FOSS4G 2011 Lessons Learned

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FOSS4G 2011 Lessons Learned

Starting this page early so we can document lessons learned as we go along where appropriate, for the benefit of future FOSS4Gs!!

Logo

We had a few misunderstandings over the logo requirements initially! This is a summary of requirements for the logo:

• It must incorporate the FOSS4G "ribbon" element, which has been used in the logo of all FOSS4G conferences. Past logos can be seen here.
• It does not need to incorporate the OSGeo logo.

The logo is something on which everyone has an opinion (often a strong one!). We recommend assigning a small group to get the logo done rather than having extensive debate with the whole team! We ended up using crowdspring and were very pleased with the way that this worked - we would highly recommend using them in future. Start on the logo asap as you need it for other early stage documents like the sponsorship prospectus.

Sponsorship

Make sure that your sponsorship benefits are a reasonable match for the previous year's, unless you have a compelling reason to change that you are willing to defend. In our first brochure we inadvertently reduced the number of conference passes provided, and quickly heard negative feedback about this from several people (in particular the fact that the bronze sponsorship included no passes rather than one). We changed the benefits to match the previous year in the light of this feedback.

LOC Organization

The Chair needs to get assignments made to members of the team as early as possible, and delegate effectively. I (Peter) didn't do this soon enough.