[OSGeo-Conf] 2011 Discussion

[Peter Batty]

There certainly seems to be consensus around having a lightweight "statement
of intent" for the global conference, and I support that too.

In addition to that, I think that OSGeo should consider having a more
explicit strategy in terms of location of the global conference - for
example, is it a 3 year rotation between Europe, North America, and Rest of
the World? We could choose to just leave it up to the selection committee as
is done now, but I think it at least merits some discussion - the current
decision process is not at all transparent.

I am strongly in favor of having more frequent regional conferences as I've
said before. The two track approach is an interesting one. Another
alternative which wasn't on Paul's list is that we continue with an annual
global conference, but OSGeo also supports regional conferences, which could
be annual too.

Frank's comment about being concerned about only seeing the "whole
community" every two years prompts another thought, which we touched on in
the Denver proposal for 2010. This is that there are at least two potential
aims for FOSS4G. One is as a more technically focused meeting for code
contributors and heavy techie users - and as Frank says, many of them would
prefer a less formal event. The second is as more of a "sales and marketing"
event to try to attact more organizations to use open source geospatial
solutions. In this regard, I know that a number of people feel that the
growth of open source geospatial usage in North America (speaking for my
"local market") will be negatively impacted by having no significant open
source conference here between 2007 and 2011 at the earliest (unless someone
organizes something sooner, which is still a possibility).

But anyway, this dilemma makes me wonder whether we should have a global
conference each year which is more of a deep techie conference, and also
have various regional conferences which are more focused on outreach, i.e.
selling OSGeo to the unconverted. I think that most of the concerns I have
heard about not having OSGeo conferences more frequently in a given
geographic area relate to the latter aim. This would also address the
challenge that trying to accommodate both aims in the same event is
difficult to do.

That's my few cents for now!

Cheers,
    Peter.

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 8:49 PM, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com> wrote:

> Paul Ramsey wrote:
>
>> I've started some thoughts here, including Helena's idea from last
>> year on splitting the conference up...
>>
>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_Reboot_2011
>>
>> I don't think we can repeat the bid process unchanged for 2011, so we
>> have a chance to make major changes if we like.
>>
>
> Paul,
>
> I too am worried about the onerous amount of preparation we ask of
> bidders; much of which is reviewed then discarded.  My preference is
> the "Modified Status Quo" approach of a lighter weight preliminary
> round.
>
> I'm leery of the two track approach because to me it means I'll only
> see the "whole community" once every two years.  But it does have some
> good aspects.
>
> I would also like some contemplation of whether FOSS4G may be too
> expensive, and commercial in approach and whether we could aim for
> more modest venues and a more community feel (as I understand is the
> case with FOSSGIS).
>
> On a related note I see on the Foundations mailing list that folks
> are having a lot more trouble attracting heavy weight sponsorship
> for big expensive conferences.  Google indicates they have substantially
> downsized their conference sponsorship spending.
>
> Best regards,
> --
>
> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
> warmerdam at pobox.com
> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam<http://pobox.com/%7Ewarmerdam>
> and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Conference_dev mailing list
> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>



-- 
Peter Batty - President, Spatial Networking
W: +1 303 339 0957  M: +1 720 346 3954
Blog: http://geothought.blogspot.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/attachments/20090301/fe96e90d/attachment.html