[OSGeo-Conf] Portland LOC replies to Helena

[Darrell Fuhriman]

These are great questions, and we believe that the two questions are intimately entwined, see below for specifics.

> 1. How do you plan to distinguish this global conference from the very
> successful international regional conferences such as FOSS4G-CEE and FOSS4G-NA?
> Or, in another words - what are your plans to make this truly global,
> main FOSS4G conference?
> 
Presenting a conference that moves around the globe inevitably means that participants are generally biased to the host region, and we see the regional conferences as a response to that – people still want a FOSS4G conference though they may not be able afford to attend. The regional vs international attendance question has been discussed extensively on osgeo-discuss over the last year (summarized by Peter Batty [1], and the spreadsheet “FOSS4G Registrations Cleaned”). From the data, in most cases local attendees  are the larger group, though this doesn’t damper the international attendance.

Reaching out to other local chapters in the international community by soliciting talks and workshops, requesting that our banner is displayed, and generally engaging in their activities will go a long way towards drumming up international support. We can join in the local IRC sessions that other local OSGEO groups have and engage them.  Targeted, invited talks from the international tribe will also increase the enthusiasm for international visitors. By making sure that all continents are represented in the talks and workshops, we will indicate that this is truly an international event!

We think that another possible solution is to have more streaming, and options for remote viewers to interact with the speakers in at least some sessions. To be quite honest,we don’t know if this would be cost prohibitive or not, but it’s worth exploring.

Some strategies we will employ are to advertise with our banner, which, given that we are the City of Roses will likely have a Rose, incorporated, on as many international sites  as possible. All of the major international projects will be targeted, as well as regional information hubs. In addition, through targeted invited talks of international speakers (see answer 2 below, and above) we can demonstrate the multinational nature of our conference.

Additionally, we would also like to promote Portland as being a relatively inexpensive city to stay in, as well as having direct air links to Europe and Asia. (Obviously, DC has those too, but we also have much better beer.)
[1] http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Re-OSGeo-Conf-North-American-FOSS4G-conference-td3714127.html#a3714128

> 2. Given the continuing complaints about the selection of workshops
> and presentations how do you plan to handle the submissions so that everybody feels welcome and participating rather than turned down and ignored. Do you have ideas
> for accommodating presentations/posters by many students and new
> developers who may have great ideas but are unknown in the community and may not get enough votes for a regular talk.
> 
> Do you have any innovative ideas about the presentations and participation
> that will distinguish this conference?

We believe that the double-blind selection process used in the academic track should be expanded to include all presentations. This should not, however, be taken to mean that keynote or invited-talks are not solicited and selected directly by the LOC, but they would be explicitly labeled as such. Invited talks could also be given more time than a traditional presentation would be allotted.  Invited talks can also help draw international attention (see question 1).

We also feel there is room for lightning++ talks – a track of 15 minute sessions for presenting new ideas. The selection process could be less formal and could be done closer to the date of the conference, and would be an excellent forum for students, and lesser known developers/activists/etc to present their work. The advantage over unconference talks is that they would be published. We think this addresses Helena’s question quite directly!

Double-blind selection is less easily done for workshops, but we believe there is room for community input on the workshops as well. We would like to provide a way for the the community to vote for which proposed workshops they would like to attend.

Not unrelatedly, I (Darrell) think it’s worth exploring variable pricing for the workshops, which would allow popular ones to subsidise less obviously popular workshops, letting them get an audience cheaply.

Adrian Custer had a number of comments on the osgeo-discuss list recently, all of which we think are quite valuable, but we’d like to draw attention to just one them:

We think he’s absolutely right that there needs to be stronger attempt to draw out more community, in all of its many forms. Stumptown Syndicate, our proposed Professional Organizer, has a strong history of doing tech community focused events and this is a main reason we want to work with them. 

In addition, our local OSGeo chapter has organized several unconferences to coincide with the more formal regional conference (GIS in Action), and we would want to continue that at FOSS4G. Unconferences are a great way to let attendees learn about topics they didn’t know they wanted to hear about, things that didn’t exist when the original RFP went out, or some brand new idea that was sparked by presentations heard at the regular conference. We are thinking of having an unconference on the last day which is typically the code sprint, for those who would rather attend the unconference (similarly to what Nottingham is doing this year, right?). 

Additionally, our local chapter has partnered with the local regional GIS conference (GIS in Action) to coordinate a full day track of open source topics during the regular sessions. We have a seasoned group ( four years) that has tackled this.

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