LOC conference call Feb 8, 2011

= Agenda =

''' Meeting notes in bold

'''Attendees:


 * ''' Peter Batty
 * ''' James Fee
 * ''' Jeff McKenna
 * ''' James Sakamoto
 * ''' Ben Tuttle
 * ''' Hurricane McEwen

LOC members and roles

 * See FOSS4G 2011 LOC members and assignments for current list

''' Peter still needs to chase down a few people and confirm if they are in or out of the LOC

Sponsorship Update (Peter Batty / Tyler Mitchell)

 * Review of sponsor prospect list and status of those that are likely / confirmed

''' We are now up to 12 bronze sponsors (+ 1 silver, 2 gold, 1 platinum)

Workshops (Ben Tuttle)

 * Ready to start review process
 * Announcement of accepted proposals on 16 Feb 2011

''' We have a good set of proposals submitted (33 for workshops and 25 for tutorials) ''' How many tutorials do we want to do? Ben is thinking maybe 20. We need to consider how this impacts the number of comps we give out, and also how it impacts the number of presentations we can have (for every tutorial we have 3 fewer regular presentations). Since the overall shape of the program isn't decide yet (number / length of plenary sessions, etc), we may need to be a little conservative about choosing tutorials. Possibly confirm 10 now and say that we may select additional ones at a later date?

''' We have agreed on 24 workshops. The one possible caveat on this is that we need space for the "newcomers' events", and in the worst case we could remove two workshops to accommodate these. But there are various options so that is unlikely.

''' Agreed number of comps is (up to) 1.5 per workshop and 0.5 per tutorial.

'''We agreed that the workshop committee will all vote on the submissions by end of day Thursday, and will have a conference call Friday to discuss.

Program (James Fee)
''' We agreed on 30 minutes for sessions - while everyone is generally in favor of short (20 minute) presentations, with multiple tracks we really need at least 5 minutes to switch, ideally a little more. Squeezing to 25 minute sessions makes all the timings more complicated. So we will have 30 minute sessions including time for changeover - presentations 20 mins max, intro and Q&A 5 mins max.

''' On keynote speakers, Peter has acceptance from Peter ter Haar of Ordnance Survey to talk about their experience with opening up their data. We also agreed to confirm Steve Coast as a keynote speaker, again on the open data theme obviously. And Peter has emailed Tim Berners-Lee to invite him to talk on the topic of open data, waiting to hear back.

''' James F will take a first pass at sketching out the general shape of the program - how long we have plenaries for and when, etc. We need to combine this with the number of rooms to work out how many slots we have for papers and/or tutorials.

''' Peter suggested we should write something emphasizing the open data theme more strongly. James agreed to take a pass at this.

Registration / Pricing (Tyler Mitchell)
'''We had brief discussion on the fact that someone last week expressed a strong opinion that we should charge $500 versus $499. Nobody this week had strong opinions, and also nobody was quite sure who had this opinion ... by a process of elimination it seems likely to be Tyler E! Henry based on his experience leans to $499, there was general support for going with Henry's view.

Social Events (Peter / other volunteers?)
'''Peter has made contact with the Wynkoop Brewing Company, still in discussions about how best to fit arrangements into our budget. Henry has requested information from several venues for the gala dinner. Henry and Peter to visit proposed venues today and tomorrow (Opera House, Art Museum and Top of the Hyatt).

Website (Who owns ??)
'''Peter and Tyler still looking for someone to pick this up. Tyler has asked a marketing company he has worked with previously to provide a quote for marketing / identity items (posters, flyers, etc). No change here yet.

SotM coordination
''' We agreed we will do combined airline ticket discounts - thanks to Hurricane for organizing this! There is a penalty up to $1000 if we don't get to 20 people, seems unlikely that we wouldn't get that.

''' Hurricane asked about the possibility of doing a combined registration discount. This was something that had been raised in earlier discussions and strongly rejected by the SotM team. We felt at this point that it would be too big a change to our budget, and also complicated logistically, to accommodate this. But we are keen to continue to cross-promote the events and find ways to collaborate.