Re: GNOME ASIA 2009 Update

[Sankarshan (সঙ্কর্ষণ) <sankarshan randomink org>]

On Fri, Apr 17, 2009 at 11:05 PM, Stormy Peters <stormy gnome org> wrote:

> Why not have all the desktop talks/track under the GNOME.Asia umbrella? I
> think we need to build on the branding and recognition we have, not create
> another conference right now.

We support the goals of the GNOME Foundation in producing GNOME.Asia
'09. We understand these goals to include attracting participation,
building up membership, producing modest revenue and promoting the
brand of the conference and of GNOME itself.

At this point it looks like we are discussing different formulations
of practical strategy to accomplish these goals in our geography. We
have been having lots of discussions about the models for GNOME.Asia
and, the three models below are a summary of them:

MODEL 1 - The Developer Meetup Model: This is a stand-alone conference
that focuses primarily on GNOME technologies and activities.

We can agree that this first model would probably turn out to be a
small developer meet-up. By itself, GNOME.Asia might attract about 25
professional GNOME developers from the region (mostly in the area of
language localization) and perhaps 50-75 others interested in the
conference. While in-kind sponsorship opportunities exist for this
kind of event, no sponsorship money could be raised from the regional
economy. Potential in-kind sponsors include organizations with GNOME
developers in India such as Red Hat, Novell and Sun. Other
organizations would be unlikely to sponsor at any level because such a
small and niche audience represents a negligible target either for
hiring or for promoting products. Modest sponsorships, however, might
be obtained from global technology companies who themselves are
interested in brand promotion in India. These include Google, Yahoo,
Mozilla and others. However, such a strategy would not promote the
other goals that we have. Awareness and relevance of the GNOME brand
would be lost in the brand maneuvering of these other sponsors.

The other two models (2 & 3) contain many elements that we have
already agreed (in past discussions) are desirable. The difference is
in balance and focus.

MODEL 2 - The Umbrella Model: The second model leads off with GNOME
topics and branding but also acts as an umbrella for related
technologies and events.

If GNOME.Asia is the principal banner of the conference, then the bar
for quality and relevance of GNOME's conference content is much
higher. A failure to produce this prime part of the conference at
adequate scale and with sufficient quality will damage rather than
promote the GNOME brand in Asia.

MODEL 3 - The Component Model: This model is the inverse of model 2.
It is a broader technology conference that incorporates GNOME.Asia as
a major component in the form of a track.

Producing a conference where GNOME.Asia is an important component
permits visibility for GNOME technologies and activities but at a more
modest level of engagement. At the same time it preserves the scale of
the conference at a level that major sponsors would be interested in.

We are not proposing a co-location model, but a component model.  This
is more like FOSDEM than GUADEC.  We believe that we can attract a
higher level of sponsorship because the audience would be larger and
broader across the whole conference. We would work to make sure that
all GNOME technologies and activities are featured and promoted.
Conference participants would represent a "captive audience' of users,
developers, vendors and other organizations who can be introduced to
GNOME in this new geography. Because the conference focuses on GNOME
as one of its principal elements, there is no chance that the GNOME
messaging and branding will get lost. Participants from the open
source communities and industries who are interested in UI
technologies across the desktop and mobile platforms will find it
convenient to interact with the GNOME resources available at the
conference.

Bottomline: we believe that the best opportunity for the promotion and
growth of GNOME in Asia today is to embed GNOME.Asia into a conference
with a larger and more compelling mandate in this geography. This is
best served by Model 3. The alternative of running a GNOME.Asia
conference (Model 2) that pulls in other areas of technology could
result in being unable to meet the goals of the conference and even in
damaging the GNOME brand and image.

~s


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