Great! -----Original Message----- From: Sebastien Goasguen [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 06 March 2015 16:17 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: CloudStack Conferences
On Mar 6, 2015, at 11:01 AM, Adrian Lewis <[email protected]> wrote: > My opinion (not sure how much it counts but anyway) It counts as much as anyone else Adrian, > is that there are a > number of problems here that could be solved with relative ease. > Looking in particular at Dublin/Budapest, I'd say that these are very > good candidates for merging. The issues I see with having these as > separate events are: So cutting to the chase, after having had several discussions wit folks on and off the list, I am talking directly with Linux Foundation to see if we can cancel the Budapest event and focus on the Dublin event. The two were 7 days apart and honestly probably impractical to do. We could indeed, either add a day in Dublin as part of the regular event or talk to someone like Paddy Power to have a second day off-site. So your comments are spot on, and it looks like we are in agreement. Let me get back to you when I cleared things up with LF and that we can start on planning. We will need volunteers. -sebastien > > 1. Being a relatively small community still, we should aim to get > together physically as much as possible. Mailing lists are great but > it's getting people together that seems to make stuff happen. > Communities don't work well if they're split up. Clearly, a single > global conference causes other issues but fragmenting unnecessarily seems counter-productive to me. > > 2. As already mentioned, most visitors will need to fly and the > difference between the cost of a flight to Budapest vs a cost of a > flight to Dublin for most candidates for either event will not be all > that significant when all costs for attending are added up. > > 3. We may not have big sponsors, pots of cash to spare, or unlimited > organisational resources so combining the two venues would surely help > immensely in that regard. Economies of scale come into it as sponsors > are more likely to want to chip in if there's greater attendance at a > single event than two smaller ones. > > 4. People are less likely to bother even registering (or getting > expenses > approved) if, as many have already mentioned, the event is just a > single day and justifying the efforts/costs then becomes a real issue. > I understand that previously colocated events with ApacheCon haven't > actually resulted in many people going to both. Ilya has mentioned > this as well. > > In addition to combining the two events, I think that it should be > relatively easy to have a single 'official' day that is well funded > and organised but have one (or even two) day events before or after > the main event that can be informally organised by the community. Call > them hackathons if you will but not necessarily dedicated to writing > code - perhaps conduct panel discussions around marketing, direction > of the project, different use-cases (or markets), and some coding as > well. If ShapeBlue were interested in doing some 'sample chapters' of > their training courses as well I'm sure that would go down well for > those new to ACS (perhaps the day before the main event). These > additional days could be done without any AV, catering, presents, sponsored evening events etc. > I'm quite sure most people wouldn't complain about buying their own > drinks/food. > > As for a venue however, this is the hole in my argument. Is it safe to > say that there are enough ACS types in Dublin that something could be > organised? Would Paddy Power be able to supply meeting rooms for example? > Is there an academic community in Dublin that might be happy to assist > with these sorts of informal events? Even a hotel with a > bar/restaurant might be willing if we agreed to a minimum spend on > food/drink and that we'd put it as the top listed suggestion for where to stay when attending. > They might even give us a discount on rooms. > > Obviously if it appears that we do have resources to improve these > additional informal days then great but in terms of commitment, we > could set a much lower requirement vs trying to run a full two or > three-day event. Doesn't mean that the event can't autoscale with demand! > > How does that resound with everyone? > > Adrian > > -----Original Message----- > From: Arjan [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: 06 March 2015 05:32 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: CloudStack Conferences > > Price is mostly venue, catering, audio video, evening events. (Gifts) > > Time is number of tracks, speakers, sponsors, look and feel. > > So you can fiddle around with combinations. Two day low profile single > track could be easier than 1 day the whole shebang with party and > speaker dinner etc > > Rgds, > > Arjan > >> On 5 mrt. 2015, at 23:56, ilya musayev <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> Arjan and Sebastian >> >> Thanks for sharing your experiences in setting up the conferences, >> >> Just curious would 2 day events be more justifiable, easier to >> organize > and also less expensive? >> >> Thanks >> ilya >> >>> On 3/5/15 2:39 PM, Arjan wrote: >>> Thanks Seb, >>> >>> I agree. We wanted to organize ccceu14 again, but the effort on > organizing another 3 day event was too big. Next to that for Amsterdam > we have put in serious money together with Citrix. >>> >>> So 3 day events work, but you need time and / or funds. >>> >>> A one day event is much easier. Single track. Smaller location etc etc. >>> >>> I am in favor of the hybrid approach though, but most likely the 1 >>> day > events will happen more. Maybe it is even an option to do the devops > days approach. Every city can organize one as a sort of franchise model. >>> >>> Arjan >>> >>>> On 5 mrt. 2015, at 10:00, Sebastien Goasguen <[email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>> Morning folks, >>>> >>>> This is a good point, however like Chip mentioned we would need > sponsors. >>>> >>>> Organizing a 3 day event is a big task, you need to find a location > that suits people, you need to pay for that location, you need a > program, you need attendance, you need sponsors etc. >>>> >>>> For Amsterdam, Schuberg took the lead role. Citrix was the main > financial backer with Schuberg. I believe it basically took ~3 people > full time from Schuberg for several months to organize things the way > it was, plus a lot of time and energy from other folks to get > sponsors, drive attendance etc. The event cost ~200k euros and was in > the black at the end (no secret there). >>>> >>>> For Denver and Budapest we aligned with the ASF and leveraged the > Linux Foundation to do the logistics and help get sponsors. It worked > out but it is still a lot of effort to get the program together, help > LF reach out to sponsors etc. As a side note, even though these were 3 > day events, lots of folks arrive on tutorial day, spend the keynote > day and leave at night or in the morning. That's why I pushed for a > poster session at the end of Budapest, because typically folks leave > before and we end up with semi empty sessions in the last afternoon. >>>> >>>> The bottom line is that it is a question of cost, attendance, who > takes the lead in planning and what does the event look like. We could > organize three day events much cheaply. Something that comes to mind > is configuration management camp in Ghent. It drives 400 people, is > hosted at the university. There is almost no sponsors/booth, no > signage, no video recording, very little lunch etc. But if we want > something like Denver or Budapest, we are looking at 6 figures plus the human investment. >>>> >>>> CloudStack is a brand owned by this community, so anyone here is >>>> free > and should feel entitled to organize its own CloudStack Day close to home. > Norway, India etc. It could be a 30 people event or it could grow into > its own 300/500 people event. The Japanese community for example > organizes CloudStack Japan on their own and drives 500 people. >>>> >>>> Now all these 1 day events are co-located (before, after or during) > the linuxcon events (cloud open, KVM forum, Xen summit, Kernel summit > etc). So I am sure you can justify going for 3 days, attend the other > LF events and attend the CloudStack day. I do think there is better > alignment with LF events than with other ASF projects. Sadly the > Apachecon itself is not a large conference, and I don't think we got > the cross-pollination we were hoping. LF events are much bigger > (Dusseldorf in the fall was 1,500 people). >>>> >>>> The risk I do see with 1 day event is that we get fragmented and >>>> that > we don't see each other that often. >>>> >>>> To conclude, it is key that everyone on our lists feels entitled to >>>> do > things and take the lead. In some sense there is no such thing as us vs. > "the organizers". We are all the organizers of these conferences. It > is a matter of who has the time and the will to step up and lead these > events > (1 or 3 days ) and who will attend. >>>> >>>> -If you have the time, can you take the lead and organize another 1 > day event closer to home ? >>>> -If you have time, can you take the lead on one of those scheduled > events and take on the program planning ? >>>> -If you have funds, can you sponsor the event ? >>>> -if you have space, can you donate it for an event ? >>>> >>>> >>>> -sebastien >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Mar 5, 2015, at 2:01 AM, Erik Weber <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 3:45 AM, ilya musayev > <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> Am i right in assuming that we no longer going to have 3 day long > conferences and instead 5 separate cloudstack day events? It does > makes sense as it helps with awareness, but.. >>>>> >>>>> Looking at it from my employers side, as well as my personally - >>>>> its > a bit hard to justify a trip for just one day :( On average, a person > would have to travel a night before and leave a day later to make the > most of it. That is 2 days spent in transit to attend 1 day event. >>>>> >>>>> Lets see how this works out, but i really think we need at least 1 > event that is longer than a day - so we can have a community get > together that many would be able to attend. >>>>> >>>>> I must agree. >>>>> >>>>> Unless you live near one of the airline hubs you'll most likely >>>>> have > to travel three days anyway. >>>>> In my case I have to travel the night before to get there before >>>>> 1PM, > and as anyone would want to attend the night events (that's usually > where I personally get most out of the conference) I have stay a night longer. >>>>> >>>>> Justifying a three day trip to attend a one day event is > significantly harder than justifying a four day (we usually arrive a > bit later on the first day) trip to attend a three day event. >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Erik >>
