Hi,On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 12:11 AM, Nuritzi Sanchez <nuritzis stanfordalumni org> wrote:Hi All,Zana raised a good point today about needing the Board's approval before we make widespread announcements about the changes to the LAS GNOME conference, especially the part about reducing the registration fees to zero. The reason is that the Board signed off on budget that showed a profit. We need to make sure they give us their blessing to run the conference at a deficit.This means that we should hold off from driving registration until around August 3rd as per the proposal below.Here's our proposal:
- Tomorrow: Go ahead and blast the lists and social media with a reminder to submit papers. We want the Board's blessing for all the changes we've made, and at the same time, we can't ignore the real time crunch we are in. I haven't heard an update about the registration page, so this also buys us a little more time to implement that needed change.
I'm going to go ahead and send out the email to foundation-list and desktop-devel now.Meg
- By this Friday, July 29th at 12 pm PDT: @Teresa and @Sri send Nuritzi the updated budget. @Nuritzi will then email the Board with an update on the changes and the fact that we would be running the conference with a known a deficit. I'll make the case that we need to invest in this conference, similar to how we did for GNOME.Asia (using material Zana sent me), and I'll also stress that this will be GNOME's US-based conference. I'll start drafting the email to the Board before Friday and will open it up for this list's review. I am traveling on Saturday until GUADEC, so need to send the email out on Friday or else have someone else do it.
- Tuesday, August 2nd: @Nuritzi, Meg or Alexndre will update the Board verbally on the conference status and will ask them to take a vote to approve the conference with the new information on hand. If they don't approve it, we need to talk and figure out a contingency plan. We might want to start talking about that possibility at Friday's regular LAS GNOME meeting.
- Wednesday, August 3rd or Monday, August 8th: Assuming the Board approves the conference continuing, we should email the Foundation and Engagement lists to let them know about the changes made for the conference. We should focus on driving registration.
Please let us know what you think! Below, I've adding the email I've drafted to send out tomorrow. Please feel free to add edits in the editable version.Best,NuritziReminder for Call for Papers Email
Subject: Reminder | CfP deadline for LAS GNOME this Sunday
Hi everyone,
This is a quick reminder that the deadline to submit a paper to LAS GNOME is this Sunday, July 31st. We encourage you to submit your talk now: http://las.gnome.org/submit-your-talk/
LAS GNOME will be held in Portland, Oregon on September 19 - 23rd and is the conference to attend if you want to create a business around Linux-based applications, release your applications to multiple distributions at the same time, and/or create the conditions necessary to reach a wider audience for your current Linux apps.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Ecosystem: business, legal, community, and social issues
Platforms: deep low-level topics around hardware, drivers, and tools
Distribution: collaborating with established distributions (like OpenSuse), inter-distribution cooperation, QA and continuous integration.
Development: toolkits, X/Wayland, security, runtimes, SDK, development tools.
Proposals by newcomers and experienced speakers are welcomed alike. When submitting your proposal, please keep in mind that talk slots are 45 minutes long.
Best,
The LAS GNOME Committee
On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 4:35 PM, Nuritzi Sanchez <nuritzis stanfordalumni org> wrote:Hi All,This meeting was an important one since some concerns were brought to the table:
- not enough content for a 5 day conference (not enough speakers or talks submitted)
- very few participants up to date, worried about drawing a crowd
- high costs, especially around internet (~$6,500)
- not enough interest in sponsorship. sponsorship levels may be too high
As a result of these concerns, it was suggested to postpone the conference, however, the comittee discussed that postponing the conference may harm its reputation.We have decided to proceed with the LAS GNOME conference, and to make a strategic shift to make it more manageable. Notably, we will be cutting the main conference down to 2 days, with half days of unconference events, and then will have the other days open for hackfests and BoFs. Regarding costs, we recognize that we will most likely operate with a deficit this year and agreed to see it as an investment in a brand new conference. Zana brought up the excellent point that this is the first year that GNOME.Asia has operated as a profit and previous years were run at a deficit. Brand new conferences just need more TLC.We will hold an emergency meeting on Monday, July 25th to go over the proposed strategic shift in detail and outline next steps. Nuritzi will be presenting these.
- internet pricing (it'd be great to get it less than $6.5K)
- conference materials pricing and strategy (banners, shirts, stickers, etc)
- local marketing to drive registration
If you were unable to attend this meeting and have questions, please send them along via email and we hope you'll join our meeting next Monday, July 25th at 17:00 UTC.Best,NuritziJuly 22, 2015Attendees: Nuritzi, Sri, Adelia, Meg, Zana
- WEEKLY UPDATES
- Speakers (Meg): 2 headlines, 6 others have submitted talks
- Registered participants (Adelia): 5 people including Sri and Alexandre
- Sponsorship $ (Zana): $7K
- Emergency Meeting Next Week
- Monday, July 25th at 17:00 UTC
- ACTION STEPS:
- @Nuritzi - draft a propoal for the strategic shift. draft proposed next steps. draft an email to Foundation and Engagement lists about travel sponsorship and strategic shift
- @Meg - make a list of people we will reach out to personally (see relevant section in notes below)
- RAW NOTES:
- Schedule (shorten the conference to 2 days):
- Starts at 10 am
- Talks in the morning, unconference in the afternoon
- BOFs and Hackfests the other days
- Talks
- Let people know that their talks have been accepted by August 1st
- Social Media Marketing
- Try to target more college students, especially in the Portland area: use Snapchat?
- Budget Concerns:
- Is it ok to run it at a deficit: internet up to $6,500.
- Already paid: $3120.50 for the venue
- Website and Registration Page Changes:
- Registration fees: get rid of the registration fees, have a suggested donation
- Rethink all sponsorship levels.
- Get the word out about strategic shift:
- Put a blog on Planet GNOME
- Email Foundation List
- Email Engagement List
- Create a list of people to reach out to and personally invite:
- Who are the Flatpak core developers?
- Westcoast Hackfest participants: Elementary OS.
- Sri: can bring people from Portland, about 5 or 6 people (Owen Taylor)
- Other:
- Consider a FAQ page: with responses to questions that people in the comunity are getting about Flatpak.
- Website
- Two new proposed sponsorship levels:
- Supporter - $1,000
- Logo, link, and text on conference website
- Friend - $500
- Logo, link, and text on conference website
.............................................................................Nuritzi Sanchez | +1.650.218.7388 | Endless
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