<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=iso-8859-1"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I think Barend's suggestion of a two year scheme (regional in year X, global in year Y) deserves some more discussion / attention.<div><br></div><div>Personally I can see the benefits of this scheme (no big competition from large regional conferences in the global year).<br><div><br></div><div>Also, does OsGeo currently get money out of the big regional conferences (such as FOSS4G-CEE and FOSS4G-NA)?<br><div><br></div><div>Best regards,</div><div>Bart</div><div><br><div apple-content-edited="true">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; ">-- <br>Bart van den Eijnden<br>OSGIS - <a href="http://osgis.nl">http://osgis.nl</a></span>
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<br><div><div>On Apr 15, 2013, at 11:34 AM, <a href="mailto:b.j.kobben@utwente.nl">b.j.kobben@utwente.nl</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Hia ll,<br><br>I am not a board member nor a conference committee member, but I feel an<br>urgent need to give my opinion here.<br><br>I grow uncomfortable by some of the trends that seem to "logically follow"<br>(note the quotes, and yes I am exaggerating on purpose) from this<br>discussion:<br>1)- FOSS4G events are there to make money<br>2)- non NA/Europe events don't make (enough) money<br>3)- non NA/Europe events get badly organized (see Beijng)<br><br>Proposition 1 already makes me feel itchy. How can you 'charge' FOSS4G<br>main event organizers with being a cash cow ("expecting a $50K profit") if<br>at the same time encouraging (allowing?) other events to be organised that<br>almost certainly will cannabilise the main event (Foss4G-NA, FOSS4g CEE)<br>on which events you put no obligation to make money? I think we need a<br>two-year cycle: one year the main conference and other years regional ones<br>(i.e. ones actively supported by OSGEO "central", what the regional<br>chapters do on their own is their own responsibility).<br><br>Proposition 2 is touching a nerve because I work at an institute that is<br>about capacity building for lesser developed countries. I think part of<br>OSGEO is promoting the use of FOSS, and bringing knowledge and experience<br>and enthousiasm about that to the places in the world that would profit<br>most from it is a good cause that is worth doing even if it brings you<br>less or no money. By all means subsidize the LDC meetings with profits<br>from the Europe/NA ones. Call me a specialist, but I prefer some<br>solidarity in this...<br><br>Proposition 3 is plain not true. The South Africa FOSS4G was excellent in<br>my opinion, the Beijng one failed because of insufficient control<br>mechanisms (either in place or just not followed up on) to check on a<br>local organisation that chooses to do its own thing completely independent<br>of 'OSGEO central'. Could have happened with self-centered stubborn Dutch<br>organizers just as well, and certainly at least part of the blame should<br>be on the 'OSGEO central' shoulders...<br><br>Yours truly,<br><br>--<br>Barend Köbben <br>Senior Lecturer, ITC - University of Twente,<br>Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation<br>PO Box 217, 7500AE Enschede (The Netherlands)<br><br><br><br><br>On 13-04-13 14:30, "Cameron Shorter" <<a href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite">Frank,<br>I agree that a compelling proposal should include meeting foss4g<br>financial expectations.<br><br>For the record, the last board meeting discussed changing guidelines for<br>foss4g budgets from expecting a $20K profit under conservative estimates,<br>to a $50K profit. (This would typically result in a $100K+ profit under<br>expected conditions).<br><br>David Bitner, pointed out that a $100K profit spread across 1000<br>attendees equates to $100 extra per delegate, which is a good point, but<br>should be tempered against the variability of FOSS4G attendees, and the<br>high impact on profits this has. Looking back at<br>an old foss4g budget, I extrapolated some profit figures:<br><br>Attendees: Profit<br>1000: $58K<br>900: $35K<br>800: $11K<br>700: -$11K<br>600: -$35K<br>500: -$58K<br><br>While I made some gross generalisations in my extrapolation, the take<br>home message is that fixed costs of a large conference such as FOSS4G are<br>very high, and consequently, a small percentage increase or decrease in<br>attendance has high impact on profitability.<br>So if we want to ensure a worst case scenario of 500 delegates will break<br>even, then we should expect to make a $110K profit for an expected<br>attendance of 1000.<br><br>On 13/04/13 08:10, Frank Warmerdam wrote:<br><br><br>Cameron,<br><br><br>I feel this question ties into the expected revenue to some degree. I'm<br>personally fine with your suggestion with the caveat that we should<br>expect a "compelling proposal" to meet our revenue generation guidelines<br>which is (IMHO) going to be hard<br>to do if aim for $50K revenue in the conservative case.<br><br><br>I'm also fairly flexible on this who issue, but I *feel* like every time<br>we have a revenue discussion we come up with one set of conclusions, but<br>somehow we fail to actually apply those conclusion when setting<br>requirements for the conference.<br><br><br>Best regards,<br>Frank<br><br><br><br><br><br>On Fri, Apr 12, 2013 at 2:24 PM, Cameron Shorter<br><<a href="mailto:cameron.shorter@gmail.com">cameron.shorter@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br>In the last board meeting, the question was raised about global FOSS4G<br>rotation.<br><br>we currently have a 3 way rotation policy: Europe 2013 / North America<br>2014 / Rest of world 2015<br><br>It has been suggested that we should revisit this rotation policy, and<br>consider:<br><br>Europe / North America / Europe / North America<br><br>Reasons:<br>* Previous global FOSS4G events have attracted more people and been more<br>lucrative in Europe / North America<br>* Europe/North America could be argued to be less financially risky. Our<br>one cancelled FOSS4G was in China in 2012.<br>* FOSS4G (global and regional) events traditionally draw half their<br>attendance from the local region. Europe and North America both have<br>large populations with established OSGeo communities.<br><br>I'm in favour of continuing our current 3 way rotation, on the proviso<br>that there are proven OSGeo communities outside of NA/Europe. By proven,<br>I'd suggest that we would consider regions which have already<br>successfully staged a FOSS4G regional event (or similar)<br>and who can put together a compelling justification that they can<br>attract comparable attendees and sponsors to Europe/North America.<br><br>Looking at: <br><a href="http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History">http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History</a><br><http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_History><br>I see that there have previously been regional FOSS4G events in:<br>Argentina<br>India<br>Korea<br>Malaysia<br>Japan<br><br>So for 2015, I'd suggest that our FOSS4G pre qualification should invite<br>responses from "rest of the world" and Europe, but we should give a<br>preference to "rest of world" assuming they can provide a compelling<br>proposal which is likely to attract similar success<br>to past European and North American conferences.<br><br>Generalising the rule. Our rotation policy should be:<br><br>* We give a strong preference to a region which hasn't had FOSS4G for 2<br>years<br>* We next consider the region which had FOSS4G 2 years ago<br>* Only as a last resort would we consider a region which had FOSS4G last<br>year<br><br>Regions are considered as: Europe / North America / Other locations<br><br>-- <br>Cameron Shorter<br>Geospatial Solutions Manager<br>Tel: <br>+61 (0)2 8570 5050 <tel:%2B61%20%280%292%208570%205050><br>Mob: <br>+61 (0)419 142 254 <tel:%2B61%20%280%29419%20142%20254><br><br>Think Globally, Fix Locally<br>Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source<br>http://www.lisasoft.com<br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Board mailing list<br>Board@lists.osgeo.org<br>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>-- <br>---------------------------------------+----------------------------------<br>----<br>I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam,<br>warmerdam@pobox.com <mailto:warmerdam@pobox.com><br>light and sound - activate the windows |<br>http://pobox.com/~warmerdam <http://pobox.com/%7Ewarmerdam><br>and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Software Developer<br><br><br><br><br><br>-- <br>Cameron Shorter<br>Geospatial Solutions Manager<br>Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050<br>Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254<br><br>Think Globally, Fix Locally<br>Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source<br>http://www.lisasoft.com<br></blockquote><br>_______________________________________________<br>Conference_dev mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org">Conference_dev@lists.osgeo.org</a><br>http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference_dev<br></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></body></html>