[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: FOSS4G 2007 Workshop Submission

P Kishor punkish at eidesis.org
Thu Mar 29 09:18:53 PDT 2007


sorry to bung into this conversation given that neither am I
organizing, nor presenting, not even being there in person.
Nevertheless, I echo Dan's viewpoint about the relative value of 20
mins presentations vs. longer workshops. I have been a few conferences
in the lifetime, and I just can't imagine why anyone would spend a
thousand plus dollars to spend talking 20 mins about a project that
he/she has spent a year or two working on. Sound-bytes can be so
frustrating, so TV like, where everyone has a short attention span,
almost by design.

Hopefully next meeting, wherever it is, will consider a format that
allows the presenter and the audience to spend a longer time to delve
into the issues and really have a conversation. Of course, that does
not obviate "5-min lightning talks" on snack-size issues as well.

On 3/29/07, Daniel Ames <dpames at gmail.com> wrote:
> Paul and others,
>
> I too was disappointed to be in the 22 of 34 workshop proposals that were
> turned down and would like to suggest that the conference organizers
> re-think the approach to include more workshops.
>
>  At FOSS4g2006, I found the workshops to be perhaps the most useful element
> of the conference.  For a highly technical meeting, the value of a 1.5 to 3
> hour hands-on workshop versus a 20 minute pre-canned powerpoint presentation
> can not be overstated.
>
> Our project (and I suspect many others) has tried to embrace the concept of
> the FOSS4g venue as an alternative to hosting our own separate conference.
> Certainly this concept was encouraged by last year's conference organizers.
> However for this to work there needs to be the opportunity to present our
> workshops.
>
> May I suggest the following two changes:
>
> 1) Reallocate time for more workshops.
> 2) Let the registrants decide which workshops stay.  In other words, post a
> list of 34 workshops and keep only those that meet a minimum number of
> committed/paid attendee registration fees.
>
> I suspect that every one of the 22 rejected workshop proposers could argue
> that they easily meet all of the four criteria listed here:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_workshop_submissions
>
> Hence letting the broader community vote with their registration dollars
> would seem to be a more "free and open" approach.
>
> It would be unfortunate to see this as the beginning of a general culling
> process where instead of trying to attract new projects, the FOSS4g
> community begins to become more exclusionary.
>
> Dan
>
> Daniel P. Ames, PhD, PE
> Idaho State University Geospatial Software Lab
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/29/07, Paul Ramsey <pramsey at refractions.net > wrote:
> > Jeroen,
> >
> > I appreciate your frustration, and I know it is shared by many
> > others, as only 12 of the 34 3-hour workshop submissions could be
> > hosted.  The criteria the workshop committee used in their evaluation
> > are here:
> >
> > http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/
> >
> FOSS4G2007_Workshops#Criteria_used_by_the_workshop_committee_to_review_w
> > orkshop_submissions
> >
> > All the committee members ranked the submissions on those criteria
> > and the rankings were averaged.  Two workshops in the top 12 that
> > were topic duplicates were removed and the next-lowest-ranked non-
> > duplicates were moved up.  It appears that being on the committee is
> > no guarantee of satisfaction with the final result. The average of a
> > bunch of lists people want is a list that no one is 100% happy with.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> > On 28-Mar-07, at 10:36 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote:
> >
> > > Dear people,
> > >
> > > Thank you for your information. I have to say I find that pretty
> > > frustrating and annoying knowing that GeoNetwork opensource is one
> > > of the incubator projects of OSGEO, the number of OSGEO projects is
> > > (still) limited and FOSS4G is the OSGEO conference.
> > >
> > > Participating with the project in OSGEO has multiple reasons, one
> > > of them being that it provides opportunities to work on synergies
> > > and work on marketing the OSGEO software stack. Now how does the
> > > intent of OSGEOs mission fit with refusing a (single) workshop on
> > > one of its projects. Maybe I miss something, but I'd assumed there
> > > was at least some kind of a relation!?
> > >
> > > Looking forward to some good feedback and discussion on this, also
> > > on the OSGEO mailing list as I consider that discussion very
> > > relevant in the further development of outreach strategies for
> > > ourselves and the OSGEO foundation through conferences.
> > >
> > > Core question:
> > >
> > > "Should OSGEO projects have guaranteed workshop and presentation
> > > space for at least one session?"
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > > Jeroen
> > >
> > > On Mar 28, 2007, at 5:58 PM, FOSS4G 2007 wrote:
> > >
> > >> Dear Jeroen Ticheler,
> > >>
> > >> We regret to inform you that we will not be able to accept your
> > >> Half Day
> > >> workshop, "Using the GeoNetwork opensource Spatial Data Catalog",
> > >> for the
> > >> FOSS4G 2007 program.  We had a very large number of submissions
> > >> this year, and
> > >>  have been able to accept less than half of them
> > >> .
> > >>
> > >> We hope you will consider bringing some of your ideas to the
> > >> conference in the
> > >>  form of a presentation. The Call for Presentations is currently
> > >> open, and
> > >> there is room for 120 presentations at the conference this year
> > >> .
> > >>
> > >> http://www.foss4g2007.org/presentations
> > >>
> > >> Yours,
> > >>
> > >> The FOSS4G 2007 Conference Committee
> > >>
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>


-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Inst. for Env. Studies, UW-Madison http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation http://www.osgeo.org/education/
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