[FOSS4G-Oceania] Motion: Increased discount for workshop presenters

Sun Sep 2 21:37:43 PDT 2018

Hi all

-1 for altering pricing at this point.

Why?
- speaking personally, I prefer to offer a speaker discount, not free
attendance.

- taking Dar as an example, I took a lot of time with my small team finding
money to come. I gave a workshop to 20 people, and was able to reach a lot
more (apparently people liked it).

Overall it cost us around $6000.

...which is likely a lot less than we'd pay for professional super targeted
marketing to governments and research agencies, plus face to face
networking over the week, plus opportunities to discuss the creation of new
business and research funding.

So while I paid full price to register and actually spent more time
wrangling finances than preparing a workshop, it's still an amazing value
proposition.

In a non business perspective, don't forget that papers, presentations and
workshops are the currency of academia and not-for-profit sector - there is
always a benefit far beyond the financial cost of attendance.

By focusing on the tree in the open source community, we tend to forget the
forest.

- we have already spent vast time on pricing, we made a decision, and it is
extra effort (which is in short supply) to change. Especially since we
would need to explain to all the sponsors why we changed things.

- but what about less privileged people? I hear you say... Well we have the
TGP for this, and having a talk or workshop in the pipeline is a good
lever. We also have community tickets - again having a talk in the pipeline
is extra weight. ...and we should look at the demographic of who has
already sent in proposals. I think we don't really need to subsidise the
cohort we have.

Ok that's long enough. Back to Zanzibar things and off a terrible phone
keyboard ;)

Perhaps the next committee will decide differently, for now let's keep it
real simple.

Cheers

Adam

--
Dr. Adam Steer
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http://au.linkedin.com/in/adamsteer
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0046-7236
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skype: adam.d.steer
tweet: @adamdsteer

On Mon., 3 Sep. 2018, 05:21 Daniel Silk, <dwsilk at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think offering the ticket for free further complicates things since we
> have an existing community contributor ticket at $150
>
> Like, does a workshop presenter spend significantly more time preparing a
> workshop than a committee member spends organising the conference? Or than
> someone who has contributed to FOSS4G software or OpenStreetMap data? I
> think if we were up front about it, it would be no problem, but if we're
> changing it this late in the piece then I think we should set it at $150.
>
> We're also changing the value proposition for sponsors which makes me a
> little uncomfortable, but given how supportive everyone has been, I don't
> think we'll have any trouble.
>
> +1 for $150 for workshop presenters and $300 for helpers.
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 3, 2018 at 1:28 PM Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm in favour of supporting our workshop presenters, who will need to put
>> in a significant amount of effort to put together their workshops - much
>> greater than the value of a registration fee.
>>
>> If budget allows it, I'd be inclined to suggest workshop presenters be
>> offered either:
>>
>> 1. To be able to sign up to the conference for free.
>>
>> 2. Decide to dedicate their fee toward the good mojo fund. (The slight
>> rewording to potentially help presenters sell the concept to their
>> employer, and also to have the presenter/employer recognised in conference
>> credits).
>>
>> I'll leave it up to John to decide whether he wants to adjust the motion,
>> or feels it should be left as is.
>>
>> Cheers, Cameron
>>
>> On 3/09/2018 9:39 AM, John Bryant wrote:
>>
>> Thanks Trisha, I'm splitting this out into a separate thread as a motion.
>>
>> Just having a look at the workshop presenters, I think there are at most
>> 6 people to whom this would apply - others have already registered as
>> sponsors, committee members, or already qualify for the CC discount. So, in
>> theory, the actual maximum impact on the budget is quite small, probably on
>> the order of $500-750.
>>
>> We should also consider offering the $300 presenter rate to some workshop
>> helpers, within limits (max one per workshop?). This might incur a few
>> hundred extra dollars in budget adjustment.
>>
>> Some of the presenters may have their registration paid for by their
>> employer, and may not care about the extra discount, especially if it means
>> redoing paperwork.
>>
>> I'm pretty comfortable projecting that we'll surpass our target of 90
>> workshop registrations, so some of the projected budget surplus is directly
>> related to the success of the workshop program. Re-investing some of this
>> surplus back into the people providing invaluable content seems positive to
>> me.
>>
>> It would take extra effort to communicate this with the presenters and
>> make sure they're clear on what's on offer. Trisha, sounds like you're
>> willing to take this on?
>>
>> So, to be clear, I'll phrase this as a motion:
>>
>> *Motion: to offer workshop presenters the option of registering for the
>> conference at the Community Contributor rate ($150), and to offer workshop
>> helpers the option of registering at the current Workshop Presenter rate
>> ($300). The expected total cost of this adjustment is estimated to be in
>> the range of $1000.*
>>
>> I'm comfortable supporting this proposal. +1 from me.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
>> From: Trisha Moriarty <moriar1y at gmail.com>
>> Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2018 at 17:30
>> Subject: Re: [FOSS4G-Oceania] * Important - budget update *
>> To: foss4g-oceania <foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
>>
>>
>> Its good to see the budget summary info, thanks John.
>>
>> I agree with Cameron principles and the seed fund is important, but I
>> would like to see this year's events  benefit as much as possible  as well.
>>
>> So as an  idea, in light of the surplus, could we  increase the discount
>> on the conference ticket rate for presenters. Currently the presenter
>> ticket is  $300.  Could we lower it to the community ticket rate $150.
>>
>> A number  of the presenters already have access to sponsor  or community
>> ticket rates, so the impact on budget would be for approx. 10 tickets  $1500
>>
>> Only  2 have actually purchased their presenter rate tickets, so I was
>> about  to send out reminders to the others to register.
>>
>> I feel the presenters are making a very valuable contribution to the
>> conference, and this could be one way to demonstrate the community's
>> appreciation.
>>
>> But I  realise this is going backwards on a decision and it will be a bit
>> messy offering refunds for the presenters who have registered, but I
>> thought it still worthwhile putting the question out there.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 2, 2018 at 8:04 AM Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks John for the summary. It will be helpful for making decisions
>>> later.
>>>
>>> Talking to the principles of how we manage the surplus, I think:
>>>
>>> * Honour our agreement with SSSI, and ensure we continue to make our
>>> maximum budgeted surplus and SSSI is paid the agreed 50% of this for the
>>> risk they took in backing us.
>>>
>>> * The rest of the surplus should be put toward community value, whatever
>>> we decide that to be.
>>>
>>> * We should invite SSSI to contribute to the discussion about how the
>>> surplus is spent, which might include reserving some of the surplus for
>>> next year.
>>>
>>> On 1/09/2018 12:44 PM, John Bryant wrote:
>>>
>>> *TL;DR: based on conservative assumptions, in a 200 attendee projected
>>> budget, we are currently looking at a $30k+ surplus.*
>>>
>>> Hi team,
>>>
>>> As we push towards the event (80 days to go!), I want to provide an
>>> update on our financial position, as I think it will be important to have
>>> this in the front of our minds. There will be some financial decisions to
>>> make in the upcoming weeks, and we need to have this as context for this
>>> decision making.
>>>
>>> To date, we've operated with a fairly lean approach, budgeting
>>> conservatively, and making only modest adjustments to our budget. In our
>>> agreement with SSSI, we committed to aim for a surplus of $3k-$10k, and in
>>> fact have consistently guided our budget to a surplus more in the $15k-$20k
>>> range, to accommodate our uncertainty.
>>>
>>> Despite this constraint, we've done a great job of planning an exciting
>>> & interesting event, and our success on this front can be measured in part
>>> by our significant over achievement in the sponsorship area, and the high
>>> probability that we'll significantly exceed our target of 150 attendees.
>>> So, good job, us!
>>>
>>> But my point here, rather than to congratulate, is to raise awareness
>>> that *we are currently sitting on a much larger than expected surplus*.
>>> I wanted to understand this surplus better, so I set up a new 200 attendee
>>> scenario in our budget worksheet
>>> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yHWdvEPxshBSBgxjc4vWgJlg0Svk8Qg0G-D3kF-siM/edit#gid=1274394515>.
>>> If there are any doubts whether we can reach 200, keep in mind we're
>>> already over 125 regos sold or committed, 11 weeks out, without even
>>> announcing a program or going into a heavy promotion phase.
>>>
>>> This scenario is based on what I consider to be realistic & conservative
>>> assumptions (*listed in the worksheet, I'll repeat them here*). I don't
>>> want to prejudice our future discussions by including specifics like TGP &
>>> videorecording in these assumptions, we need to discuss these in a separate
>>> thread, but I include them as examples of significant expenditures we could
>>> add to our budget, and still have a large surplus.
>>>
>>> *Assumptions for 200 scenario:*
>>> 200 conf regos
>>> 150 half day workshop regos
>>> 120 dinner tickets
>>> CC tickets won't be taken up as much as expected
>>> increase student regos
>>> no additional sponsorship
>>> increase to TGP expense
>>> increase to keynote travel expense
>>> increase to paid staff expense
>>> include $5000 for swag
>>> include $4000 for video recording
>>>
>>> Even with all of these assumptions, which I consider to be generally
>>> erring on the side of caution, *we are looking at a $30k+ surplus*,
>>> which is large. See the budget worksheet
>>> <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14yHWdvEPxshBSBgxjc4vWgJlg0Svk8Qg0G-D3kF-siM/edit#gid=1274394515>
>>> for the detailed scenario (*extra scrutiny would be very welcome*).
>>>
>>> Recall that part of our partnership agreement with SSSI is that we share
>>> 50% of the surplus with them, so at present we don't have the option of
>>> simply retaining the full surplus for future years. However, I hope we can
>>> open a discussion with SSSI and see if there is appetite for investing part
>>> of any unexpected windfall into future events. But clearly, we need to
>>> honour the agreement we have in place, and respect our partner's wishes on
>>> how they wish to proceed on this front.
>>>
>>> So, as we go forward over the next 11 weeks and careen to the finish
>>> line, I suggest we need to keep this budget surplus in mind. We've had many
>>> discussions where we've opted out of doing things because we haven't felt
>>> like we could justify the cost, but I argue at this point that we need to
>>> adjust our thinking a bit on this front. The money is coming from the
>>> community (sponsors and attendees), and I feel we owe it to the community
>>> to make wise decisions on how we spend this money, while ensuring the best
>>> event possible. This doesn't mean we start spending like sailors, of course
>>> (no offense to sailors!), but I suggest we have latitude to spend some
>>> money on things that will benefit the community and the event.
>>>
>>> I suggest we don't raise specific motions on expenditure in this thread,
>>> rather if there are specific motions arising, they should be raised in
>>> separate threads.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>>
>>> jb
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> FOSS4G-Oceania mailing listFOSS4G-Oceania at lists.osgeo.orghttps://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/foss4g-oceania
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Cameron Shorter
>>> Technology Demystifier
>>> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>>>
>>> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> FOSS4G-Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
>>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/foss4g-oceania
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Technology Demystifier
>> Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
>>
>> M +61 (0) 419 142 254
>>
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>> FOSS4G-Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
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>>
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