[OSGeo-Conf] 2011 Discussion

[Dave Patton]

On 2009/04/16 6:17 AM, Dave McIlhagga wrote:
> +1 for Option A.
> 
> I also think we've reached a stage where explicit rotation (North 
> America, Europe, Other) would be very helpful in terms of soliciting 
> higher quality bids and encouraging regional events since folks on the 
> ground will know when the rotation will come to their part of the world 
> every 3 years.
> 
> Perhaps a way to do this is make the LOI stage explicitly for the target 
> region. If there are no LOIs from the region, or none deemed of 
> sufficient quality, then a second LOI round could be opened up to the 
> rest of the world? This would not completely tie our hands in the event 
> no one within the region of interest is able to put together a 
> satisfactory bid.

You could, as part of making the selection process
more transparent, state up front (in the Expression of
Interest and RFP) a "scoring system" that will, in part,
be used by the conference committee in any selection
process.

For example, each person with a vote assigns a value
of from 1 to 5 for each 'category' - there might be
'categories' for each element of the EOI/RFP, and you
can even have categories for less tangible things,
such as "overall impression".

Rather than having to do a 2-stage approach to deal
with interest, or lack thereof, from "the current
year's target region", you can have one of the
'categories' be "EOI/RFP is from the preferred
geographic region".

'Categories' can also have a 'weight', so you could
apply sufficient 'weight' to the "EOI/RFP is from the
preferred geographic region" 'category' so that
submissions that score well in this 'category' will
'rise to the top', but at the same time have the
'weight' such that high-quality bids from other
regions would also 'rise to the top'.

A further statement in the bid process that "when two
or more bids are received that are deemed to be of
comparable quality, part of the committee's decision
process will rely on favoring any bids that are from
the 'target region'" makes it clear why good bids
from North America and Europe might be turned down
in a year when the preference is to hold the
conference in another part of the world.

-- 
Dave Patton
CIS Canadian Information Systems
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

Personal website:
Maps, GPS, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/