
</ol>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Response_to_emails">Response
to emails</span></h3>
<p>There were a number of comments that I was privately CCed on
which indicated that the international community were not
receiving responses after emailing the LOC. Here are some
examples: </p>
<dl>
<dd> As I've told you before it has been frustrating to me to
not receive any feedback from the LOC on my offer to sponsor
the event. I basically had the plan to come with my whole team
(5 people now), but can't afford such investment considering
the state the conference and participation levels are at now.
In fact we have moved focus to the Nottingham event just after
Beijing because it appears to be (1) better organized (but
that may just appear like it due to the lack of communication
from Beijing, (2) an audience that is of interest to [company
name] and (3) cheaper / closer to home. </dd>
</dl>
<p>Another from the <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-January/000006.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">academic lead</a>, who
later stepped down: </p>
<dl>
<dd> ... [regarding email responses] from two "important
players" I have had no feedback, namely from the local
organizers and from OSGEO. </dd>
</dl>
<p>I think the lesson here is that the LOC and PCO should be
suitably motivated and resourced, and be provided with enough
delegation to respond to all community queries promptly. Every
query should be responded to within one working day, even if the
response is "we will have an answer to you after the LOC meets
next week". </p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Website_out_of_date">Website
out of date</span></h3>
<p>A conference's website is the primary form of communication
with potential delegates. For FOSS4G 2012, the website took an
excessively long time to be developed and brought online, and
then when it was brought online, it contained <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-February/000016.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">incorrect information and
broken links</a> (mainly <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-March/000018.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">cut and paste from the
prior FOSS4G website</a>). People were having significant
issues with submitting papers and <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-June/001843.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">registering to attend</a>.
</p>
<p>The FOSS4G LOC had hired an external web developer to create
the website, who had done a poor job of development. It seemed
that there was a lack of quality control from both the web
developer, and LOC. In the past, development of the website has
either been managed by technically experienced developers (as
was the case in 2009), or by the PCO. </p>
<p>The lesson here is that the website needs to be made a priority
and suitably resourced. There is the potential for website
management software to be passed on from one conference to the
next. (We considered this option in 2009 but found the Open
Source conference management software used by FOSS4G 2008 was
not going to integrate easily with the software our PCO was
using). It would be worth future FOSS4G conferences revisiting
this question. </p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Minimal_.22buzz.22">Minimal
"buzz"</span></h3>
<p>To a certain extent, a conference is successful because the LOC
says it is going to be successful (and potential attendees and
sponsors believe the statement). Presenters and sponsors attend
the conference because they believe there will be lots of
delegates, and delegates attend because they believe there will
be lots of quality presenters and sponsors. And one of the most
effective ways for everyone to be convinced of the conference's
success is to create lots of "buzz". Ie, lots of press releases,
articles, blogs, twitter discussion and more talking about how
good the conference is going to be. </p>
<p>FOSS4G 2009 possibly went a little too far by putting out <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Releases"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">41 press releases</a>.
However, FOSS4G Beijing could certainly have benefited from more
"Buzz", as the OSGeo Board Chair <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-May/001763.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">noted</a>: </p>
<dl>
<dd> on the website at <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://2012.foss4g.org/" class="external free"
rel="nofollow">http://2012.foss4g.org/</a> there is still no
option for submitting abstracts although the submission has
been opened - apparently without notice to any of the regular
OSGeo channels. Workshops submission ends in two weeks. </dd>
<dd> No international speakers have been announced and there are
only Chinese sponsors listed (although interest by regulars
was documented as early as December 2012). </dd>
</dl>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline"
id="Engaging_international_organisors">Engaging international
organisors</span></h3>
<p>Compared to prior international FOSS4G events, there was
minimal international involvement in organising the FOSS4G
event. Of particular concern was that the international academic
track lead <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-February/001646.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">announced</a> </p>
<dl>
<dd> ... that I regret [the LOC] did not fully support the setup
I proposed. Specifically, the LOC insists on using their own
deadlines and reviewing and publication plan. Of course they
have every right to do so, because it is in fact their
conference... </dd>
</dl>
<p>There is a significant amount of work involved in organising a
conference, and it is very valuable to share tasks with the
international community. This has two key benefits: </p>
<ul>
<li> It allows the LOC to focus on the local issues (like
sorting out the venue) </li>
<li> It facilitates knowledge transfer between years, as roles
like the Academic track lead are often coordinated by the same
core people over a number of years. </li>
</ul>
<p>So lesson here is look for opportunities to make use of the
international community to coordinate specific areas of the
conference. </p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Weekly_meetings">Weekly
meetings</span></h3>
<p>Less than 3 months before FOSS4G 2012 was due, <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-June/000077.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">weekly meetings</a> were
started between volunteers from the international community and
the LOC. I understand that the LOC were having meetings
internally, but there was little visibility of them from the
international community. The extra meetings facilitated
transparency from the international community into the progress
of the LOC, which in turn provided opportunities for the
international community to volunteer to help. Eventually, with
the help of these weekly meetings it was assessed that the level
of effort required to bring the conference back on track, along
with the likely outcome, resulted in a decision to cancel the
conference. </p>
<p>In retrospect, these meetings should have started much earlier,
ideally from the start of the conference planning a year or so
earlier such that support from the international community could
have made a better impact in the earlier stages. So lesson hear
is start having periodic meetings from early in the planning
cycle, and invite the international community to participate if
you can. </p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a>
</pre>
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