[Marketing] OSgeo at Finnish GIS expo, 23-24 Sep 2008

[Arnulf Christl (OSGeo)]

On Tue, May 6, 2008 08:36, Ari Jolma wrote:
> Hi all,
>
>
> I was contacted by people organizing the yearly Finnish GIS expo. He
> wrote that they had thought about FOSS4G as a theme (there are probably
> other themes too) for the Expo and had already asked a distinguished
> non-finnish member of the community (he's in the OSGeo board but as I
> understood that he's not yet fully promised so I won't put his name here)
> as a keynote speaker. I also agreed to talk at the Expo.
>
> I started to think that if FOSS4G is a theme, then maybe we should have
> a OSGeo booth too. We don't yet have a Finnish OSGeo chapter so this is a
> call for anybody living in Finland to participate. The booths start at 105
> €/m2 but cheapest may be a 3m2 booth which costs 720 €. Not cheap.
> We'd also need volunteers who know about OSGeo software. That might be
> the first thing to secure before going forward.
>
> Help and advise appreciated,
>
>
> Ari

This is good news. There are several options how to organize and manage a
booth for OSGeo. You can try to find a sponsor (this is the preferred
because easiest way to do it). We do this in Germany on a regular basis.
Ideally it will obviously be a business involved with some FOSSGIS
background. If you have an Autodesk office in Finland you could try to ask
them, I have experienced them to be very open to this kind of event.

Alternatively you could ask the organizer whether they would be interested
to host an OSGeo booth for free or reduced cost. The reasoning is that it
is a hype topic and attracts people who otherwise would not be interested.
Doing this is a bit more tedious and involves some bargaining skills but
we have also gone down that path before.

Third option is to request some funding from OSGeo. It is the hardest path
as funding is limited and the globe is large. But if there are compelling
reasons and you manage to convince this list, then this is also an option.

Hope this helps to get you started. Please feel free to keep us informed
on this list or get me off list if matters have a more delicate touch.

We have a ~regular IRC meeting, the next one is planned for Wednesday next
week (will announce here). We can add your event to the agenda if you feel
like discussing it.

Best regards,

-- 
Arnulf Benno Christl
http://www.osgeo.org
(OSGeo Board Member)
+50.7342N   +7.0707E