[advocacy-discuss] Postconference meditations

[Nicolas Dorfsman]

	Hey Damian,


	There so many things in your meditations !

	I read Aaron and Wolfgang comments. Guys, I'm not sure you can compare.
	Damian was almost alone to organize his event. How many people were  
with you Damian ? 2 ? 3 ?
	That was the same for us here in France. 3 motivated people with one  
leader.

	Aaron talked about organizing things several months before the event.
	Don't forget we talk about volunteer people. And people would love to  
help you in organizing, but they also have other stuff to finish  
precisely at the moment you need them.
	If you re-read Damian's email, you'll guess one mistake : Damian  
seems to trust too many people. Even when you pay for some service,  
you can't trust in !    It's one big issue...who will be really with  
you in the last run...

	About sponsoring. This was a risky partnership for our sponsors. We  
didn't have many "figures to sell" (I hope now other UGs could use our  
reports).
	Also, it was not easy to deal with "sponsors power".  One of my  
sponsor didn't want to hear something about a plane-ticket from  
Bangalore to Toulouse, even if I tried to explain why it was important  
for the conference general subject, and for this conference marketing  
itself !
	So this is another big challenge...find several sponsors to spread  
their power. The UG should keep the management role.  (HEY ! I LOVE  
YOU DEAR SPONSORS, THANKS AGAIN ! http://guses.org/ostls/en/partners.html 
  :)

	Concerning Web page...this has to be done by a professional. Thierry  
made a amazing job for us (and take a part of the risk...his bill is  
ridiculous, and he's waiting for our sponsors to be paid).  We talked  
about some opensolaris.org ressource to deal with this.  It's a great  
idea...but we need a very quick reactivity on this activity.

	As a sponsor of France event, I spent several Euros.
	As the leader, I spent many hours or days on organisation.
	As a member of the org. team, I spent 3 full days on many tasks (WE  
before, during the event, day after).
	As a member of the org. team, I spent great hours with intl speakers.
	As an attendee I enjoyed a great conference with many different  
people (speakers and other attendees).
	The last, but not the least, people gave us a very positive feedback !
	

	I talked about something like UG federation on OGB list. I wasn't  
sure why I'd like to see this set up. Now, I have a clearest idea: to  
help UGs to organize such events !
	There's so many challenges ! And it's all about the chicken and egg  
question.
	Sponsors (money) first ? For what ?
	Speakers first ? What is the budget ?
	Logistic first ? For how many attendees and with which budget ?


Le 28 oct. 08 à 16:01, Damian Wojslaw a écrit :

> Given the above, I agree with Roman Strobl, that a guide for  
> conference
> organiser should be made. I volunteer to give my experiences. Anoyne
> there to help?

Count me !



	Nicolas





Le 28 oct. 08 à 16:01, Damian Wojslaw a écrit :

> Three days later, it is time to have some critical thoughts on our
> event. I sum what went wrong, so that anyone doing their conference  
> from
> scratch, won't make the same mistakes.
>
> The biggest one, from my point of view:
> - I have never had a written agreement with my sponsors about the  
> money.
> They backed out and I it was only thanx to few fantastic people that  
> the
> thing happened.
> - For the reason above,  I  lost a projector at Thursday night and  up
> until Friday 8:10 AM I didn't know if I had one. Again, thanx go to
> fantastic friends.
> - I took too much on myself. I should have known, that with health
> problems at home, I wouldn't able to bring an order to this event. It
> was nice, but it was a chaos.
> - I had no written plan and milestons. It's just the must. If you have
> plan, you have objectives and dates, by which you know that all is  
> going
> as planned, or it's a march to disaster.
> - I have lost my nerver and did my talk in Polish, as all my Polish
> friends. We agreed previously to have all talks in English and that  
> was
> my sin against abroad guests.
> - I never thought of it and have should - I did announcement in  
> Polish,
> while for the sake of our guests, I should have done so in English.
> - I have made a mistake of giving out a conference web page to people
> that did not keep it up to date, even though I have contacted them  
> many
> times. Thus the online agenda in Polish was not in sync with one in
> English and both were not synchronized with reality. I should have
> reclaimed it and hand out to someone I could trust.
> - It was a deliberate omission, but I should have sent maps to people
> regarding near hotels and a route from train to conference site.
> - As with the web page, I made a bad choice about a person that would
> send and Invoice to Sun Czech, which covers most of my expenses. They
> almost missed the mark and I almost lost all the money that I paid for
> the conference with. It was my personal earning.
> - Watch your words. I have made a few remarks that, given the Sun
> sponsoring the vent, made people think that Sun is an evil entity. I
> have never though of this and it was pointed out to me after the  
> conference.
> - There were omissions in e-mail communication. Most of this two days
> before the conference, and I am guilty for this.
>
> Given the above, I agree with Roman Strobl, that a guide for  
> conference
> organiser should be made. I volunteer to give my experiences. Anoyne
> there to help?
>
> Regards
>
> -- 
> Damian Wojslaw
> http://pl.opensolaris.org/ | SCA OS0073
> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/on/
> http://opensolaris.org/os/project/szc-osug/
> http://www.linkedin.com/in/trochej
>
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