FOSS4G2008 Communication

The standard text has been sent to the list at Public Relations (version of 15:02, 18 April 2008)

Media deadlines
The list of media items that we have lined up *18 July, PositionIT, half-page ad, late August, partner deal ..and all the rest as per media deals and paid bookings - please add the details...
 * deadline date, publication, media type, publication date, paid / partner deal
 * 29 July, PositionIT, email banner, early August, paid
 * , PositionIT, e-mail shot,as soon as programme ready,paid
 * , Tectonic, banner ad, asap, paid
 * , GeoConnexion, banner ad
 * , GeoConnexion, ???
 * , Int J Geoinfo, banner ad
 * , DirectionsMag, ???
 * , ITWire, ???
 * , all media, Press Release, soon and often, free and paid (e.g. SAPA)

Marketing Events
A list of events that should trigger Announcements and other Communications is posted on the FOSS4G2008_Announcements page. Please refer to it and the Conference Event Timeline FOSS4G 2008 Timeline.

E-Mail Marketing

 * GISSA Chair and Regional Secretaries mail to all GISSA lists
 * foss4g-newsletter (Gavin or Paul Scott)
 * OSGeo
 * africa (Gavin direct)
 * discuss (Gavin direct)
 * announce (news_item at osgeo dot org)
 * conference_dev (Gavin direct)
 * edu_discuss (Gavin direct)
 * conference-workshops (Gavin direct)
 * foss4g2008loc (Gavin direct)
 * foss4g2009 (Gavin direct)
 * EIS-Africa (request Sonja and Sives)
 * AGIRN (request Craig Schwabe)
 * GLCN-L (Gavin direct)
 * UN SIMAC: simac@als.unep.org (Gavin direct; Somalia Interagency Mapping and Coordination)
 * geonetwork-users (Gavin direct)
 * sensorweb CSIR list (Gavin direct)
 * sdi-africa (Gavin direct)
 * postgis-users, Paul Ramsey
 * gmt, Paul Ramsey
 * freegis-list (Gavin direct)
 * local linux user groups
 * local java user groups
 * geotools-devel, Jody Garnett
 * gt2-users-list, Jody Garnett
 * udig-devel, Jody Garnett
 * geoserver-devel, Jody Garnett
 * mapserver-users, Steve Lime
 * mapguide-users, Bob Bray
 * qgis-user, Gary Sherman / Tim Sutton
 * grass-dev and grassuser, Markus Neteler
 * osgeo announce, Frank Warmerdam
 * gdal-dev, Frank Warmerdam
 * worldwind, Chad Zimmerman
 * openlayers, Chris Schmidt
 * mapbender, Arnulf Christl
 * ossim, Mark Lucus
 * jump (jump-users and openjump lists), Landon Blake
 * gvsig, trying gvsig at gva.es to start
 * opengis/geosptatial, Sam Bacharach
 * sharpmap?
 * mapnik, Artem Pavlenko
 * deegree, lan/lon
 * geowankers, Allan Doyle
 * geowanking (http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking) Gavin direct.
 * kamap-users, -dev, Paul Spencer
 * mapbuilder-users, -dev, Cameron Shorter
 * eogeo, Allan Doyle
 * CEOS WGISS lists, Allan Doyle
 * NASA ESIP lists, Perry Nacionales
 * MapStorer lists, Sebastian Schmitz
 * Chameleon lists, Paul Spencer
 * Geonetwork lists, Jeroen Ticheler
 * osgeo discuss, Tyler Mitchell
 * mapserver-west, Tyler Mitchell
 * MapWindow announce list, Dan Ames
 * More Please...

Code Sprint, Demo Sessions, Lightning Talks Email Campaigning
Promotional email template for advertising Demo sessions, lightning talks and code sprint:

TODO - hive off promotional letter onto a separate page.

Dear OSGEO project leaders!

I would be most grateful if you could forward the following message (redacted to the part between 's below) on to your project mailing list(s).

Best regards

Tim Sutton (FOSS4G2008 Code Sprint, Lightning Talks & Demo session coordinator)

begin promotional email body --

Free and Open Source Geospatial Conference 2008 (FOSS4G2008)

FOSS4G2008 will be taking place this year in September / October in South Africa. FOSS4G is a an annual gathering place for Free and Open Source projects with a geospatial leaning. The conference venue is the Cape Town International Conference Center (CTICC) in the Foreshore area of Cape Town - the beautiful 'mother city' of South Africa.

Demo Sessions:

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We will be holding a demo theatre during tea breaks and lunch times. Demos are a great way to show off your work to decision makers, GIS professionals and fellow code crunchers. The demos will be restricted to 10 minutes each (including questions and setup time) so they need to be brief and to the point. If you would like to demo your project, something you have achieved with FOSS geospatial, or anything else relevant to a geospatial practitioner audience, you can register by following the instructions provided on the demo wiki page here:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_Demos

Lightning Talks:

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During the plenary session on Monday 29 July, there will be eight lightning talks of 5 minutes each. Time limits will be strictly adhered to and we are looking for the most entertaining, thought provoking and informative speeches possible. The speeches will be presented to the entire conference. If you are interested in making a lightning speech, or know of any good candidates to give such a speech, please visit the lightning talks wiki page to register your interest here:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_LightningTalks

Code Sprint:

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We will be holding an all day code sprint on Saturday 4 October - the day following the end of the main conference activities. Given that most FOSS projects are conducted as virtual collaborations over the internet, the code sprint is a rare opportunity for you to get together in person with other developers in your project.

The code sprint is also a great opportunity for those who are interested in getting involved in a project to go and meet the developers face to face and get some help in getting started with development. If you are not a developer, but interested in other aspects of project development, (documentation, creating demonstrator implementations of software etc.) the code sprint is an equally good opportunity to collaborate.

We will provide a venue, lunch and refreshments, internet connection and flip charts. If you have other special requirements let us know and we will see what we can do.

In order to provide the very best experience for you it would be helpful to get an idea of how many people are likely to attend. We have created a Wiki page at:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2008_CodeSprint

On this page you can create a section for your project and list the people planning to attend. The page also provides a space to help you organise your code sprint day by writing up the goals and preparation work needed for your sprint.

Contact Info:

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The code sprint, lightning talks & demo session organiser is Tim Sutton (tim@linfiniti.com) - if you have any questions or special requirements, please don't hesitate to ask. If you haven't already registered for the conference, we advise doing so as soon as possible to secure your place. Visit the conference registration page at:

http://conference.osgeo.org/index.php/foss4g/2008/schedConf/registration

- end promotional email body

Follows a brain dump list of people (some may not be suitable candidates) to contact to promote the lightning talks, demo sessions and code sprint.


 * Project leaders in first secion of http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Contacts (./)
 * OSGEO Africa chapter (./)
 * CLUG moderators clugadmin at clug.org.za (./)
 * Adriaan van Niekerk (University of Stellenbosch geog dept) avn at sun.ac.za (./)
 * Reynet van Niekerk (University of Pretoria geog dept) reynet.vanniekerk@.up.ac.za (./)
 * Article for PositionIT magazine (http://www.eepublishers.co.za/view.php?sid=13867) (./)
 * maurizio at madmappers.com from MadMappers (./)
 * mick.wilson at unep.org UN East Africa (./)
 * Sindile Bidla - ECape Dept Land Affairs (./)
 * Paul Scott (./)
 * Programming clubs
 * Orienteering orgs
 * Geog depts at universities
 * Comp/sci depts at universities
 * Geocachers?

Paper Marketing
Advertisement: 
 * Position IT (GISSA media partner) Mar/Apr Issue [[Media:A6_advert_Mar.jpg|March Advert]]
 * Position IT May/June Issue - A6 Advert [[Media:A6_advert_May.jpg|May Advert]]
 * EIS-Africa Newsletter

Editorials:
 * at least one arcticle in every issue of PositionIT

Other:

Placement of Registration form in national journals/magazine (investigating costs for SA)

Postal mailing in SA, Africa & Other states ... past 2007 attendees? (Budget-checking, contributions from LOC on postal address mailing list). (Postal mail wasn't that effective in 2007 - Gavin)

Web Marketing
Placing banner ads one some of the high-traffic open source project sites is a huge source of referrals. The 2007 conference web site received the majority of its referrals from open source web site announcements, with GRASS as the top site.

The following sites need to be approached to do banner placement:
 * GRASS (Markus Neteler)
 * PostGIS (Paul Ramsey)
 * Mapserver (Steve Lime). Jeff McKenna placed banner on MapServer home page on 9 April.
 * MapWindow (Dan Ames) -
 * [FOSSGIS] (Arnulf Christl)
 * WhereGroup.com (Arnulf Christl)
 * Mapbender (Arnulf Christl)
 * GIS Jobs Clearinghouse (Steve Lime)
 * GeoNetwork opensource (Jeroen Ticheler)
 * http://www.northafrica.de/gis.htm
 * http://www.sahims.net/gis/Gis%20Input/GIS_library_Regional.asp
 * http://www.gisdevelopment.net/news/viewn.asp?id=GIS:N_ncwmpjaltd

The following sites have committed to doing banner placement:
 * http://www.eis-africa.org/EIS-Africa/(Sives Govender)
 * http://www.agirn.org/agirn/eis_africa.php ((Craig Schwabe)have agreed to market the conference awaiting materail from us -contact Carrin)
 * http://www.cartoworld.com/

And see also Public Relations

We have requested the graphics designer who designed the FOSS4G2008 logo to assist with ideas for designs of the logos and banners to place on websites of varios open source organisations, GISSA partners and other regional websites. We had a few ideas centered on the main logo. Those with great graphics skills who want to be creative please help and add to the list.

FOSS4G Logos
Please use the original FOSS4G 2008 logo for advertising, linking etc. Find some jpg images below or get the FOSS4G Logo EPS (ZIP) from the conference web site.















Web Advert Images
Resized image of Position IT advert



LOGO_RGB_web-edits-0408-3.jpg

Blogosphere
Please write about FOSS4G2008 in your blog. List any blogs or bloggers that are or should be discussing FOSS4G here:
 * Gabor Remetey-Fülöpp's blog (in Hungarian) http://hunagi8.blogspot.com/2008/05/szabad-s-nylt-forrskd-szoftverek.html
 * Adena Schutzberg at DirectionsMag (http://apb.directionsmag.com/archives/4300-FOSS4G2008-Cape-Town,-South-Africa-Call-for-Presentation-Extended.html)