Michael Still wrote:
Andrew Cowie wrote:
[Reigning the flights of fancy back in, I will mention that Mikal is
considering working on something at the much-smaller end of the
scale.
I'll let him discuss that if and when he sees fit]
Ok, here's me coming out of the closet... This grand plan came to me
in a dream last week sometime, so it's still quite new, and probably
needs tweaking. The fundamental premises are:
- the world needs a introductory user conference in AU
- there are a bunch of people in Canberra who know how to make
conferences now
- I don't mind running another conference
- users are extremely price sensitive
Bear those in mind while you look at the following proposal I wrote
up last week. It's still in extreme draft mode...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The concept.
------------
The market is "ripe" for a user conference in Australia. The
underlying premise of this proposal is that there is now a group of
people in Canberra who understand how to run an event, having just
done it, who are capable of running said user conference.
I would like to volunteer to run such an event. The operational
concept is that of "AusLUG". This is a national event styled on a
bigger LUG meeting for two days. The cost is kept deliberately low,
and the event is much simpler than LCA. The concept has room for
growth into a fuller conference in future years, dependant on demand.
I propose that the event have two streams -- a user stream focused on
introductory / LUG grade topics (such as how to install and use
Apache, what distribution might be right for you, email environments,
how iptables works and how to set it up, that kind of thing) and an
introductory programmers stream (what license would be right for you,
what an open source package usually contains (tarballs, README,
license, man pages), how to autoconf your package, what languages
work with Gnome and KDE, that kind of thing).
The conference would run in a down scale venue, such as a community
club. The only vendor handouts, unless they are donated, would be a
tshirt. No catering is provided, but may be bought from the club. The
cost of attendance should be approximately $100 per person for the
full two days.
I see scope for an associated trade show in future years, once an
audience has been established (which I believe is needed for
exhibitors to be willing to spend money on booths).
Draft schedule for the event:
Saturday
--------
8:30 - 9:30 Registrations
9:30 - 10:00 Welcome
User stream Intro programming
stream
10:30 - 11:30 ... ...
11:30 - 12:30 ... ...
13:30 - 14:30 ... ...
14:30 - 15:30 ... ...
16:00 - 17:00 ... ...
17:00 - 18:00 ... ...
18:00 - Dinner (not formally organized)
Sunday
------
9:30 - 10:00 Welcome
User stream Intro programming
stream
10:30 - 11:30 ... ...
11:30 - 12:30 ... ...
13:30 - 14:30 ... ...
14:30 - 15:30 ... ...
15:00 - 16:00 Close, and where to from here
There are 10 talks per stream...
Funding.
--------
I am requesting $xxx seed funding from Linux Australia, and the same
amount from AUUG. The reasoning here is to spread the risk of the
event, and maximise the benefits to the community and both groups. In
return both organizations will recieve branding of the event, and
half the profit from the event if there is one. I also need to to
receive a commitment to running the event in a similar shared manner
in the future.
In the case of the conference making a loss, then both organizations
would lose their seed funding, but no more.
Timing.
-------
September. Enough after LCA for me to have a sleep. Not too close to
AUUG 2005 (a month away, but a different audience), not too close to
LCA 2006 (and again a different demographic). Open to negotiation
though.
Chain of command.
-----------------
I would report to both Linux Australia and AUUG, but would have sole
delegated control of the event. Subsequent events would be negotiated
between myself, Linux Australia and AUUG if this event is a success.
Liability cover would be arranged through Linux Australia's event
insurance.
Cheers,
Mikal
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