[Foss4g2009] FOSS4G and Ignite Spatial

[Mark Leslie]

I like the idea of this, but I'm very hesitant to start mixing it with 
other events, as in points 2 and 3.  Looking over out schedule, we do 
have a half hour block for lightning talks which have a similar format 
(Thursday 9-9:30) which are bracketed by keynote speakers.  This itself 
seems a little odd.  Personally I would be happier putting both keynotes 
first and then running the Ignite session.  Since we have yet to fill 
one keynote slot, we could extend the session to an hour.  That assumes 
that Stephan, and any of the Ignite crowd that would take part, would be 
delegates at the conference.

The idea to have the Ignite event before the conference and invite the 
speakers to give sneak previews is brilliant, but 'before the 
conference' in our case is two days before most speakers will be 
arriving in Sydney.  We could put it after the workshops on the first 
day, but nobody will be happy losing the welcome reception, and the pub 
is a terrible venue for this event.

Stephan,
I would be very happy for you to help out on the workshop staging.  If 
you want to sign up for the workshops mailing list at 
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/conference-workshops, I'll be 
trying to organise people through there before the conference, both 
volunteers and workshop presenters.  I expect fairly low volume until 
the month before the conference :)

--
Mark


Cameron Shorter wrote:
> Stephen, thanks for forwarding to the list.
> 
> As mentioned on the phone, I think you have some good ideas here, and 
> I'm interested to hear what the others on the committee think.
> 
> A couple of options come to mind, probably with a number of tweaks on 
> both sides
> 
> 1. Have the talk on the Monday night before the workshops. Focus more on 
> proprietary vendors and hence provide a different angle to the conference.
> 
> 2. Replace the existing welcome reception. This already has a pub venue 
> set up.
> Downside is that people will likely be wanting to talk to each other and 
> not listening in.
> 
> 3. Make this part of the existing "Demo Theatre" which is planned to be 
> run as part of lunches and morning teas during the conference.
> 
> Stephen Lead wrote:
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>> I've only just heard about FOSS4G and signed up to the mailing lists. 
>> I've been working in GIS for the past 10 years in Australia and the 
>> UK, mainly using (not very free or open source) proprietary software. 
>> I'm currently contracting at the NSW Department of Lands in a GIS role.
>>
>> I run an event in Sydney called Ignite Spatial 
>> <http://www.ignitespatial.com/> - it's a presentation evening for GIS 
>> and mapping folks with a "lightning talks" format, where each 
>> presenter gets exactly 5 minutes to give their presentation.
>>
>> To get an idea of Ignite Spatial, check ou the presentations here 
>> <http://www.ignitespatial.com/?page_id=13> - some good examples are 
>> Chris O'Dell, Diana Mounter or Richard Lane. I also run Ignite Sydney, 
>> where presenters can speak about any topic they like. There's a great 
>> presentation here 
>> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UYZtjQICiM&feature=channel_page%20> 
>> which talks about Lean programming - this gives a good idea of the 
>> possibilities of the Ignite format.
>>
>> Do you think that FOSS4G would be interested in doing a tie-in, and 
>> running an Ignite Spatial event one evening during your conference?
>>
>> One option would be to run it on the first night of conference as a 
>> welcoming party, and have some of your speakers give a 5 minute 
>> overview of their presentations. This would allow people to decide 
>> which presentations to attend.
>>
>> Another option is simply to run it on one of the evenings as an open 
>> event whereby any of the attendees is able to give a presentation on 
>> something Spatial.
>>
>> Entrance would be free to anyone who wishes to attend. We would expect 
>> around 150 of "our" people to attend, so if FOSS4G attendees were also 
>> coming we'd need a bigger venue - is this something that FOSS4G could 
>> organise at the convention centre?
>>
>> I'm also interested in helping out with stage managing some of the 
>> workshops or sessions in the conference, if this is of interest to you.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Steve
>>
>> 0410 638 348
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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> 
>