FOSS4G 2013 Lessons Learned

Publicity

We've used Lanyrd to publicise the event alongside the "usual" channels, and also Eventbrite for dealing with the free hackathon registration.

Paper Selection Methodology

The OSGeo community is very passionate about openness, so the methodology needs to be made as explicit and open as possible. Where additional filtering on top of the community vote is required (which it invariably is) then this needs to be explained clearly in the wiki. There probably ought to be an established methodology for doing this, which should be recorded in the FOSS4G Cookbook.

Workshop Booking

Workshops are limited by the size specified by the author, and also the size of the rooms available in the venue. It might be a good idea to make the importance of size more clear when asking for workshop submissions (SF). There's a juggling act to do when assigning workshops to rooms (and hence knowing the maximum number of people who can book onto it), and it's also important to consider the expected popularity of each workshop. Expect to have to move some around when bookings come in.

Dates

Ensure the program is out before the end of the early bird deadline as people may wish to choose which day(s) they attend on the basis of the program.

Communications

You cannot please the whole community all of the time! so don't try. The mailing lists can be pretty critical and trying to patiently explain each decision may sometimes just stir up more criticism, avoid getting into public mail disputes on the list. It would be good to have more Board participation on some of the contentious topics.

Previous Years Lessons Learned

• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007