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

Thu Dec 14 23:21:17 PST 2017

I quite agree with Daniel assessment. Networking is a very important part
of this conference
On Fri, 15 Dec 2017 at 12:47, Daniel Silk <dsilk at linz.govt.nz> wrote:

> I see a number of benefits in a two day conference.
>
> Some attendees will not be interested in attending the pre-conf workshops
> or post-conf code sprint so two days of conference material makes travel
> costs more viable. It also creates a logical conference dinner slot between
> the two conference days, and a logical slot for an icebreaker type get
> together on the evening of the workshops. The recent QGIS event in Sydney
> was great but I really would have appreciated more time to network - with a
> one day conference, a lot of people will be catching flights immediately
> before and after which closes the door on these opportunities.
>
> FOSS4G covers a broad range of software and topics, and we have SotM also.
> Covering all of this in one day would seem like a huge squeeze to me.
> We could start by finding out how many potential talks we have just from
> those that have been involved in the early discussions..? Could we even fit
> that into a day?
>
> Cheers
> Daniel
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Aust-NZ [aust-nz-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] on behalf of Alex Leith [
> alexgleith at gmail.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, December 13, 2017 6:56 PM
> To: Rob Atkinson
> Cc: aust-nz at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Aust-NZ] FOSS4G-SOTM-Oceania: conference length and dates
>
> 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
> <mailto: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
> <mailto: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?
>
>
>
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>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Technology Demystifier, Learnosity
> Open Technologies Consultant
>
> M +61 (0) 419 142 254<tel:0419%20142%20254>
>
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>
> Alex Leith
> 0419 189 050
>
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