Re: GNOME ASIA 2009 Update

[Will LaShell <will lashell net>]

All, 

On Sun, 2009-04-19 at 08:12 -0600, Stormy Peters wrote:
> I have to agree with Fred. We are looking for someone to run
> GNOME.Asia. We know that GNOME.Asia can be a success and are looking
> for someone to run it. 

Absolutely. It is paramount to continue our work on the GNOME.Asia
Summit with the brand and model we started with.

> If you had come to us with a proposal to create a new conference and
> include or co-locate GNOME.Asia in it, I would still want a team
> focused just on GNOME.Asia inside that new conference structure. 
> 
> While I don't speak for the whole group, I think including/inviting
> all the other desktop topics in GNOME.Asia is great. However, I think
> the event should still be GNOME.Asia ...

This is what we did last year. It worked quite well. We covered a nice
range of desktop and technology topics.

> What about something like GNOME.Asia with a subtitle of "The Desktop
> Summit of Asia"?

The Asian Desktop Summit

or

Asia's Desktop Summit

> What do others think?
> 
> Stormy
> 
> P.S. Did Alolita sign up for the asia-summit list? Should we cc her
> here?

If she isn't on the list one of us can add her.

Will

> On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Frederic Muller <fred beijinglug org>
> wrote:
>         hi!
>         
>         The problem I see with that is we were looking for someone to
>         organize Gnome.Asia 2009, not something else... Having
>         organized a few Open Source events myself on very tight
>         budgets, it's really not about the name, but more about the
>         energy you put into preparation and how you market the event.
>         
>         I'd say we keep the Gnome.Asia name and do our best to make it
>         happen a second time.
>         
>         Fred
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         
>         Sankarshan (সঙ্কর্ষণ) wrote:
>                 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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>         
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