[OOTB-hive] Introducing BeeCon

Wed May 6 05:38:14 BST 2015

I love the idea of a community led conference, and I would like to help as 
much as possible. I think the most useful way I can help at the moment is to 
offer unsolicited advice and proposals.

* Rather than making this an "Alfresco developer conference", or an "open 
source community conference", I think this is the "Order of the Bee 
Conference. It's an opportunity to promote our brand, and the conference is to 
advance our mission. Let's call it BeeCon.

* Mission: BeeCon is the community-led conference for Alfresco enthusiasts. 
Expect deep technical insight, comradery, and an opportunity to contribute 
back. We encourage any topic related to Alfresco Community Edition, and we 
welcome developers, administrators, and users of any Alfresco related product.

* I have participated in the planning of a number of conferences. They all 
require time and money. I think the Order of the Bee has the enthusiasm 
necessary to pull it off, but we still aren't organized in a way that allows us 
to receive and spend money. Maybe we need to do that.

* There is value in charging a reasonable entry fee. It helps with the 
planning, increases the level of commitment, and provides resources for 
essentials like Internet access. I would suggest charging €75 at the door, 
with discounts for registering early, being a member of the Order of the Bee, 
or being a student. It should be easy for people who care about the topic to 
figure out how to get in for less than €40 (register early with an Order of the 
Bee code). But there should also be an option "I want to support the mission 
of the conference by paying full price".

* I love informal community conferences. Many of my favorite conferences have 
been held at a University, school, or museum, and required participants to buy 
their own food. We should focus on providing power, network, and a place to 
have great conversations.

* We should set up a web site for submitting proposals, and then allow people 
who have pre-registered for the conference to vote to select the speakers.

* The Order of the Bee has about 110 members, so our first conference is 
unlikely to attract more than 100. Selling out isn't a bad thing.

* Based on that estimate, our venue should have two rooms that hold 50. I 
would plan 7 sessions a day and a keynote. Over two days with two rooms, 
that's 28 presentations and 2 keynotes. But maybe we just do 1.5 days so that 
we have a half day dedicated to a hack-a-thon and people only need one night's 
hotel room. We could combine the two rooms for the keynotes and and have a 
sponsor area in the hall.

* Two people could manage to record and post 28 sessions. I'm pretty sure I 
can get the Alfresco recording devices (VGA only).

* Unfortunately, there is a lot of work involved with setting up the 
infrastructure: web site, registration process, legal requirements. But after 
the  first conference, it should be easier to make this a yearly event.

* I expect that the key question of when to hold the conference will revolve 
around the question of "how long will it take to organize this stuff?"

I'm very excited about BeeCon! (Is the name sticking yet?)

Bzzzz,

Richard

On Wednesday, May 06, 2015 00:25:49 Boriss Mejias wrote:
> Hi bees,
> 
> First of all, thanks a lot for the support. Not only on the list, but I
> have also received different emails confirming that this is a good idea.
> So, we have all the energy to carry on with it!!
> 
> Now to some of the questions:
> 
> Gab: Thumbs up for working together on these activities. Thanks for the
> immediate support. Regarding the target audience, just like Oksana said, we
> think it is going to be a bit of both audiences, with a stronger focus on
> 1: the developers and admins. This is at least how I see DevCon 2011 and
> 2012. Great technical presentations and discussions, with some interesting
> use cases that allow the technical people to see what are the problems the
> users are having.
> 
> Torben: The value of working together with Alfresco Inc is very important,
> because we get in touch with Alfresco engineers that enrich our knowledge.
> It will be independent from Alfresco Inc in the sense that the community
> will be deciding the topics that will be presented and discussed. Regarding
> the software edition, thing about a free and open source event, where an
> open source application is presented, but it only runs on windoze and
> macosx. The platform where it runs is not open source, but the application
> itself is, and it can build a community around it. Would you prevent such
> project to be presented at a conference because the platform where it runs
> is not open source?
> 
> Sam: They are not really stopping the Summit, but we feel they have killed
> what used to be DevCon, and they have taken a direction that doesn't meet
> the interest of the community. Thanks for the support.
> 
> Cristina and Oksana: Yes, we need to start figuring out a lot of details of
> the logistic of the conference, but I think our most important focus should
> be content, and keep it low budget. FOSDEM is a good example to follow, but
> I'm looking at other initiatives as well to pick up ideas from different
> source. It's all in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things.
> 
> That's it for now.
> I'll come back with more info, task, questions and answers soon.
> Reactions to become a volunteer and help with the organisations are clearly
> welcome
> 
> cheers
> Boriss
> PS: [*] I forgot that I wanted to clarify that May the 25th, Towel Day, is
> far more important to me that May the 4th.
> 
> On 5 May 2015 at 11:56, Oksana Kurysheva <okurysheva at itdhq.com> wrote:
> > Hi bees,
> > 
> > We can create a survey to select a place after we understand more
> > questions to figure out. As for me, I like the idea and I prefer Brussels.
> > It's good to have a venue for our first international community event. And
> > next year we can look at other places after we will understand do Alfresco
> > Inc and Alfresco partners ready to become sponsors and pay for a venue or
> > not.
> > 
> > A lot of things depend on will Alfresco and partners support us or not.
> > Will participation be free of charge or not? Will a sponsor pay for all
> > meals or should everybody pay for himself? etc... If we understand well
> > positioning and values of the event, get interesting agenda and work a lot
> > to organize and promote the event, then we can get more than 100
> > participants (especially if it is free). It's really a lot of work. And
> > it's a question does Boriss's employer ready to provide us a venue for
> > such
> > crowd of geeks or not, heh...
> > 
> > Gab,
> > 
> > > 1. the Developer Ecosystem (cross the Community or Enterprise boundary),
> > 
> > i.e. a very technical event which offers content to satisfy the Developer
> > persona?
> > 
> > > 2. the Alfresco Community members / users (so any aspect of Community,
> > 
> > including technical info but also case studies, sales / consulting system
> > integrator pitches, etc.)?
> > 
> > > 3. A bit of both?
> > 
> > I think we focus on both of them. But to be honest, I do not know any
> > "business users of Community Edition" who are really business users.
> > Usually developers and administrators participate in the community and can
> > participate in such event, so it's mostly the first point than the second.
> > In any case I don't think that anyone is interested in providing a
> > presentation about "How to use Alfresco and not pay to Alfresco Inc?". We
> > can have a track for business users, but it will be about use cases that
> > are common for both editions. // as I see that
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Oksana
> > 
> > ------------------------------
> > *From: *"Torben Lauritzen" <tl at magus.dk>
> > *To: *ootb-hive at xtreamlab.net
> > *Sent: *Tuesday, May 5, 2015 11:27:00 AM
> > *Subject: *Re: [OOTB-hive] May the 4th be with you! Announcement!
> > 
> > 
> > Hi All.
> > 
> > I think it is a great idea to organize an Alfresco Community Meeting, and
> > I would be happy to help!
> > 
> > But I would like it to be completely independent of the Alfresco company -
> > they are welcome to act as sponsors, but otherwise I think we should
> > emphasize that it is a Community meeting, encompassing both technical and
> > business issues related to Alfresco Community Edition.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Torben
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On 05/05/2015, at 00.39, Gabriele Columbro <columbro at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Hey Boriss,
> > 
> > I’d say yeah more than forking (WTF = What the Fork ;), I suggest working
> > together on these initiatives. Ole is quickly ramping up in his role and
> > would be able to work more with you on these initiatives from a Developer
> > standpoint (and with Richard from a Community standpoint).
> > 
> > Personally, I think it could be a good idea need to complement the Summit
> > with a more technical focused event, ideally in Europe, where our
> > technical
> > and developer footprint is very large. But might not be the necessarily
> > the
> > only solution: having a technical track at Alfresco days, where fresh
> > content can be delivered more often and more locally than on a yearly
> > cadence, seems also something we should be doing.
> > 
> > For us to better organize internally how to support these events, and to
> > help me better understand what problem are we trying to solve with this
> > initiative, I have a question: I have seen the Community / Technical
> > audience used interchangeably (e.g. it’s an “Alfresco Community Meeting”
> > but the main reason is that Alfresco Days provide "very little technical
> > value”, so I’d like to understand if your focus / interest / audience is:
> > 
> > 1. the Developer Ecosystem (cross the Community or Enterprise boundary),
> > i.e. a very technical event which offers content to satisfy the Developer
> > persona?
> > 2. the Alfresco Community members / users (so any aspect of Community,
> > including technical info but also case studies, sales / consulting system
> > integrator pitches, etc.)?
> > 3. A bit of both?
> > 
> > I know there is an overlap between the two potential audiences, but I do
> > think these audiences might have different problems and as mentioned above
> > might be addressed with multiple initiatives. Personally, I’d rather see
> > us
> > invest first on a Dev event first (but obviously I am biased :P) and then
> > on a Community event, or on an event which satisfies both purposes (in
> > which case though Alfresco Community Meeting might be not the best
> > naming).
> > 
> > Happy to follow up on a separate thread if we don’t want to highjack this
> > one :)
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Gab
> > 
> > --
> > 
> > Gabriele Columbro
> > Sr. Product Manager, Core Platform / API, Alfresco Software
> > 
> > On May 4, 2015, at 5:54 PM, Boriss Mejias <tchorix at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Dear bees,
> > 
> > I'm not a fan of Star Wars[*], but May the 4th sounds like a good day for
> > announcement such as the following:
> > 
> > *We are organising the Alfresco Community Meeting!*
> > 
> > i.e., we are forking Alfresco Summit. May the fork be with you!
> > (Oh, I mentioned the "F" word. Sorry Richard)
> > 
> > Alfresco Inc. decided to organise a single global Summit. One of the main
> > argument is that "Alfresco Days" were good enough for a large amount of
> > customers that won't be able to travel to Summit. We feel that this is
> > terrible for the Alfresco Community, mostly because Alfresco Days are
> > sales
> > event, with very little technical value, and the community wants to
> > discuss
> > technical stuffs and shared their expertise.
> > 
> > We discussed the idea within the Board, and we all agreed that we should
> > organise a community event. Here are the main ideas:
> > 
> > *Goal*: Create an event where the Alfresco community can meet and share
> > their knowledge.
> > 
> > *When*: Either September 2015 or March 2016. We don't want to conflict
> > with the Alfresco Summit (Nov 2015). This is a reaction of the community
> > to
> > the direction the Summit is taken, but it is not a boycott. It's bringing
> > an event for the community, which can attend both events if they want to.
> > 
> > *Where*: There are three ideas: 1. Brussels, 2. Stockholm, 3, Malaga. The
> > reason why Brussels is first it's because I'm advancing on having a place
> > to host the event with the company I work for.
> > 
> > *What*: Technical talks, and a hackathon. Which means that we need A LOT
> > of volunteers to present and to filter the submissions. This is a CALL FOR
> > VOLUNTEERS! The more volunteers we have, the less work for each one.
> > 
> > *Who:* The Order of the Bee is the main driven force for the organisation
> > of the event. But it's an event organised by the community and for the
> > community. So, any community member outside the Order is welcome to help
> > and attend
> > 
> > *.*
> > *Sponsors: *We will have Honey, Nectar and Pollen sponsors, instead of
> > Platinum, Golden and Silver. This is of course an irrelevant joke, but we
> > hope to convince Alfresco Inc to give us some sponsoring, specially by
> > sending engineers to the event. So, don't abuse the "f" word :D.
> > 
> > That's it. Feedback, ideas, and volunteers are welcome!
> > 
> > Cheers
> > Bee Mejias.
> > aka Boriss
> > _______________________________________________
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