[OSGeo-Conf] Re: FOSS4G

[venka.osgeo]

Hi All,

FOSS4G2007 was truly great and we seem to be getting better
all the time. I tend to agree with the comments Frank's
associate has made. Big thanks to Paul Ramsey, Dave Patton and his
team of dedicated volunteers who made FOSS4G2007 happen.

a) Yes the "Welcome Reception" was not exactly a "reception" since
one was expected to pay for food and drinks. Haven't been
to many international conference where they have this
kind of "reception".

b) Nobody (from OSGeo) thanked Paul and his team officially at
the closing. There should have been a vote of thanks by
either the conference committee chair or someone from OSGeo
to give a vote of thanks to the Local Organizing team as well
as all speakers, session chairs, sponsors etc.

c) I was also wondering what happened to the "Plaque" which
Steve Lime was to receive.

d) To help in networking, I think list of participants and contact
address could have been distributed.

e) Maybe a booth explaining how to be an OSGeo member. How to
make your account on the OSGeo portal, wiki etc.

f) I wonder if we did, if we did not, then perhaps we could
have sent an invitation to Sol Katz daughter to be at the
closing ceremony and offered to pay for her trip. Doing that
at every FOSS4G may be difficult, but we can consider doing
that once in 4 years. Perhaps we could think about it for
South Africa.

g) FOSS4G at South Africa is going to get bigger and better, I am
sure. We should start planning for some lobbying at political
level and try to invite some speakers form the governments
in and around Africa. Gavin seems to have managed good political
backing for FOSS4G2008 from the SA Government and i wonder if
Nelson Mendala could himself be approached to deliver a keynote
on relevance of ICT (OSGeo) in his "Make Poverty History" campaign.

h) We also need to have some media publicity. Newspaper articles, TV
coverage for the opening cermony etc. Media Hype, if I may say so, is
also important.

i) Close coordination with Local Organizers and OSGeo conference
  Committee would be necessary in SA, considering the fact that
OSGeo crowd in SA is not as big as it is in Europe and North America.
We need to have an "International Committee" including all members of
the OSGeo Conference Committee (and more) and not just some
a few "OSGeo Representatives" as we did in FOSS4G2007.

j) We also need to think of having a "Advisory Committee" with
some big names from various organizations.

k) Considering the geographical proximity, I think at least a few
OSGeo members involved in the conference organizing, (Conference 
Committee Chair, maybe) should make a pre-conference visit
two/three months before the event to get a firsthand feel of the
preparation and liase with the Local and International committee.
If I happen to be somewhere near SA before the conference, I would
not mind joining the team in the pre-conference visit.

l) we also need to contact scientific societies to include the
FOSS4G2008 event in their events calender and even think of
putting an ad in some of the magazines about the upcoming event
soon.

Kind regards

Venka

Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> On 10/2/07, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:
>> Folks,
>>
>> An old associate of mine wrote me the following notes on the
>> conference (slightly abbreviated) which I thought I would pass on
>> as a single "data point".
>>
>>> Hi Frank,
>>>
>>> I enjoyed the FOSS4G Conference.
>> ...
>>> I was impressed with the Conference, especially with the organization,
>>> the efficiency of the volunteers and the generally high quality of the
>>> presentations.  It was especially helpful that the session chairs kept
>>> things very closely on track as far as timing. This is especially
>>> important when there are many parallel sessions.
>>>
>>> Having been involved in the organization of many international
>>> conferences during my career, I thought I could make a few
>>> observations/suggestions:
>>>
>>> I thought the opening reception was disorganized. I guess this is OK,
>>> but it should have been clear on the website and in the program that
>>> this was just a suggested place for an informal gathering.  At most
>>> conferences I have attended, this reception is sponsored either by some
>>> organization (government, company) or the exhibitors (the cost being
>>> included in their booth registration). Just an idea for the future.
>>>
>>> I was really unable to find out how, where, or when papers might be
>>> available.  In the instructions to authors, it is recommended that
>>> papers be uploaded to your web site, but no indication to the attendees
>>> as to where and when these might be viewed and/or downloaded.  Many
>>> conferences today require full manuscripts to be submitted before the
>>> conference date and proceedings available upon registration (today CD or
>>> DVD would probably be more appropriate than hard copy).
>>>
>>> The opening session was generally very good. The keynote speaker was
>>> SUPERB!!!  I don't think I have ever heard a keynote presentation as
>>> interesting and entertaining as this one.
>>>
>>> I was impressed that you were able to plan the conference so that most
>>> people would really stay till the closing plenary. This is usually a
>>> problem with most conferences -- people start drifting away the day
>>> before the closing. However, I was quite disappointed in the Panel --
>>> perhaps it was the accents, or poor use of microphones, poor sound
>>> system (though it worked well on the opening day) or just my
>>> deteriorating hearing ability -- but I found it very difficult to
>>> understand what most of the panelists and moderator were saying, and it
>>> did not seem that informative anyway.
>>>
>>> One of my biggest challenges was selecting which of the parallel
>>> sessions to attend.
>> ...
>>
>> --
>> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
>> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
>> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
>> and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent
>>
> 
>