[Marketing] Event Owner for FOSS4G

[Tim Bowden]

Arnulf,

I'm willing and able, but obviously a decision would be need to be made
very soon.  Just for the record, I've responded off list to Tyler, Frank
and Cameron S. with a few personal concerns I have, but otherwise no
problems from my side.

Regards,
Tim Bowden

On Wed, 2008-09-03 at 16:41 +0200, Arnulf Christl wrote:
> Cameron Shorter wrote:
> > Tyler,
> > I'd like to strongly recommend Tim Bowden for the OSGeo Booth 
> > coordinator role.
> 
> Tim,
> what do you say? 
> 
> If you are interested I will talk to OSGeo Finance and see whether we
>  can bend Tyler's travel costs to your name and make you the official
>  OSGeo Event Owner for FOSS4G 2008. This would mean that you are sort
>  of hired by OSGeo to represent, man and manage the booth. I say "sort
>  of hired" because I think OSGeo never did this before so we are
>  creating a precedence here. But I think it is a good one as we are
>  running short on staff everywhere and volunteers are cool but they are
>  even better if you can pay them - at least a bit. 
> 
> But before I continue down that road please confirm whether you are
>  actually available and would be willing to do what Cameron suggested. 
> 
> Best regards, 
> Arnulf. 
> 
> > He did a very good job setting up the OSGeo stand at the WALIS 
> > conference in Western Australia last year and he is an entertaining and 
> > passionate OSGeo salesman.
> > 
> > Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to scrape funds together for 
> > FOSS4G2008 (he is a 1 man company and can't justify the expense). But 
> > with elementary expenses paid, he would be there like a shot.
> > 
> > Financially, he doesn't cost much. Perth is not far from South Africa, 
> > so flights should be less than for others, and a few beer boxes are 
> > sufficient for accommodation.  (He'd drink the beer first).
> > 
> > And most importantly from my point of view, we would really like to have 
> > someone from the Australian FOSS4G2009 committee on the stand, so that 
> > we can promote FOSS4G 2009, and Tim is just the man for the job.
> > 
> > 
> > Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
> >> As discussed a while back at one of our last meetings, I was trying to 
> >> line up someone to help be the event owner for FOSS4G - to help 
> >> organise and coordinate OSGeo's marketing through the booth, etc.  
> >> Everyone I talk to who is going to be at the event only has limited 
> >> amount of time to commit, or cannot help organise before the event.
> >>
> >> So I started to talk to a few people who I have worked with at 
> >> previous events and who might be more likely to attend if they had a 
> >> free conference pass and a small budget to offset some of their 
> >> costs.  The free pass wasn't really enough for anyone I spoke to.  
> >> Since it looks like I won't be able to attend, it will be critical to 
> >> have someone who can do the planning and delivery of the event, but 
> >> still have some support from me when needed.  Some of my own travel 
> >> budget could be used to help cover some of the costs but ultimately it 
> >> would be general marketing costs for OSGeo. [1]
> >>
> >> This is the one event that I believe is important enough to make sure 
> >> we have a full time booth staffer and planner/coordinator available.  
> >> Volunteers certainly are still needed to do it right, but unless there 
> >> is one person to go to, the whole effort can fall apart.  Ideally 
> >> there'd be two people, but I won't push it this year ;-)
> >>
> >> I would like to propose a budget of $3500 to cover our presence there:
> >>
> >> * $1000 - handouts, collateral, shirts, banners, table cover, etc.  
> >> With new branding where possible.
> >> * $500 - on-site booth costs for maintenance, upgrades, equip rentals, 
> >> etc.  Like video displays, extra chairs, cleaning...
> >> * $1500 - costs for staffing, travel and food costs, etc.
> >> * $500 - miscellaneous - some buffer room for unexpected items.
> >>
> >> Think of it as a delegation exercise for me, I would easily spend that 
> >> in my own staff time, travel costs and merchandise, etc. if I was going.
> >> Sound reasonable?
> >>
> >> Tyler
> >>
> >> [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Budget_2008
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Marketing mailing list
> >> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
> >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
> > 
> > 
> 
-- 
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
when you make it again.