[Linux-aus] LCA bids -- wonderful presentation, but to what purpose?

[Tim Bowden]

On Thu, 2008-09-04 at 21:38 +0930, Glen Turner wrote:
> Dear LA committee,
> 
> I have read one of the bids for LCA 2010.  It was an impressive
> document -- a large amount of carefully prepared text, extensive
> photography, and so on.
> 
> My estimate is that this document would have taken three months
> to prepare.
> 
> It is sad to think that none of the high quality of the presentation
> of the bid has an effect on the quality of the delivered conference.
> [Being careful to be clear about presentation v. content here]
> 
> Can I suggest for future linux.conf.au bids that Linux Australia
> issue a pro-forma response which bidders can complete. Bids would
> continue to be assessed on the quality of the content of the response,
> without bids needing to put so much effort into the quality of
> the presentation of the response.
> 
> I note that pro-forma responses are a common device in commercial
> tenders.
> 
> Cheers, Glen
> 
I can see how a pro-forma response would certainly help ensure all the
correct info is there in the way needed by LA, but having recently been
on the committee bidding for FOSS4G (Free Open Source 4 Geospatial- we
won!- Sept-Oct '09 for those interested) I can assure you the polished
extras will always be there.  For a conference of that size, the
relevant State Gov't conference promotions dep't will always be willing
to get involved.  That's a free source of Polish that any switched on
bid team would be crazy to ignore, and the more they want the conf, the
more polish they will want to put in anyway.  I don't think you can stop
competition.

My $0.02,
Tim Bowden
-- 
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
when you make it again.