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

[Paul Ramsey]

On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 3:22 PM, Cameron Shorter
<cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I suspect that conference software has become a commodity item and that
> there is little to be gained by using the same software every year. Please
> correct me if I'm wrong.

There was an attempt to foist the 2006 software onto me in 2007, which
I largely ignored (sorry Frank!). I checked it out and decided that
the amount of effort needed to make it work good and look good in the
manner I wanted was higher than the amount of effort for me to cobble
together something on my own, which is what I did.  (high effort and
bad aesthetics loses to medium effort and better aesthetics)

Where our PCO had existing technology, for registration management, I
decided it would be easier and cheaper to use that, even though it was
aesthetically not nearly as pleasing as I would have liked.  The PCO
already knew how it worked, so there was no training or support. (zero
effort and low aesthetics loses to medium effort and better
aesthetics)

My summary: check out their existing sites, review them for ease of
use, and function, and then decide. I'm on your side: use what exists
already, if it suits our purposes. Check the ease of pulling the
content out post-facto so that the materials can be published after.
Having the 2007 materials all online has been hugely valuable.

P.