[foss4g2014] Institutionalized aspects of FOSS4G (was: Work Party?)

Tue Feb 4 09:47:25 PST 2014

Some great thoughts on continuity and not having to reinvent the wheel. I agree that the handover of sponsor and delegate lists was a bit clunky this year, we could have given you access to the Google docs spreadsheets that we used for managing both of these but I guess some people might not have been keen to work in Google docs hence we downloaded and mailed.

Re media partners, we could share our list with you (but you can see it at http://2013.foss4g.org/sponsors/index.html). I don’t think we were overly impressed with the level of engagement that we got from our media partners, maybe we should have worked harder on this. Not one of them sent a reporter to the event or responded to our offer of an interview so most of what we got was a few press releases being published which we would have got anyway just by sending them out. <<grump over>>

We were “encouraged” to use the wiki, the mailing lists, IRC and git hub for all of our conversations and files but as a team chose to use basecamp which worked really well for us and was not very expensive ( a year’s sub donated by a team member’s employer). We got some flack for that decision but we were able to archive everything when we closed off at the end of 2013 (I doubt many will want to view our archives). One of our team member’s employer also gave us free usage of their webex service for our weekly team calls (it’s not the most linux friendly tool but we all managed to use it most of the time) and we also used Google Chat. I guess that we could have worked with a “system” that was provided by OSGeo and up and running already rather than cobble our own together from these components but I wonder who would manage this within OSGeo, what we used required little if any setup and was usually self administered by non technical people. Part of the fun of organising the event is making these choices, 2014 might not want to work with the same tools as 2013 etc, does that matter?

I think inviting a member of the 2015 team to be a member of the 2014 team etc is a brilliant idea and would help in sharing and passing on experience even if they are a semi detached observer not a full member due to geography and timezone.

I will do my best to be available for any questions or advice that you want, probably best to mail me rather than go via the list as I may not track that every day. I have copied Jo and Jeremy in so that they can add their two cents worth.

Cheers
______
Steven

On 4 Feb 2014, at 15:39, foss4g2014-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:

Previous LOCs and chairs have been very helpful and kind and shared
all resources requested.

> I've been wondering if it wouldn't make sense to have a shared CRM that all
> FOSS4G-related events could use.
> 
> (The lack of resources carrying automatically from year to year
> independently of the LOC is a big gripe I've had lately... The hodgepodge of
> sponsor and attendee information being prime examples..)
> 

I've thought about this too (in the time that I've spent establishing
media partners), "Shouldn't there already be a FOSS4G media partner
list?"  I've almost written conference-dev about several items but
have avoided that since it may turn into a long discussion when I need
to be completing tasks.

Occasionally FOSS4G chairs and LOCs go quiet after the conferences.  I
was thinking of having a past LOCs BOF to see how much agreement there
is within various past LOCs about 'how things should be done'.

If there is strong agreement, then work with the conference committee
to establish these.  If LOCs can't agree Mail Chimp or Constant
Contact, Basecamp or TeamworkPM or wiki or shared google drive, or
other items then we don't have to talk about it and folks can
reminisce about their stories of past years and recommend to the
conference committee, "you can't herd cats".

> From my personal perspective on our LOC, I encourage Darrell to make a
list and save it for later and devote his time to other LOC things.
> From my personal perspective as an OSGeo Community member, I encourage
Darrell/us to work on establishing some more institutionalized FOSS4G
items that pass from PDX to next year and hopefully continuing.
Sometimes the perspectives align and we achieve both goals, other
times they conflict and then we have to weigh time and tasks.

One way to achieve continuity of accumulated knowledge is to give a
longer lead time on bids.  I wish I had been on the Nottingham LOC,
not that I am anywhere near the UK, in an appropriate time zone for
interacting, or anything else, but that I could have learned all the
details as it went along and then just continued some aspects into
this year in PDX.  I'm hoping that the next bid goes out and is
decided shortly.  I'd like one or more members of the next LOC to join
PDX and learn and continue whatever aspects are worthwhile.

Eli

> d.
> 
> On Jan 31, 2014, at 11:32, David William Bitner <bitner at dbspatial.com>
> wrote:
> 
> Darrell,
> 
> Just checking, we've given y'all contacts for FOSS4GNA sponsors, right? I
> think we got those to Eli a while ago.
> 
> bit
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2014 at 1:31 PM, Darrell Fuhriman <darrell at garnix.org>
> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Eli and I are planning a work party tomorrow. We'd love to have some more
>> attendance.
>> 
>> Is anyone interested? We're thinking about 10 or 11am PST.
>> 
>> We have a lot of work todo on sponsors, both identifying and writing
>> letters to big past sponsors as well as several writing tasks.
>> 
>> Eli will be working remotely, so we can do a Hangout for those folks who
>> aren't local.
>> 
>> Darrell
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Foss4g2014 mailing list
>> Foss4g2014 at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foss4g2014
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --
> ************************************
> David William Bitner
> dbSpatial LLC
> 612-424-9932
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Foss4g2014 at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/foss4g2014

From: David Fawcett <david.fawcett at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [foss4g2014] Institutionalized aspects of FOSS4G (was: Work Party?)
Date: 4 February 2014 15:31:40 GMT
To: "eadam at co.lincoln.or.us" <eadam at co.lincoln.or.us>
Cc: "foss4g2014 at lists.osgeo.org" <foss4g2014 at lists.osgeo.org>

I was the Program Chair for FOSS4G NA 2013, and I am very willing to help provide some continuity and any information that we collected and learned in putting that event together.  I am pretty sure that David Bitner has given you access to the lists of sponsors, media partners, etc. that we created.  If not, let us know.  

I have been on the list for several months now and I have been waiting for the program-related activities to ramp up.  I am hoping to get more involved and would be happy to work more on the program solicitation, collection, and selection. There are definitely opportunities for improving our process, but would be very happy to share what we did.  We had a handful of people who did a majority of the work, including Michael Terner and Paul Ramirez, who I know are on this list already.  

For the selection process, we decided to do a first cut based on blind selections from 'the community'.  We then did some non-blind selections to help round out the program.  I think that we learned a lot with that process and I came out of it thinking that there are a few potential advantages to blind select, but that it will probably lead to a skewed program.  I am also not sure if we enticed anyone to present that wouldn't have submitted an abstract to a non-anonymous process.

I think that the people who participate in the community voting represent an important part of the population that will attend the conference, but you may miss people who you want to attract to the conference.  In addition to the core developers and users of OS Geo warez, we also wanted to bring in people who may not be using it now, but could be convinced with some good business cases.  Because of the strong use of geospatial tech in state and local government in Minnesota, we also saw the conference as an opportunity to bring in local people who might not travel to a conference like this.  For them, we looked for government business cases.

I completely agree about the lack or continuity and sharing of tools (aside from Boundless' abstract submittal app).  I am here to help where needed.

David.

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