[OOTB-hive] [BeeCon] Getting Organized

[Heimo Laukkanen]

Hi Jeff, Oksana and other Bees,

I'd like to offer my help in making things happen. I've been
organising open source and agile conferences in Finland as well as in
other countries, so have some first hand experience on what to do and
what not to do.

Even or especially for community conferences money can be a big issue,
so for organising everything I'd put money and budgetary issues at
front and center, as those enable everything else - and planning as
well as scaling up and down is easier while monetary issues are
handled properly. For community conference in Europe ( I assume ? )
that also includes thinking the costs for participants and getting
early signals and commitments to make things move forward.

Handling an event for few hundred persons even for a day or two can
push costs way over 100k euros ( venue, catering, tech, speaker travel
compensation etc. ) so trust and proper management of cash flow is
important. With community events there is often chicken and egg
problem of getting interesting presentations or names to attract
people - and on the other hand enough people to attract larger batches
of participants... Even though most value in conferences usually come
via interactions of people, no matter what the presentations are.

For the past few years Alfresco events have upped the game and moved
into more expensive environments and had more lavish services
available. It would be now good to get a bit back more to the roots
and aim for the great value to participants through good interactions
with interesting people and ideas.

There could also be value in arranging some events / happening in
unconventional form, for example half day or full day of open space
sessions before the traditional conference days.


Here are few ideas to think about:

- some legal entity is usually needed to handle money and contracts

- location should be a hub city with enough capacity and connections
to make participant's as well as speaker travel arrangements easy and
cost effective. Berlin is usually perfect location .-)

- more remote location could be a viable option if collaboration with
a university or some other entity opens up possibilties to change the
cash flow completely, but usually more cumbersome travel arrangements,
travel time and cumbersome facilities mean leaving out some
participants who value their time

- locking in time and location early is good ( first date, then city,
then exact venue )

- preparing to scale up and down is good, connected with checkpoints
in ticket sales and marketing efforts. Any means to get people to
commit to the event as early as possible ( early birds, group
discounts etc. ) is good, as long as too many tickets are not sold
below the cost

- sponsors are essential to making event affordable to participants

- to get good sponsors, it is good to openly discuss with potential
sponsors on how to make the event worthwhile to them. Alfresco ( the
company ) is in key position in this as they have connections and ties
into all / many of the commercial entities around Alfresco

- transparency and clear responsibilities in the org-team are a must.
When organising the event is no-ones source of income it is better to
check and double check as a team that balls do not fall into cracks.
Golden tools for me have been: Slack HQ as chat, Google Docs for
budget and other texts, trello for tasks, any commercial registration
system is ok ( regonline, eventbrite etc. -- depending on the service
they take different cuts from the sale )

- most of the work happens before event, but there will be need for
hands / workers during the conference day. Community orgs need to
balance what they want to do during the event and how much they can
work during the event

- even low quality recording of talks ( consumer videocamera,
cellphone + good audio recording ) is better than no recording.
Professional level recording, editing and / or streaming costs few
thousands ( 10k in Helsinki ) -- good enough community recording much
less.

- everything takes more time than anticipated so organisers should
clear the calendar around the event

- things and plans will break down during the event, so ability to
react quickly and adapt is essential

- program track and chairs responsible for that track's content has
worked well for many conferences. Inside tracks there can be different
ways of vetting and selecting talks, but in the end the blame or glory
is on the track chair



-huima


On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 9:12 AM, Jeff Potts <jeffpotts01 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Looks like it is up to us to have an Alfresco conference. The good news is
> we get to cater exclusively to the needs/wants of the community, which is
> great. If we do this right, this is a major opportunity for The Order of the
> Bee to establish itself, attract more attention, and grow.
>
> I propose that we get organized a bit before Ole gets back from vacation,
> then we can have a joint discussion and put forth our plan.
>
> I know we've discussed some of this already, but I'd like to have a meeting
> to reach conclusions regarding:
>
> 1. Overall philosophy/scope/objective.
> 2. Budget, including price, sponsorships, and cost.
> 3. City, dates, venue, and rough high-level agenda.
> 4. Estimation of demand/attendance.
> 5. Ideas around session vetting & scheduling.
> 6. Who does what.
>
> I'd like to have this stuff pretty much nailed down before we talk to
> Alfresco about how best to collaborate on this project.
>
> If you are interested, let me know when you can meet next week and I'll add
> you to the calendar invite.
>
> Jeff
>
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