[Viscom-dev] Budget stuff...

[Chris Holmes]

Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> On 26-Feb-07, at 9:37 AM, Chris Holmes wrote:
> 
>> What happened to all the booth stuff from where 2.0 last year?  Or 
>> foss4g for that matter?  Can't we re-use that?  I mean, obviously not 
>> the hand-outs, but at least have a table that we can talk at.
> 
> We do have some things Chris, you are right.  I think the signage may be 
> gone but that we have the black banner and/or table skirt with the old 
> logo on it.  And also a pop-up banner.  Michael, can you tell us what 
> you have on-hand?
> 
> My requests are mainly to develop more of a pop-up booth that can be 
> easily shipped around.  And to also cover other costs like sundry bits 
> and pieces required at an event - power, internet, tables, carpet, 
> etc... which can quickly add up.  Unfortunately those are not very 
> reusable :[
Do we really need power and internet?  Aren't tables provided?  We 
should be able to get in-kind donations for booths at most conferences 
we go to.  No they won't be huge, but they are place to sit where people 
can find us. Carpet?   We need to bring our own carpet?

I admit that a unfunded booth will be a bit more ghetto than some 
corporate glowing lights and carpeted waterfall.  I know we want to have 
a flashy presence where ever we go, but the black banner identifying us 
as OSGeo and some people sitting around is far more helpful than 
nothing.  Personally that's all I really want from VisComm, with some 
flyers when we can afford them, I think the flashy stuff and 'standard' 
corporate booths are overdone and _far_ from worth the money.  If we had 
paid viscomm staff I'd personally concentrate them mostly on blogging 
and writing articles for print magazines (and herding others to do so 
(thanks mpg!).  And just have one or two people speaking at most 
conferences, instead of 30 people with t-shirts and expensive banners at 
only a couple.

I personally think even a 'pop-up' booth is a bit of an extravagance. 
TOPP goes to college recruiting fairs all the time and all the corporate 
types have these extensive booths, but our banner with a nice clear logo 
and informative hand outs go much, much further for the money.  We 
fed-ex the banner around in a tube for $25, and the banner itself cost 
maybe $250?  And OSGeo already has a banner _and_ a table skirt, which 
is more than my organizations does.

TOPP could afford to invest in a pop-up booth if it was going to pay 
off, but they aren't all that much easier to take around, and they 
usually fall over and don't look all that great.  Personally I think 
having a pop-up display thing gives the impression you're wasting money. 
  We can bank on the fact that open source is all about investing in the 
code and the projects, and thus cheaper booths can actually enhance our 
image if we play it right.

Of course if we have the funding to do bigger I say go for it, by all 
means, I understand the value of it.  But to not have any presence just 
because we can't do a pop-up booth that we ship around seems silly.

C


> 
> Tyler
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-- 
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org
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