[Aust-NZ] FOSS4G-SOTM-Oceania: conference length and dates

[Alex Leith]

Hi All

I'm with Cameron, and I think we would be better to aim modestly and easily
achieve it rather than go for too much and find it hard!

If we go for a one day conference this year, and it works well and we know
the demand is there and how big it is, then we can do it bigger next year.

That's my view.

Cheers,

Alex

On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 at 09:12 Rob Atkinson <robatkinson101 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> These things are always balancing acts - maybe its worth polling around
> what people want to get out of things.
>
> As a user or service provider or developer - i want to see trends - who is
> using what and where the action is.
> As a developer i want to highlight what and why and hopefully find users
> and stop other re-inventing a wheel and becoming contributors
> As a user I want to know how people are using tools and who might be
> available to provide support for particular aspects
> As a service provider i want warts-and-all experiences of deployment with
> real lessons being shared
>
> Having to choose between 10 long workshops run once, or  5 short workshops
> run for 20% of the time and repeated - the latter - people can always
> organise in depth training sessions, but FOSS4G should be about visibility
> into the broader community. Employers might want to send to a detailed
> course in a specific tech - so longer workshops before and after - bit not
> organised by committee (but maybe with bundled entry to FOSS4G )?
>
> 2c...
>
> Rob
>
>
>
> On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 at 08:40 Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> My thoughts on the first regional FOSS4G conference (in a long while) is
>> that the primary goal is to make sure it is successful. With FOSS4G 2009 we
>> over-estimated the number of attendees by close to a factor of 2. There
>> were multiple reasons for this [1], but a key lesson was to make sure the
>> conference goals are achievable and sustainable.
>>
>> As such, I'd err on selecting shorter, lower cost, lower barrier to entry
>> (which results in being more selective of presentations and providing less
>> higher quality presentations rather than more). I'd prefer to be sold out
>> rather than having a conference full of empty seats.
>>
>> Lets see how many people we can attract into the conference in the first
>> year before over-committing. We can build up numbers in following years.
>>
>> Cheers, Cameron
>> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2009_Lessons_Learned
>>
>>
>> On 13/12/17 8:24 am, John Bryant wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> At our upcoming committee meeting, we'll hopefully come to some kind of
>> decision on:
>>
>>    - conference length (for the 'conference' component, exclusive of
>>    pre-conf workshops and post-conf code sprint/hackathon/mapathon)
>>    - conference dates
>>
>> Discussion around length, so far, has focused on 2 options, either one
>> day or two (for a total event length of either 3 or 4 days).
>>
>> My personal preference would be to see two days for the conference
>> proper, as I think with both FOSS4G and SOTM components, and a broad region
>> (Oceania), there is the potential for a lot of content... I think one day
>> wouldn't be enough time to cover it without spreading across too many
>> competing streams/sessions.
>>
>> One argument for one day is that it would be less of an organisational
>> burden, which is a fair point.
>>
>> Surely there are other arguments for one or the other option, or perhaps
>> even additional options that haven't come up... it would be great to have
>> some input on this mailing list before we meet next week to make a decision.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Aust-NZ mailing listAust-NZ at lists.osgeo.orghttps://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/aust-nz
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter
>> Technology Demystifier, Learnosity
>> Open Technologies Consultant
>>
>> M +61 (0) 419 142 254 <0419%20142%20254>
>>
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>> Aust-NZ at lists.osgeo.org
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>
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-- 

Alex Leith
0419 189 050
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