[OSGeo-Conf] Call to discuss FOSS4G 2017 proposals prior to voting

Michael Terner mgt at appgeo.com
Mon Nov 9 07:24:16 PST 2015


*Just posted the note below to the "Comments on Philadelphia proposal..."
thread, but it also covers some content in this thread...It's the same
exact text, but now in two places...*
*MT*
*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

OK, this thread (actually two threads) are moving really fast and while I
intended to have this post cover just the "Boston's story" perspective, I
do believe it is appropriate for Boston to comment on some of the other
issues that have been raised on the other "Call to discuss..." thread.

Philadelphia and Ottawa have told their story so it seems appropriate for
Boston to tell ours as well:

   - Boston has had a thriving "geo community" through various meetup
   groups (e.g. AvidGeo and Maptime) but has never had an OSGeo chapter.
   - Increasing numbers of people in the community have been to FOSS4G
   events (both global and North American) and have felt the energy.
   - Boston is known as a great "conference town" and has a somewhat unique
   blend of academia, government and high tech and we knew it could be a great
   venue.
   - Several of us began informal discussions to study the OSGeo selection
   process and to see what it would take to mount a bid.
   - To assess interest, and also to understand whether there were any
   dissenting opinions, we issued a broad-based letter of explanation and
   survey to the Boston geo community with the local meetup groups sharing
   their mailing lists. Our basic questions were: Is this a good idea? Could
   we get it done?
   - Over 100 people took the time to respond to the survey, and the
   response was overwhelming support and interest.
   - In the survey, we asked who would be interested in volunteering at the
   event and who would be interested in joining and "organizing committee".
   Through the survey we had 17 people volunteer to be on the Boston Location
   Organizing Committee (BLOC). Another 20 people relayed interest in
   "volunteering at the event" (if we were successful in bringing it to
   Boston).
   - We then conducted four BLOC planning meetings as we initially
   submitted the LOI and then built the full proposal. Inevitably, some people
   were not able to volunteer their time and did not make any of the planning
   meetings, and they were not included in the final BLOC. And, as described
   in the proposal we have a very strong and experienced BLOC and we also have
   BLOC members who have taken leadership on some of the sub-committees and
   wrote sections of the proposal document.
   - We had always planned to have a PCO and did some research on PCO's who
   had worked at other FOSS4G events in North America. During the process and
   as part of the Q&A on the LOI we were encouraged to look at *local* PCO's
   and we reached out to Delaney Meeting & Event Management. Cindy Delaney was
   excited by the prospect and volunteered some of her time to help us address
   key questions and to get good bids from hotels and conference venues. Many
   of us have known Cindy for a long time through her work with other New
   England-based geo events and she immediately added value to our team.
   - And then we submitted our proposal to host with a committed set of
   hands-on, local volunteers and a strong and experienced PCO.
   - We are ready for the next chapter of this story and we want to make
   both OSGeo and Boston proud. But, win, or lose, we know we have built a
   great team and put in a strong proposal and vision that we're all proud of.

While we agree there are some fundamental issues that the selection
committee faces (see below), we also ultimately agree that this is *not* just
about the kind of PCO that helps with 2017. We know that Boston is one of
three very strong proposals that were prepared with great thought, care and
effort. The proposals deserve close reads and scrutiny across the full
variety of ideas presented.

Now, we'd like to raise a couple of questions/comments on two things that
Robert has brought up and also on Andrea's latest comment to the thread.

1. *Volunteer fatigue:* I've seen that mentioned several times - Robert
uses the term "burned out volunteers" - but can that be taken as universal
fact? Perhaps Boston is idealistic, but that's not necessarily what we've
observed and several of us have served in various capacities on volunteer
driven conferences. There's no doubt that the amount of work that goes into
a conference takes a toll, but from our vantage there are many positive
residual effects on the hosting community. Indeed, one of the drivers in
Boston pursuing the event is to strengthen our geo open source community
for the long haul. In addition, we see continued, significant volunteerism
from many, many people (including most on the "conference_dev" list) who
have participated in running past conferences. As we see it, the lesson
learned is that a strong PCO *is required* to help with the logistics and
take some of the load off of the LOC itself. Indeed, all three 2017
proposals have such a PCO partner.

2. *2016 FOSS4G North America bids: *As has been observed, FOSS4GNA has a
very different (and new) structure, and also for 2016 a very different
venue selection process (i.e., no LOI, no proposals from interested host
cities). I would guess I may not be the only one who was a little surprised
to read that: "Philadelphia worked with LocationTech to put together a bid
for the FOSS4G-North America 2016 event and was short-listed." Indeed, no
bids were solicited from anyone except from hotel/conference venues that
Location Tech identified (there is an extensive thread on this subject on
the foss4gna_selection listserve [Google group]). Rather, as per the
process, Location Tech conducted an "venue RFP" and then announced the
short-list based on their *internal* decision making (without receiving
proposals from LOCs). Indeed, many people in Raleigh - ultimately, the
winning location - were unaware they were even being considered until the
short-list was announced by Location Tech. I don't doubt at all the
Philadelphia and Location Tech worked together on the Philadelphia "bid", I
just think it needs to be acknowledged it was a very different kind of bid,
and process (i.e., there's no Raleigh or Philadelphia "proposal document"
from an LOC).

3. In Andrea's recent post there seems to be an implied assertion that only
Location Tech can potentially *broaden the conference* to include other
participants. Indeed, it was acknowledged that this has happened to some
degree already with the current model. The FOSS4G agenda is *not* only
about FOSS4G projects. In addition, the Boston proposal talks extensively
about "broadening" participation including specific outreach activities
aimed at the Boston/New England startup and technology (non-geo)
communities. The point is, this is a choice for OSGeo and the Philadelphia
and Ottawa proposals are not necessarily the only way to attract new
participants and sponsors to FOSS4G.


Again, best of luck in the call today, and in the voting over the week to
come...

MT & the BLOC

On Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 9:58 AM, Venkatesh Raghavan <venka.osgeo at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On 2015/11/09 10:44, Dave McIlhagga wrote:
>
>> HI Guido,
>>
>> Thank you for the good question.
>>
>
> Agree. My other comment at the end of the mail.
>
>>
>> First of all I should point out that the $90,000 cost is an at-cost fee
>> for provision of these services. Keep in mind they will be doing a lot of
>> the open source geospatial leg work that is often handled by the LOC
>> volunteers, such as sponsorship recruitment, marketing activities, program
>> logistics support, etc...
>>
>> In addition, they have agreed to financially backstop the event, ie. put
>> up any of the seed funds required to move this forward, and cover
>> shortfalls in the worse case that this should take place.
>>
>> I think the best way to think of this is:
>>
>> 1. The 90,000 is to cover the internal labour costs for LT to provide
>> these services, so that the organization will at least be cost-neutral in
>> providing these PCO services
>> 2. The LT visibility items are compensation for putting up seed funding,
>> and financial insurance.
>>
>>
>> Another way to think about it — it’s just a good way for two open source
>> geospatial organizations to give each other a hand.
>>
>
> Dave, thanks for putting it in another way.
> Two open source geospatial organizations giving each other a hand is
> great, but giving 90,000USD to the other to hold hands beats my logic.
>
> Best
>
> Venka
>
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> Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
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>



-- 
*Michael Terner*
*Executive Vice President*
617-447-2468 Direct | 617-447-2400 Main
Applied Geographics, Inc.
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Boston, MA 02108
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