[OSGeo-Conf] FOSS4G Discount for Charter Members proposal
Andrew Ross
andrew.ross at eclipse.org
Tue Aug 26 06:31:37 PDT 2014
Thank you for the email Bart. I feel this is definitely worth exploring
and I'm glad to participate.
What makes sense for the next steps?
On 26/08/14 07:46, Bart van den Eijnden wrote:
> Hey Andrew,
>
> (my response is a personal response, not a board response).
>
> First off I’d like to thank you for the kind offer of working
> together. I want to make sure we discuss this at the board level and
> hopefully come to some consensus on this.
>
> Personally I am very interested to see what this collaboration could
> bring both parties.
>
> Best regards,
> Bart
>
> On 15 Aug 2014, at 05:51, Andrew Ross <andrew.ross at eclipse.org
> <mailto:andrew.ross at eclipse.org>> wrote:
>
>> Hey Jeff, Everyone
>>
>> I'd like to comment briefly.
>>
>> I feel a 800+ person conference is of a sufficient size that it's not
>> a good idea to burn out volunteers organizing. To throw a new team to
>> the wolves each year is extremely risky.
>>
>> The obvious options are to not have such a large event, or choose a
>> different model to organize.
>>
>> I feel that a conference of such size is very important. It's what
>> draws the ecosystem together and helps it grow. Not having the large
>> event would be a loss.
>>
>> It is simply too big to hold at most Universities, and especially in
>> the fall.
>>
>> For what it's worth, I also feel smaller regional and plenty of local
>> events are important too. That's orthogonal to the global event though.
>>
>> I've been open about what the Eclipse Foundation & LocationTech can
>> do. It has full time staff with experience to run a consistently
>> great technology conferences with lots of camaraderie.
>>
>> Let's work together. FOSS4G NA 2015 will be a nice opportunity, test,
>> and display. For those who are highly motivated, feel free to go back
>> to the D.C. bid and provide feedback. I feel it was a great bid,
>> credible, and a good indication of the kind of event we'd hold in the
>> future. Maybe this is a good option to address many of the issues?
>> Worth exploring a bit in any case.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>>
>> On August 14, 2014 9:54:49 AM EDT, Jeff McKenna
>> <jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com
>> <mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Darrell,
>>
>> I can say that in 2011 I did bring this issue strongly, and very
>> publicly, to the OSGeo Board. I even proposed a part-time position to
>> manage the main FOSS4G conference (google 'foss4g advisor' for some
>> history and fun reading, all there outlined in a public wiki page forever).
>>
>> Well, that didn't happen. And as you just mentioned, it's still needed.
>>
>> Or, if that cannot happen, we need to realize this, and change our
>> mindset, back to the origins of FOSS4G: a meeting of the tribe, cheap
>> admission, affordable university venues, bare-bones (essentially what
>> our FOSS4G regional events are doing now).
>>
>> Because yes I agree, to assume a bunch of volunteers can run a ~1,000
>> attendee event in the best conference venue in the city and still make
>> it affordable for the tribe to attend, will not work.
>>
>> -jeff
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2014-08-14 12:10 AM,
>> Darrell Fuhriman wrote:
>>
>> I’m trying to formulate a response to this, but it ties into
>> an e-mail that I owe this list, but haven’t had time to send
>> because I’ve been busy finalizing the conference
>> preparations. Also, I’m well into my third pint this evening,
>> so it’s probably not the best time. :) While I agree the
>> early bird discount is important for the reasons you state,
>> there actually aren’t that many commitments that can be
>> avoided after the deadline. Frankly, the only significant
>> contracts unsigned by our early bird deadline of June 15th
>> were the catering contracts. Though admittedly, that’s a
>> substantial portion of the budget – if we were on that red
>> line, we’d be jettisoning coffee breaks like ballast in a
>> sinking ship. I think right now the quickest thing I can say
>> is that OSGeo has so far shown minimal interest in actually
>> taking responsibility for FOSS4G. If OSGeo is going to
>> increase the demands made on the committee, OSGeo needs to be
>> stepping up and taking a more hands-on approach to conference
>> organization. For the record, I believe OSGeo needs to step
>> up and take such a more hands on approach. I’d love a chance
>> to talk about in person at the board meeting. SotM.us
>> <http://sotm.us/> <http://SotM.us <http://sotm.us/>> runs
>> very different, and I know from talking with the organizers
>> that it was a challenge to break-even this year. The
>> difficulty is that as conferences get bigger, they get more
>> expensive to put on (primarily because the supply of possible
>> venues shrinks very rapidly, and the per attendee costs go up
>> substantially). They also get logistically more challenging,
>> and having dedicated resources, either employee or
>> outsourced, can vastly decrease the workload on the LOC.
>> Frankly, unless something changes on this front, it’s just a
>> matter of time until there’s another 2012. To be honest, I’m
>> not sure SotM.us <http://sotm.us/> <http://SotM.us
>> <http://sotm.us/>> would have been a success if Mapbox hadn’t
>> devoted significant employee resources to making sure it was
>> (as they have for the past three SotM.us <http://sotm.us/>
>> <http://SotM.us <http://sotm.us/>> conferences). Conferences
>> take huge numbers of hours to organize. The inefficiency
>> introduced by having someone re-learn the job every year is
>> substantial, wasteful, and incredibly risky. Anyway, I’m
>> supposed to be on vacation. Greetings from Yellowstone,
>> Darrell On Aug 13, 2014, at 13:41, Cameron Shorter
>> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com <mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
>> <mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I'm open to the idea of providing benefits to osgeo
>> charter members, but suggest having an early bird
>> discount apply to all ticket categories. I'd suggest
>> something like a 5% discount for charter member tickets
>> instead. Note: conferences organisors need to decide
>> whether they will also give such a discount to
>> professional bodies as well (such as professional
>> institute of surveyors). Such organisations often
>> aggressively request a discount for their members in
>> return for publicising foss4g to their membership. There
>> is a very important reason conferences have a early bird
>> discount. It means that conference organisors get an
>> early indication of the number of attendees coming to the
>> conference. This helps significantly with regards to
>> making financial decisions about the conference. In
>> particular, it enables organisors to decide to cancel the
>> conference before having to lock into key financial
>> commitments and potentially sending OSGeo bankrupt. This
>> was very important for us in FOSS4G 2009, the year of the
>> global financial crisis, when registrations were much
>> lower than expected. At the early bird deadline, we were
>> aware that we had enough people attending that we would
>> loose less money by going ahead than if we cancelled, so
>> we went ahead. Without that confidence, we likely would
>> have decided to cancel the conference. (In the end more
>> people did register, and we were just able to make a
>> modest profit.) On 14/08/2014 4:56 am, Kate Chapman wrote:
>>
>> Hi All, I think the comparison between the SotM model
>> and the FOSS4G model is interesting, but it is
>> important to think about the financial objectives of
>> each conference. My understanding was that FOSS4G
>> provides most of the funding for OSGEO over the year,
>> this isn't the case for SotM. Though successful
>> sponsorship programs could possibly make up the
>> difference between the discounted tickets. One note,
>> I've worked for a few organizations that have paid my
>> ticket for SotM. I've also paid the mapper price
>> myself previously as well. I would have not been able
>> to get them to pay for FOSS4G though. Some of you may
>> have noticed I have given a workshop every year I've
>> attended FOSS4G. I would not be able to attend
>> otherwise. Not that it is conceivable for everyone to
>> give a workshop to be able to attend. Best, -Kate On
>> Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 11:46 AM, Daniel Kastl
>> <daniel at georepublic.de <mailto:daniel at georepublic.de>
>> <mailto:daniel at georepublic.de>> wrote: SotM finances
>> are based on the expectation that most people
>> attending will be ‘mappers’ who pay the lower rate, I
>> doubt they make much money from the business tickets.
>> Hi Steven, I agree that SotM is a bit extreme in the
>> price difference. It doesn't need to be that much.
>> But I can speak for SotM Tokyo, where I was involved,
>> and there were more business tickets sold than I
>> expected and they made up a large share of the total
>> revenue through ticket sales. My main point is, that
>> for delegates, who get paid the conference by their
>> employer, a slightly higher price doesn't really
>> matter (it's just a fraction of the total cost
>> anyway), because they just pass the costs to the
>> employer. For the employer it has a value, if one can
>> see the company name on the badge. But someone from
>> nearby for example or tries to keep the travel costs
>> low and takes a holiday to attend FOSS4G, such a
>> discounted community ticket makes a difference,
>> whether the person is a charter member or not. I
>> think we should strengthen the value of the
>> community, not the "club" of charter members. ;-)
>> Daniel --
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Conference_dev mailing list
>> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org>
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Conference_dev mailing list
>> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org <mailto:Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org>
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/attachments/20140826/e0ad2144/attachment-0001.html>
More information about the Conference_dev
mailing list