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<p>The international FOSS4G 2012 conference, which was scheduled to
be held in Beijing in Sept 2012, <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2012-July/010519.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">was cancelled</a>. This has
been a disappointing setback for our OSGeo community, and here I
proposed to capture some of the key events which lead up to this
cancellation, and with our hind site perspective, identify areas
we can change to make future conferences more resilient and
successful.
</p>
<p>The intent is to start this conversation on the <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">OSGeo Conference email list</a>,
then move to the <a
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2012_Lessons_Learned"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">FOSS4G 2012 Lessons Learned</a>
wiki page as ideas start to consolidate.
</p>
<p>I'd like to start out by laying out some discussion ground rules.
In particular, please avoid letting this discussion break into a
witch hunt, or blame game. Remember that almost all people
involved in FOSS4G 2012 were volunteers, giving of their precious
time freely. Instead, please identify an event or decision,
discuss the implications of the event, and ideally follow up with
some recommendations on what we can do in future.<br>
</p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline" id="Host_City_Selection">Host City
Selection</span></h2>
<p>Prior to 2012, OSGeo's Conference Committee had agreed to a 3
year rotation for the location of FOSS4G conferences, which went:
</p>
<ul>
<li> Europe (2010)
</li>
<li> North America (2011)
</li>
<li> Rest of the world (2012)
</li>
<li> Europe ...
</li>
</ul>
<p>The bid process involves cities providing a light, 2 page,
"Letter of Intent", followed by a comprehensive bid if the "Letter
of Intent" was approved. However by Letter of Intent deadline for
FOSS4G 2012 there were <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001285.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">no Letters of Intent</a>.
The deadline was extended, and Letters of intent were <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001295.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">received</a> from Rome
(Europe), Prague (Europe), Hanoi (Asia), and a <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001319.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">late entry</a> from Beijing
(Asia).
</p>
<p>This was <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-July/001339.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">summarised</a> by OSGeo
Conference chair,
</p>
<dl>
<dd> What happened is that we did not receive any submissions
before the initial deadline, and then we opened the bidding to
all areas, and then we received 1 submission from the desired
region and 2 from Europe, and then a second late submission from
the desired region.
</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dd> My opinion is that the stated desired region is in fact still
the desired region, and that all OSGeo conference committee
members should keep this information in their head as they vote.
(meaning: all 4 letters are an option for this voting stage, but
the preferred region is 'anywhere other than NA or Europe')
</dd>
</dl>
<p>In the end, only Prague [Europe] and Beijing [desired region]
submitted a full FOSS4G bid, and when it came to a final vote, the
OSGeo Conference committee <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-August/001394.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">was</a> <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-August/001398.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">split</a> between a bid
from a more experience team in Prague, and following OSGeo's
established rotation with Beijing. In retrospect, we should have
put more emphasis on selecting the experienced FOSS4G team.
</p>
<p>As has been noted by some [ref?], European and North American
conferences have traditionally attracted more delegates and
sponsors, which makes these conferences:
</p>
<ol>
<li> More financially profitable
</li>
<li> Less financially risky
</li>
<li> Reach more people (although not necessarily reaching more
regions)
</li>
</ol>
<p>As we move forward, we may wish to favour selection of committees
and cities with prior experience of holding local or regional
FOSS4G events before being awarded an international event.
</p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline" id="Competing_regional_conferences">Competing
regional conferences</span></h2>
<p>In 2011, major regional conferences started in both Europe and
North America, which competed for international FOSS4G attendance,
along with some FOSS4G conferences from the region. It was debated
whether OSGeo should support and encourage these new regional
conferences, knowing that they would have an <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2012-January/010015.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">impact</a> on attendance at
Beijing.
</p>
<p>As explain by in a <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2011-October/001540.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">post</a> by the Chair of
the OSGeo Board: </p>
<dl>
<dd> From all that I can tell, now FOSS4G Beijing will become a
local conference with support from "OSGeo international". This
and no more. It will not be the Global or World conference that
FOSS4G was before because we will have a FOSS4G CEE and FOSS4G
North America event (plus the regular local ones) in the same
year. There is no chance at all that Beijing can attract the
same vibrant global participation that we had at the last global
FOSS4G conferences.
</dd>
<dd> The question is not whether we will have a FOSS4G in Beijing
or CEE or North America. From all that I can tell we will have
them all. There is no reason (and probably no way) to stop the
North American or CEE initiative or both. Instead it is great to
see so much interest and momentum - and we would be stupid to
stifle it.
</dd>
</dl>
<p>Competing regional conferences included:
</p>
<ul>
<li> October 2012, INTERGEO 2012
</li>
<li> October 2012, Smart Korea 2012 in conjunction with OGC TC/PC
Meeting
</li>
<li> October 12, 2012, FOSS4G Korea 2012
</li>
<li> October 2012, GISSA conference
</li>
<li> September 2012, Asia GeoSpatial Forum
</li>
<li> 5 September 2012 Open Source GIS Conference (OSGIS)
</li>
<li> August 2012, 34th International Geological Conference
</li>
<li> 18-19 July 2012, FOSS4G Southeast Asia
</li>
<li> July 2012, Third Open Source GIS Summer School
</li>
<li> July 2012, International Environmental Modeling and Software
Society Conference (IEMSS)
</li>
<li> July 2012, AGIT
</li>
<li> June 30 - July 1, 2012, FOSS4G Hokkaido 2012
</li>
<li> June 2012, useR! The International R User Conference
</li>
<li> June 28, 2012, OSGeo.nl Day (FOSS4G Regional) within
MapWindow Conference - The Netherlands
</li>
<li> May 2012, FOSS4G-CEE & Geoinformatics 2012
</li>
<li> May 2012, FOSSCOMM 2012
</li>
<li> May 2012, HellasGI 2012
</li>
<li> April 2012, COMEM OGO course :: Webmapping with OGC standards
</li>
<li> April 2012, Geospatial World Forum 2012
</li>
<li> 23 April 2012, FOSS4G North America 2012
</li>
</ul>
<p>Source: <a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History"
class="external free" rel="nofollow">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History</a>
</p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline"
id="Local_Organising_Committee_experience">Local Organising
Committee experience</span></h2>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline"
id="Lack_of_Professional_Conference_Organisor">Lack of
Professional Conference Organisor</span></h3>
<p>The Local Organising Committee (LOC) had teamed with a
Professional Conference Organisor (PCO), starting from the bidding
for the FOSS4G 2011 conference. However, the PCO stepped back from
engaging for the FOSS4G conference. The LOC were then unsuccessful
in trying to sign up a new <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-July/000083.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">PCO</a>.
</p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Loosing_key_LOC_members">Loosing
key LOC members</span></h3>
<p>One of the key FOSS4G LOC members, Professor Yu, passed away
shortly after Beijing was awarded the conference. This was very
unfortunate, both on a personal level, and organisation level.
</p>
<p>Loss of key committee members is reasonably common (although
usually people step down for various reasons, rather than pass
away). For instance, a key FOSS4G-Sydney evangelist, who promoted
the Sydney event at prior FOSS4G conferences, stepped back and
didn't attend Sydney's FOSS4G 2009. The original FOSS4G-Devar 2011
chair had to <a
href="http://geothought.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">stand down</a> for personal
reasons shortly after the bid was accepted. These examples
highlight the need for organizing committees to have strength in
depth, and in particular to have a backup plan if the conference
chair has to step down. This was a question that was asked of the
Nottingham FOSS4G 2013 contenders, who have two backups to the
conference chair, as well as a committee with strength in depth
overall.
</p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Decision_Making">Decision Making</span></h3>
<p>A conference chair is asked to make many decisions related to the
conference, and the majority of the time, there is no clear
understanding about the benefits or downsides of each option.
Usually the only sure thing is that not making a decision will be
detrimental to the conference. Consequently, it is important for
LOCs to become quick and efficient at analyzing possibilities and
then making decisions.
</p>
<p>From what I can gather, the Beijing LOC would have benefited from
being more efficient in making decisions. For instance, in
mid-November 2012 the <a href="http://live.osgeo.org"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">OSGeo-Live</a> community
asked the LOC to commit to distributing OSGeo-Live DVDs at the
Beijing conference. The LOC took almost 3 months to <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-February/000014.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">confirm they would support
this</a>. Other conferences usually provide such confirmation
within a week, often within a day or two.
</p>
<p>I suspect delays related to decisions would have contributed to
schedule slipages. The lesson here is that LOC's should be
structured and resourced such that they can make decisions
efficiently. A prior conference chair extended this observation to
note the importance of the conference chair:
</p>
<dl>
<dd> [A key lesson is the] importance of an active LOC and even
more importantly an active CHAIR. Committees don't move, they
can't communicate, they can't move. People can, so an active
CHAIR is the single critical ingredient. And the more that
person in invested in both organizing and communicating the
event, the better it will be.
</dd>
</dl>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Schedule_slip">Schedule slip</span></h3>
<p>As the deadline for the FOSS4G conference approached, there was
significant <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-May/001763.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">schedule slip</a> on key
milestones, such as the ability to accept conference papers. This
was providing a visible indication of some of the other issues
listed on this analysis.
</p>
<p>I think the lesson here is quite simple. Make sure there is an
appropriately resourced project manager responsible for managing
the conference schedule. (This task is usually provided by a PCO).
</p>
<p>A second issue is that although OSGeo had identified concerns
with FOSS4G Beijing's progress reasonably early, intervention from
OSGeo was late in coming. A prior FOSS4G chair noted:
</p>
<dl>
<dd> We need to put harder stops in place to short circuit
failure. If you don't have a call for workshops out by February,
[serious questions are asked, such as should the conference be
cancelled?]. If you don't have $30K in sponsorship in place by
April, [serious questions]. If you don't have a call for papers
out by May, [serious questions]. This [FOSS4G 2012 conference]
dragged out longer than it should of because there were no hard
stop points.
</dd>
</dl>
<p>During the build up to FOSS4G Beijing, one of the key volunteers
on OSGeo conference committee, who had previously been very
active, was showing signs of burnout and was not contributing to
his prior levels. This left a noticeable hole in the OSGeo
conference committee which was not filled by another volunteer.
The OSGeo Conference committee had previously provided checks on
conferences, such as reviewing and approving the conference's
budget and submitting to the OSGeo board for approval, however
this didn't happen for the FOSS4G Beijing conference.
</p>
<p>What are the lesson's here? It may be that the critical role of
approving finances should be covered by a paid position, funded by
profits of FOSS4G conferences. Something like this was considered
as described by the following section ...
</p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="No_mentor">No mentor</span></h3>
<p>A <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2011-November/009180.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">proposal</a> was put to the
OSGeo board, which was eventually approved, to have an experienced
FOSS4G mentor support the Beijing Local Organising Committee. (A
funded mentor was not provided to previous conferences). This
proposal <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2012-January/009364.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">fell through</a>, and
although a some prior FOSS4G chairs were approached (and others?),
a replacement mentor was not found.
</p>
<p>This left the Beijing FOSS4G LOC committee without some key
expertise which could have been very valuable.
</p>
<p>What is the lesson here? I think this was a good idea which fell
through, and is worth pursuing again in future.
</p>
<h2> <span class="mw-headline" id="Communication"> Communication </span></h2>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Language_barrier">Language
barrier</span></h3>
<p>From what I understand, Beijing LOC were most comfortable
speaking in Chinese, and had varying levels of experience with
English. I observed that finding the right English words to
support a conversation and convey important messages was a time
consuming task, often involving decisions being made in Chinese,
then translated to English. This communication overhead would have
produced a significant workload on the LOC, who were already
working on the difficult and time consuming task of running a
FOSS4G conference.
</p>
<p>I believe this communication gap also contributed to many of the
other symptoms discussed here. Slow communication between the LOC
and community would have:
</p>
<ul>
<li> Contributed toward slow responses to community queries,
hindering the international community contributing prior
experience toward the LOC,
</li>
<li> Slowed decisions from the LOC resulting in schedule slip,
</li>
<li> Caused difficulties getting the quality control of the
website correct,
</li>
<li> and reduced marketing and communication to potential
international delegates.
</li>
</ul>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Cultural_Differences">Cultural
Differences</span></h3>
<p>I question whether cultural differences contributed to
communication shortfalls. From my observations, it seems Chinese
are more circumspect about sending public communication, often
waiting for review from a superior before making a statement. This
contracts with open source communities I've observed, where many
opinions are discussed publicly, both amongst senior and junior
developers, until a rough consensus is reached.
</p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Collective_Knowledge">Collective
Knowledge</span></h3>
<p>I believe our experience with this conference highlights how much
of our collective FOSS4G knowledge is stored in volunteers' heads,
and is passed between different events through our various
communication channels. When we constrict information flow by
introducing a language barrier, we have also constricted access to
our knowledge on how to run a conference.
</p>
<p>A few suggestions on ways to address this include:
</p>
<ol>
<li> Collect our conference running knowledge in a central source,
that can be handed on without the high level of communication
currently being used. In particular, I'm suggesting starting to
collect our processes in a <a
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_Cookbook"
title="FOSS4G Cookbook">FOSS4G Cookbook</a> or similar.
</li>
<li> Set up a permanent FOSS4G coordinator role (one person, or an
international PCO, or similar) who are responsible for
coordinating conferences and personally remembering lessons
learned between conferences. (Note the risk of this person
resigning and loosing all collected knowledge)
</li>
<li> Alternatively, ensure key members in the LOC can communicate
fluently with the rest of the OSGeo community. In most cases at
the moment, this would mean speaking fluently in English.
</li>
</ol>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Response_to_emails">Response to
emails</span></h3>
<p>There were a number of comments that I was privately CCed on
which indicated that the international community were not
receiving responses after emailing the LOC. Here are some
examples:
</p>
<dl>
<dd> As I've told you before it has been frustrating to me to not
receive any feedback from the LOC on my offer to sponsor the
event. I basically had the plan to come with my whole team (5
people now), but can't afford such investment considering the
state the conference and participation levels are at now. In
fact we have moved focus to the Nottingham event just after
Beijing because it appears to be (1) better organized (but that
may just appear like it due to the lack of communication from
Beijing, (2) an audience that is of interest to [company name]
and (3) cheaper / closer to home.
</dd>
</dl>
<p>Another from the <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-January/000006.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">academic lead</a>, who
later stepped down:
</p>
<dl>
<dd> ... [regarding email responses] from two "important players"
I have had no feedback, namely from the local organizers and
from OSGEO.
</dd>
</dl>
<p>I think the lesson here is that the LOC and PCO should be
suitably motivated and resourced, and be provided with enough
delegation to respond to all community queries promptly. Every
query should be responded to within one working day, even if the
response is "we will have an answer to you after the LOC meets
next week".
</p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Website_out_of_date">Website out
of date</span></h3>
<p>A conference's website is the primary form of communication with
potential delegates. For FOSS4G 2012, the website took an
excessively long time to be developed and brought online, and then
when it was brought online, it contained <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-February/000016.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">incorrect information and
broken links</a> (mainly <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-March/000018.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">cut and paste from the
prior FOSS4G website</a>). People were having significant issues
with submitting papers and <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-June/001843.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">registering to attend</a>.
</p>
<p>The FOSS4G LOC had hired an external web developer to create the
website, who had done a poor job of development. It seemed that
there was a lack of quality control from both the web developer,
and LOC. In the past, development of the website has either been
managed by technically experienced developers (as was the case in
2009), or by the PCO.
</p>
<p>The lesson here is that the website needs to be made a priority
and suitably resourced. There is the potential for website
management software to be passed on from one conference to the
next. (We considered this option in 2009 but found the Open Source
conference management software used by FOSS4G 2008 was not going
to integrate easily with the software our PCO was using). It would
be worth future FOSS4G conferences revisiting this question.
</p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Minimal_.22buzz.22">Minimal
"buzz"</span></h3>
<p>To a certain extent, a conference is successful because the LOC
says it is going to be successful (and potential attendees and
sponsors believe the statement). Presenters and sponsors attend
the conference because they believe there will be lots of
delegates, and delegates attend because they believe there will be
lots of quality presenters and sponsors. And one of the most
effective ways for everyone to be convinced of the conference's
success is to create lots of "buzz". Ie, lots of press releases,
articles, blogs, twitter discussion and more talking about how
good the conference is going to be.
</p>
<p>FOSS4G 2009 possibly went a little too far by putting out <a
href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Press_Releases"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">41 press releases</a>.
However, FOSS4G Beijing could certainly have benefited from more
"Buzz", as the OSGeo Board Chair <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-May/001763.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">noted</a>:
</p>
<dl>
<dd> on the website at <a href="http://2012.foss4g.org/"
class="external free" rel="nofollow">http://2012.foss4g.org/</a>
there is still no option for submitting abstracts although the
submission has been opened - apparently without notice to any of
the regular OSGeo channels. Workshops submission ends in two
weeks.
</dd>
<dd> No international speakers have been announced and there are
only Chinese sponsors listed (although interest by regulars was
documented as early as December 2012).
</dd>
</dl>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline"
id="Engaging_international_organisors">Engaging international
organisors</span></h3>
<p>Compared to prior international FOSS4G events, there was minimal
international involvement in organising the FOSS4G event. Of
particular concern was that the international academic track lead
<a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-February/001646.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">announced</a>
</p>
<dl>
<dd> ... that I regret [the LOC] did not fully support the setup I
proposed. Specifically, the LOC insists on using their own
deadlines and reviewing and publication plan. Of course they
have every right to do so, because it is in fact their
conference...
</dd>
</dl>
<p>There is a significant amount of work involved in organising a
conference, and it is very valuable to share tasks with the
international community. This has two key benefits:
</p>
<ul>
<li> It allows the LOC to focus on the local issues (like sorting
out the venue)
</li>
<li> It facilitates knowledge transfer between years, as roles
like the Academic track lead are often coordinated by the same
core people over a number of years.
</li>
</ul>
<p>So lesson here is look for opportunities to make use of the
international community to coordinate specific areas of the
conference.
</p>
<h3> <span class="mw-headline" id="Weekly_meetings">Weekly meetings</span></h3>
<p>Less than 3 months before FOSS4G 2012 was due, <a
href="http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g2012/2012-June/000077.html"
class="external text" rel="nofollow">weekly meetings</a> were
started between volunteers from the international community and
the LOC. I understand that the LOC were having meetings
internally, but there was little visibility of them from the
international community. The extra meetings facilitated
transparency from the international community into the progress of
the LOC, which in turn provided opportunities for the
international community to volunteer to help. Eventually, with the
help of these weekly meetings it was assessed that the level of
effort required to bring the conference back on track, along with
the likely outcome, resulted in a decision to cancel the
conference.
</p>
<p>In retrospect, these meetings should have started much earlier,
ideally from the start of the conference planning a year or so
earlier such that support from the international community could
have made a better impact in the earlier stages. So lesson hear is
start having periodic meetings from early in the planning cycle,
and invite the international community to participate if you can.
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.lisasoft.com">http://www.lisasoft.com</a>
</pre>
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