[H-GEN] Talk at today's Humbug meeting

Arjen Lentz arjen at lentz.com.au
Thu Mar 19 02:58:41 EDT 2009


Hi Russell

On 19/03/2009, at 2:19 PM, Russell Stuart wrote:
>> Secondly, I have heard back from QUT regards bidding
>> for LCA 2011, so I say something about that.
>
> QUT's response was: We are keen to host 2011 if you are.   So we  
> will be
> bidding for LCA 2011.  In a few months we will have to get going  
> again.
> Here is a bit of a todo list for when the time arrives:
>
> - Organise who wants to be on the team, nominations,
> - Contact Brisbane Marketing to get them involved again,
> - Freshen up the quotes for the various venues,
> - Change all the dates in the bid document from 2010 to 2011,
> - Update the budget based on Hobart's figures,
> - Update our "letters of support" from open source businesses.
>
> And finally, since I am totally out of ideas on how we can tart up  
> our bid,
> I thought we might try to put together a promotional video this year.


Well, people have visited Bris, so adding visuals... what does that do?
Why not work on the actua; bid content, then the presentation of that  
will follow from that.
In that context, there's several tweakables including the how. Make it  
different!
I mean, differentiate from what has been done so far both in terms of  
past bids s well as past LCAs... use what works, but change what makes  
sense.

The fact that some things haven't been done doesn't mean they  
shouldn't happen. and vice versa. Some things that have been going for  
years may be ripe for review or complete ditching.

For instance, I wouldn't mind seeing lunches included.

In Hobart, the BoFs were a scattered mess; rather than accepting this,  
see if it can be improved; it'd be nice if more people went to BoFs  
and didn't lose out, and if things didn't conflict with 'em.

I personally have to say that while the speaker dinner is nice, it  
separates a group from the rest for no particular reason. The actual  
benefit is quite minimal, in fact it just means that some peope can't  
talk with some other people that night. It's nice as a thank-you for  
speakers, but I'm pretty certain that if it came down to it speakers  
don't actually give a stuff and wouldn't not submit for LCA if there  
weren't a speaker event.

I also think there's an overload of sessions, but a lack of space  
(both in time and physical arrangements) for just meeting and talking  
with people. Everybody agrees that's a key aspect of a conf, but most  
confs don't actually keep that in mind when organising a venue and  
timetable (to name just two aspects that would influence this). If you  
can make this a key factor, then other things might change and that  
will certainly differentiate a Bris LCA bid from others. And it'll  
make sense.


Cheers.
Arjen.
-- 
Arjen Lentz, Director @ Open Query (http://openquery.com)
Affordable Training and ProActive Support for MySQL & related  
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