[OSGeo-Conf] More Questions to Bucharest & Sevilla LOC's

Mon Dec 11 10:57:01 PST 2017

Dear Till,

We have been able to compile the answers sooner as expected. Thanks Paul,
Steven and Till for the questions!

You can find your answers on the wiki too:

   - *General remark: although I like the idea to write a story around the
   proposal, nevertheless, for me it seems unnecessary difficult to find
   single events and approach the structure. This maybe the cause for some
   questions, you already answered in your proposal...*

The idea to relate the Magellan and Elcano voyage was done to transmit the
importance that the landmark of the first circumnavigation can have to our
tribes and the general feeling in Spain. We apologize for any inconvenience
on the easy reading of the document. Please do not hesitate to ask
everything you don’t see clearly expressed in our proposal.

   - *the workshop fee of 110/160 seems slightly high (guess we had 80/100)
   or is it per day (w workshops)?*

It’s per workshop, but in our calculation, we assume that everybody will
pay 110€ (early bird) and we are offering additional 10% discount for
people registering to two sessions. It is true the price is higher than in
previous years, but we are providing a more complete service and a good
percentage of free fees to compensate those who will be in disadvantage for
this price change. Opposite to previous conferences, we are providing
computers to all attendees and lunch, so the real final price will be
cheaper for those who attend.

   - *the total calculation seems a bit risky to me (e. g. 1200
   participants, 40k surplus) - where are the levers that reduce your risk
   except to increase the participation fees?*

As we have stated in other questions, we have tried to be quite cautious
with planning the expenses, and our intention is to negotiate those prices
to put the costs down. We think we can make a bigger surplus for the same
number of attendees. We think that it is safer to calculate on higher costs
and lower profits at the beginning and then turn those numbers around.

In fact, part of the risk is already calculated on the budget as an added
percentage per cost. Profit that came from lowering the costs in the final
price will be revenue for OSGeo.

   - *Does Gala Dinner mean Gala Dinner or is it also somewhat socializing
   (I think this is an important point. If x hundred people are seperated by
   fixed seats on tables, socializing is difficult (I think the Gala Dinner of
   the 2010 Barcelona event is an example for what I fear, socializing took
   place in front of the door, not really inside)*

We fully agree with your thoughts about the need of socializing.
Intentionally the gala dinner is made in a format that allows exchange and
networking (cocktail). Although there will be many high tables and stools
or other type of chairs, (plus some contingency tables for people who need
it), there will always be people who have to stand. That doesn’t mean that
we’ll not enjoy very abundant and good quality food, nicely prepared as we
can expect from a Gala Dinner. The space we have chosen it’s a perfect
venue for this kind of dinner. The idea is to have a dynamic dinner, where
people moves around the food and beverage while socializing.

Please see also our previous answers regarding the dinner.

   - *In Bonn we shaped the Code Sprint around the conference. The idea
   was, to give the people the opportunity to work together, once they are in
   place anyhow. Do you see a chance for s.th <http://s.th>. similar for 2019?*

Having a CS during the whole week is not planned at this point, but we see
no reason not to do it. If there are enough developers interested in a
CodeSprint during the week, there is a building just in front of the venue
we can use for having a CodeSprint during the week. We have negotiated the
use of some of its rooms before for free for other events, as long as it is
something that contributes to the community and has no fee entry (as it is
the case). If the building is not available during the whole week, we can
try to look for other similar spaces close to the venue (less than 30
minutes walking) that we can use for free, as long as the CS is useful for
the community and is free (which, again, is the case).

We were preparing some of the smaller rooms as rest rooms so people can
work with their laptops if they want during the conference. And if the
weather is nice (which statistically is very probable), working on the
tables under the trees is also a nice option for developers who want to
work. So maybe there is no need for a specific room for the CS in a
different building? If the Conference Committee or the developers think it
is useful, we can arrange it. If for this extra space we want to add free
food, beverages or something extra than internet, a few tables and chairs,
then we will have to rearrange the budget to accomodate it (maybe some
special sponsor for this?). But a basic space for working could be arranged
easily for free, if there is a need for a specific space outside the venue,
which at this point, we think it won't be necessary as there will be space
on the same venue (although not explictly dedicated to the CS).

   -
      - *In chapt. 7.3. you write "We will try for students to engage on
      the codesprint so that they can learn how a codesprint works and interact
      with other developers [...]" - How will you do this, especially if the CS
      is only one day (which at least is quite enough for the people in the
      projects to say hello to each other)*

Our base goal for students in the CodeSprint is just to make them see how a
CS works. Even if they just sit there, see the interactions and learn how
to report/test bugs, that will be a success from our perspective.

Depending on how many volunteers to mentor those students we get (we will
look for local mentors to let OSGeo developers free to do their tasks), we
will be able to introduce those students to more complex tasks and even
maybe make them interested enough to repeat the experience themselves
later.

Our “hidden” goal here is to make students aware of FOSS4G, show them how
fun it is to collaborate and make them want to contribute later (or even
move their career paths to FOSS4G!).

Of course, the idea is to interrupt as less as possible the work of current
developers during the CodeSprint.

   - *Looking at your sponsor's list: I think it's kind of unfair only to
   plan to mention the top level sponsors and let them present in the plenum.
   My opinion: In the end the day is as follows: We are a community of small
   to mid-sized companies, that are often willing to sponsor our events. If we
   only give big visibility to the "big players", none of the companies, that
   comes from our own community, that actualy support our projects will be
   mentioned - in relation, 8k for Gold for a small company is much more
   money, than 20k for google (e.g.). So my question is: Are you planning to
   give also small/mid-sized companies, that sponsor the event, more visibilit*
   y?

This is something we can work further to make a very appealing sponsorship
deal. We agree with your considerations about SME’s. We will, of course,
give high visibility to all of our sponsors, each one according to the
level of sponsorship, be it through the logo in all of the venues banners,
electronic sites, through the programme, through our media associates, etc.

It is true that diamond, platinum and gold will have presence on the
plenary sessions, but we will allow silver and bronze to have presence in
the side tracks. This means we will allocate some time for them to present
their projects and goals.

There will also be more visibility through the Business to Business tracks.
We will reach sponsors first to check what their interests on B2B are to
try to match and make the conference profitable for them. One of our ideas
is to have coffee-bar like sessions on one of the smaller rooms (not one of
the nine parallel track rooms), where our sponsors can have a relaxed
meeting with some of their potential customers or partners or whatever
focus group is interesting to them. The details of each session will be
arranged with each sponsor. This is part of the "experimental gamification"
we are trying to introduce in FOSS4G to help people interact with each
other and make it more profitable for companies.

We thank you for your comments and we’ll give it a second thought to make
it attractive for all kind of sponsors.

On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 4:11 PM, María Arias de Reyna <delawen at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We already started to answer the questions from Paul and Steven on the
> wiki page. Your questions will have to wait until tomorrow.
>
> On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 2:57 PM, Till Adams <till.adams at fossgis.de> wrote:
> > Hi BLOC & SLOC,
> >
> > I've added my questions also on the WIKI [1] [2] pages.
> >
> > Please ensure to have your answers ready at least on Friday, 15th of
> > December! You might put them directly in place (which saves me a couple
> > of minutes in this fully packed week ;-))
> >
> >
> > Regards, Till
> >
> > [1]  https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2019_Q%26A_Full_
> Proposal_Bucharest
> >
> > [2] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2019_Q%26A_Full_Proposal_Sevilla
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Conference_dev mailing list
> > Conference_dev at lists.osgeo.org
> > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev
>
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