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<p>Here is something you probably wouldn't expect a past FOSS4G
chair to say:</p>
<p>"Financially speaking, FOSS4G is not worth it."</p>
<p>Yes, that is what I believe.<br>
</p>
<p>For most people, the return-on-investment of attending an
international conference such as FOSS4G doesn't justify attending.</p>
<p>There extensive tourism budgets promoting conferences. These add
to our own secret desires to travel, meet and network. And it
leads to an over-inflated value the public places on international
conferences.<br>
</p>
<p>The majority of participants, (or their companies) are being
duped.</p>
<p>Almost all information presented at conferences is readily
accessible online. In fact, most FOSS4G events are recorded and
the rest of the world can watch the recordings from home. A
conference is a very expensive medium for one-to-many presentation
styles.</p>
<p>For the presenters, yes it is prestigious to present at an
international conference. But you can also present at a local
event, get recorded, put your video on you-tube. If it is good,
you will find people watch it. Paul Ramsey's presentation "The
Unknowns: A Managers Guide to Open Source" [1] has been viewed
close to 4000 times, which is more than any FOSS4G event he
presented at.</p>
<p>* There is a stronger business case for workshops where there is
a chance for one-on-one attention from a teacher. However, there
are cost effective alternatives. It is more efficient to ship one
trainer to a classroom of attendees rather than visa-versa. This
can be made more efficient by grouping workshops into local
events. And for the more technically savvy, there are Massive
Online Open Courses (MOOCs), presented over the web. <br>
</p>
<p>* Face-to-face meetings, small birds-of-a-feather meetings and
code-sprints is what I think is most valuable at a conference. It
is hard to replicate the effectiveness of such meetings on email,
IRC or skype calls. But these face-to-face meetings are not
essential. I haven't met most of you on this conference committee
list, and yet I feel like I have a personal connection with each
of you, through our email conversations. I've been one of the
coordinators of the OSGeo-Live project since it started, and
haven't met most of the core developers in person. In fact, I
haven't even heard the voice of most. And yet we have a successful
and sustainable project.<br>
</p>
<p>* On a different note: The environmental impact of an
international flight is significant. An international return trip
creates 2 to 3 tonnes of CO2 per traveler. (An average European
creates ~ 10 tonnes of CO2 per year) [2]. As a geographic
community we should be more aware than most of the impact of
climate change, and as a community we should be considering ways
to reduce international travel.<br>
</p>
<p>* But FOSS4G is an awesome, personally rewarding experience,
where you get to meet many inspiring people in an exotic location,
without being distracted by work or family. If OSGeo is your
passion, you will personally love FOSS4G. If you measure it on a
personal level, as you would measure the value of a holiday, then
you can build a compelling reason to travel around the word to
attend.</p>
<p>Lets consider these points when assessing the cost, value and
price of a conference.</p>
<p>Cheers, Cameron<br>
</p>
[1] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUgiG6eaYtI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUgiG6eaYtI</a><br>
[2]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/sunday-review/the-biggest-carbon-sin-air-travel.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/sunday-review/the-biggest-carbon-sin-air-travel.html</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/2/17 4:25 am, Paul Ramsey wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CACowWR11RmE5Fu6K6+CKZKcE9JSHbw6DAJv1bXrnaxJ36T5S8Q@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Small, low-frills events held at academic venues
may indeed be more financially accessible, but they also don't
tend to throw off $100K in profits to fund the operations of
their parent organizations. There is a whole other set of
variables being ignore in this reductive discussion of admission
fees.
<div><br>
P.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 8:58 AM, <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:b.j.kobben@utwente.nl" target="_blank">b.j.kobben@utwente.nl</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">One
option not mentioned yet is to cap the conference
attendance to max 500 or so, then you can find conference
facilities in universities (and possibly even also
accommodation there), making it possible to have very
"accessible" conference fees.<br>
<br>
I am not saying I particularly favour this option, and
there are many questions (eg. on how to cap -- first come
first served?) but it is a possible way to bring costs
down...<br>
<br>
--<br>
Barend Köbben<br>
<div>
<div class="h5"><br>
<br>
On 09/02/17 17:48, "Conference_dev on behalf of Steven
Feldman" <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:conference_dev-bounces@lists.osgeo.org">conference_dev-bounces@lists.<wbr>osgeo.org</a>
on behalf of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:shfeldman@gmail.com">shfeldman@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Venka<br>
<br>
<br>
You and others often suggest that a lower fee
would attract more participation - that will mainly
apply to people travelling from within the region as
based on your own numbers for an out of region
delegate a saving of $180 represents a 7.5% reduction<br>
(in region it is likely to be about 15%)<br>
<br>
<br>
We go round and round on this subject of delegate
fees - we can decide to set the limit for an early
bird for 2019 in Europe at $500 and then determine<br>
1) whether any acceptable bids are forthcoming and<br>
2) subsequently whether the lower registration fee
results in higher attendance from those who had been
unable to attend at £650.<br>
<br>
<br>
Personally I doubt that we will get bids for
anything that we would recognise as a FOSS4G Global at
$500 registration unless the organisers can get a
massive boost in sponsorship in advance of submitting
a bid (as Dar es Salaam did with the World<br>
Bank sponsorship).<br>
<br>
<br>
The scope for an LOC to offer travel bursaries is
likely to be reduced if they are working with smaller
budgets due to lower delegate rates.<br>
<br>
<br>
The RfP for 2019 will start in September of this
year, just after FOSS4G closes. I look forward to the
discussion on pricing and ultimately the vote in the
CC before we issue a revised RfP.<br>
______<br>
Steven<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 9 Feb 2017, at 14:29, Venkatesh Raghavan <<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:venka.osgeo@gmail.com">venka.osgeo@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
My<br>
trip to FOSS4G-Bonn cost me 1500USD for
air-tickets, 630USD<br>
(early<br>
bird Including gala dinner) for registration and
250USD<br>
(for<br>
7 nights) for sharing a nice little house with
Gerald and<br>
Nick.<br>
<br>
All<br>
this was paid through my project budget. For
example, had the<br>
early<br>
registration been 180USD cheaper (450USD
@150USD/day), I<br>
could<br>
have sent three of my students to make FOSS4G
related presentation at local conferences.<br>
<br>
So<br>
I do not understand the logic that high
registration<br>
fee<br>
is only a "small" fraction of the cost involved
for<br>
participants.<br>
Also, lower registration fee may attract<br>
more<br>
participation and we may end-up generating same<br>
amount<br>
as surplus and also have more new faces attending<br>
the<br>
event. We do not know if that happen since we
have not<br>
tried<br>
lowering the conference prices recently.<br>
<br>
Best<br>
<br>
Venka<br>
<br>
On<br>
2/7/2017 4:49 PM, Till Adams wrote:<br>
<br>
+1 - Paul hits 100% my opinion.<br>
<br>
Am 06.02.2017 um 18:15 schrieb Paul Ramsey:<br>
Regular reminder:<br>
No doubt a $100 drop on registration would be
determinative for a few,<br>
but it will not do much to change the equation for
even a backpacking<br>
overseas traveller, who will pay (from Vancouver)
$1000 to get there<br>
and $600+ in accommodation and meals, depending on
how long they stay<br>
(doing workshops? doing code sprint?)<br>
Using second-city sites (Victoria instead of
Vancouver, Lausanne<br>
instead of Geneva) can shave registration dollars
at the margins, but<br>
they'll get eaten up instead in travel costs.<br>
</div>
</div>
Local regional conferences (Foss4g.nl <<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://Foss4g.nl"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://Foss4g.nl</a>>)
should probably aim to go low<br>
<div class="HOEnZb">
<div class="h5"> and hyper-accessible, since they
draw from a population that can<br>
economize on all aspects of the conference
experience (stay at home,<br>
get up at 4am and walk to the venue from Haarlem,
bring a bag lunch).<br>
Foss4g international is... international, there's
going to be a<br>
minimum spend to get there and do it, no matter
how few coffees are<br>
served, how spare the venue, or how much
volunteers are used and abused.<br>
P.<br>
<br>
On Mon, Feb 6, 2017 at 7:54 AM, Steven Feldman
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:shfeldman@gmail.com">shfeldman@gmail.com</a><br>
<mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:shfeldman@gmail.com">shfeldman@gmail.com</a>>>
wrote:<br>
<br>
Reposting this from the board list as it may
interest the CC.<br>
<br>
The current target in RfP is $650 including
social activities but<br>
excluding workshops. The costs of travel and
accommodation have<br>
equalled or, for out of region delegates,
exceed the registration<br>
costs.<br>
<br>
To my knowledge no proposal has been received
for the last 5 years<br>
that was able to support 800+ delegates at ca
$500<br>
<br>
2019 will be a ‘European’ year, I am sure that
the CC would<br>
welcome a $500 proposal from the Netherlands
community<br>
<br>
______<br>
Steven<br>
<br>
Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2017 09:38:47 +0000<br>
From: <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl">l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl</a>
<mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl">l.g.j.boerboom@<wbr>utwente.nl</a>>><br>
To: <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:board@lists.osgeo.org">board@lists.osgeo.org</a>
<mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:board@lists.osgeo.org">board@lists.osgeo.org</a>><wbr>><br>
Subject: [Board] Open open source, reduce
registration fees.<br>
Message-ID:<br>
<<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:62bfc24ab8c3406490757d8c14802bbe@EXMBX32.ad.utwente.nl">62bfc24ab8c3406490757d8c14802<wbr>bbe@EXMBX32.ad.utwente.nl</a><br>
<mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:62bfc24ab8c3406490757d8c14802bbe@EXMBX32.ad.utwente.nl">62bfc24ab8c3406490757d<wbr>8c14802bbe@EXMBX32.ad.utwente.<wbr>nl</a>>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"<br>
<br>
Dear board,<br>
<br>
Where is the cap on registration fees for
FOSS4G? You have closed<br>
open source to me with these steep registration
fees. You have to<br>
change this. A few years ago I could hardly
convince my<br>
departmental management to pay for
registration. Now it is<br>
impossible! Please open up the conference
again. Open open source!<br>
Those who cannot organize a conference below
$500 should not be<br>
allowed to organize. Scale down. No fancy
stuff. Back to the<br>
basics! Back to the core!<br>
<br>
With kind regards,<br>
<br>
Luc Boerboom<br>
<br>
Dr. Ir. Luc Boerboom<br>
Assist. Prof Spatial Planning and Decision
Support Systems and<br>
Infrastructures<br>
Department of Urban and Regional Planning and
Geo-information<br>
Management<br>
Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth
Observation<br>
(ITC), <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.itc.nl/" rel="noreferrer"
target="_blank">http://www.itc.nl/</a><br>
University of Twente, <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.utwente.nl/"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.utwente.nl/</a><br>
<br>
E: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl">l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl</a><br>
<mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl">l.g.j.boerboom@<wbr>utwente.nl</a>><mailto:<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl">l.g.j.<wbr>boerboom@utwente.nl</a>
<mailto:<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:l.g.j.boerboom@utwente.nl">l.g.j.boerboom@<wbr>utwente.nl</a>>><br>
T: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="tel:%2B31%20%280%2953%20487%2042%2047"
value="+31534874247">+31 (0)53 487 42 47</a> or <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="tel:%2B31%20%280%2953%20487%2044%2044"
value="+31534874444">+31 (0)53 487 44 44</a><br>
Postal address<br>
PO Box 217<br>
7500 AE Enschede<br>
The Netherlands<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
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<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
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</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
M +61 419 142 254</pre>
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