FOSS4G OSGeo Project visibility

[Arnulf Christl]

Hello,
I have been appointed as Event Owner [1] of the OSGeo appearance at 
FOSS4G. Later the Wiki page describing the job was worked over by VisCom 
resulting in a long list of things [2] to be done. For this I need your 
help.

FOSS4G management has prepared a floor plan with OSGeo as a rectangular 
booth. From what we learned at other booths this is not optimal. I would 
like to propose to have separate tables for each project scattered 
throughout the exhibition hall. Each table is staffed by someone from a 
project (maybe even some celebrity, Steve Lime, Frank Warmerdam, Bill 
Gates, Daniel Morissette, Brent Owens and so on) so that during break 
there will be clusters of people around each project. Including the 
Geodata and Education Committees. They will receive some extra publicity 
if we manage to contact the respective potential clients prior to the 
conference so that they can make appointments with OSGeo 
representatives. We have lists of public administrations, universities, 
etc.

This means that each project must be prepared to have one representative 
be available at any time during the conference at that "booth"/table. I 
guess that during sessions when there are little people in the 
exhibition area it will be enough if we have two or three people 
watching over things. I think from a community perspective and the goal 
of bringing people together it would be a lot more attractive to not 
have one booth crammed with people but to spread them loosely across the 
exhibition hall. I have to check back with FOSS4G planners whether this 
would be possible at all but before I do that I need to know whether we 
can make it at all. Please reply to this email filling out the [square 
brackets]:

The [enter project name] PSC reports that [number of people] people have 
agreed to staff the exhibition platform. The Project [can provide for / 
needs] one notebook for presentations.

If I receive 7 positive replies within four workdays we can do it this 
way. If not we will just have one boring booth in a corner and I am 
going to make sure that it looks ugly an unhappy.

We currently have 8 software projects plus geodata plus education plus 
one table for people to register as OSGeo members, sell trivia and 
discuss Foundation issues.

Autodesk involvement
Autodesk is again involved with sponsoring and additionally provides for 
infrastructure and organizational support. Thanks a lot. They coordinate 
events on a separate conference call an Tuesdays (tomorrow) and ideally 
I could already give them a few hints at how this is going to develop. 
Hint hint, please get back here quick with an answer.

We have an action item list kindly prepared from Lisa Landers at 
Autodesk specifying some more details:

FOSS4G:

OSGeo Staffing: <ACTION ITEM – ARNULF> Provide a list of people 
available to staff the booth.  This will help determine the number of 
kiosks, currently scheduled for 3 each.

<Arnulf>
If we really get all 11 tables staffed with one person each at any time 
that should be fine. I have added a list to the Wiki, please enter 
yourself or somebody you know. Don't forget that person to tell about it!
</Arnulf>

OSGeo Demo: <ACTION ITEM – ARNULF, TYLER, LISA> Need to review during 
OSGeo’s committee meeting on Thursday to determine what we can come up 
with for both FOSS4G & EuroOSCON.  An avi as suggested by Lisa?

<Arnulf>
Projects are ~required to deliver presentation and demo for graduation. 
This is what is referred to here. An avi might not be that important but 
living demos are essential! VisCom can obviously not prepare them, so 
the projects would need to make sure they have something to show. If 
software needs be installed locally please bring your own. Enhance it 
with some breath-taking new gimmick. Steve Lime was bored last year, I 
don't want to see this happen again. :-)
</Arnulf>


Booth Collateral: <ACTION ITEM – ARNULF> Will most likely use the 10 
OSGeo bruchures that were used at OSCON Portland but may need to 
localize, in German (for sure), French & Italian.  <ACTION ITEM – TINA> 
Will need to determine where they will be printed, either Adsk US or EMEA.

<Arnulf>
Again the content is something that you must provide, VisCom oversees 
that printing is done. German translations are already prepared but the 
international discuss list is dead in the water so if you have anything 
in another language please make it available to VisCom.

Kind regards,

[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php?title=Event_Owner&oldid=6653
[2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Event_Management
</Arnulf>