FOSS4G 2009 Lessons Learned

=Bidding= See also: FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned


 * Plan ahead. FOSS4G moves around the world to give everyone a chance to attend locally.
 * Bidding cities should take a long term strategy. If you don't win one year, keep submitting until you do.
 * The bid committee should suggest regions they would like to move to in the near future which will encourage cities in that region to bid.
 * Feedback to unsuccessful bids should include targeted feedback, including rankings, to help cities refine their bid.
 * Cities should engage the local conference industry. They are likely to provide their services for free in order to secure the conference.
 * Network locally. A large, diverse team is attractive to selectors.
 * Be open in your bidding process. While it may allow competing cities to gain advantage, you will demonstrate your strength and openness to the OSGeo bid committee.

Reference: International Conference delivered to your doorstep by Cameron Shorter

Commercial In Confidence Documentation

 * Open Source developers often expect that all FOSS4G documentation will be Open. Unfortunately, the Professional Conference Organisor (PCO) industry seems to protect all their processes and documentation very closely. Consider this when dealing with them. Request up front for documentation to be made available publicly. Some documents, like Bid Proposals will probably remain Commercial In Confidence, and you need to ensure participants are aware of this.

=Decision making=
 * Collaborative decision making is good, but make sure each committee has a chair-person with the mandate and authority to make decisions on behalf of the committee. (The chairperson should consult the committee and aggregate comments). This should make the committee significantly more effective.

=Venue booking & Conference dates=
 * Despite the initial analysis of the dates to be avoided (e.g. due to conflict with cultural or religious holidays, other conferences, etc.), the importance of avoiding the Thanksgiving Weekend in the USA was not clearly communicated. As of early September 2008 we had still not booked a venue and it appeared that the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Center (SCEC) was only available on dates that overlapped with the USA thanksgiving weekend (which is in late November). We were able to salvage the situation by booking the SCEC for dates in October rather than November, however the availability was limited, and restricted our options.
 * In terms of communication the critical nature of the date should have been better communicated by the Organising Committee to the PCO.
 * Ensure that an early decision is made regarding the Venue, and the dates. If a venue can be booked for 'the entire week', the fine tuning of the actual days and rooms required can be done later, but being able to know 'the week' allows for marketing of the event, such as at the prior year's FOSS4G conference.