[OSGeo-Conf] RE: FOSS4G Sydney and conference software

[Gavin Fleming]

Hi all, OCS (not ICS) does have its shortcomings but is proving to be pretty good at the core conference function of submitting and reviewing papers. We're managing with it for most things, using the OSGeo wiki a lot and handing off to our PCO for carrying out registration and payments. 

If Simon can help with OCS while he works on the 2009 site at OSGeo, then that together with general improvements by the OCS community should make it a much better proposition as we get closer to next year's conf. 

It would be unfortunate to go through the 'pain' with OCS on OSGeo's recommendation, then not have the learning taken further the next year. 

cheers

Gavin 
FOSS4G2008 conference chair: http://www.foss4g2008.org
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Cameron Shorter [mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com] 
Sent: 10 May 2008 01:27 PM
To: Gavin Fleming; Simon Hope; conference_dev
Cc: Rachel Walker; Denisa Adamova
Subject: FOSS4G Sydney and conference software


To keep people in the loop:

When interviewing Professional Conference Organisors for Sydney, we 
found that all PCOs used proprietary conference software, and had 
notable investments in tying their existing processes to the conference 
software.

We encouraged them to consider using Open Conference Systems (as used by 
South Africa). They all looked at ICS, one said "Why are we paying so 
much for conferencing software when this is available as open source." 
But they were concerned by a lack of support. (Business Opportunity here 
for someone).

With Tour Hosts, whom we selected, they agreed to look into ways to 
incorporate ICS to some degree, but expect to still use much/most of 
their existing conferencing software and processes.
We were happy with this as a pragmatic approach. While we would prefer 
to use Open Source at an Open Source conference, it is more important to 
us that we pick a competent team who will do a good job, and we believe 
we have that in Tour Hosts.

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html