[Viscom-dev] Merger with WebCom?

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Jason, thanks for bringing this up.  As we have not had a deluge of volunteers for the VisCom top job, I'm certainly open to alternate organizational structures!
 
I see VisCom these days as being about "events" and "everything else".  The latter category seems very demand-driven: I think it is mostly about connecting tasks with volunteers, tracking such things, and occasionally giving helpful nudges -- it is a tractable task, and could be done by a good ComCom cat-herder type of person.
 
The events category, however, I personally find somewhat daunting right now.  In part because I think we don't have a good common vision as a Foundation as to how we want to get our word out.  That in turn leads to budgeting issues, which leads to Fundraising, which leads back to VisCom, and so on.  Events are also a problem because the Big Ones seem to require a significant amount of up-front planning and committment, and that's hard to do with volunteer labor.  And then there's the whole Booth thing... As Tyler says, Events could subsume everything else.
 
ASIDE: I think I've learned two things on the Events side.  First, if Autodesk (or whoever) says to us "free booth!" I've felt like we have to take it -- and that's wrong.  Free gifts like that aren't free!  Second, OSGeo isn't a company and need not market itself like one: big booths at large shows are maybe not all that valuable to us.  We could probably get more mileage out of having workshops or speakers -- or a hosted BOF -- than a booth.  [Others, like Frank and Arnulf, have said as much in the past.  It takes a while for messages to sink into my brain, sorry guys.]  For now, maybe OSGeo should only do events of the type where people come to us and say "our local chapter (or whatever) will do everything, just give us $1-2K".
 
So, I might perhaps be willing to consider the following possible suggestion:
 
- move the Big Event question over to the ED (sorry, Tyler), because for now it requires substantial up-front planning and monetary committment; if the Board and ED don't want to do any Big Shows this year, then great; all other Events should be only of the form "we'll give you small grant" and handled by ComCom -- unless someone volunteers for more (again on a case by case basis, like Intergeo)
 
- all other VisCom issues be merged into a unified ComCom team
 
I'll think some more tonight and try to join the webcom mtg tomorrow if I can.
 
-mpg
 

________________________________

From: viscom-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of Tyler Mitchell
Sent: Tue 3/20/2007 10:40 PM
To: Visibility Committee Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Viscom-dev] Merger with WebCom?



I agree in principle, but just worry that the VisCom event management 
duties will eclipse other tasks and help Webcom to lose focus.  Any 
thoughts on that?  Guess you could argue that focus is needed on both 
sides anyway.  Just thinking out loud -  the only reservations I can 
think of at the moment.

Tyler

On 20-Mar-07, at 10:23 PM, Jason Birch wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Last week I floated the idea of merging WebCom and VisCom into 
> something that I call ComCom (communications committee) on the 
> WebCom list and it got a reasonable level of support.
>
> Given that mpg is not continuing as Chair, I think that this would 
> be an opportune time to merge the two memberships.  The division 
> between these areas has been a bit of an ongoing struggle for me 
> anyway...
>
> Please let me know what you think.  If you'd like, we could discuss 
> during the WebCom IRC meeting tomorrow too:
>
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/WebCom_Meeting_20070321 <http:// 
> wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/WebCom_Meeting_20070321>
>
> If we can agree on this, I'll forward a recommendation to the board 
> for their approval.
>
> Jason
> _______________________________________________
> Viscom-dev mailing list
> Viscom-dev at lists.osgeo.org
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/viscom-dev

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