Re: [OSCOM] Experience from organzing OSCOM 1-4

Michael Wechner wrote:
> It's really great to see such a great interest re OSCOM US.
> 
> Just a few notes re our experience from organizing OSCOM 1-4:
> 
> 1) The OSCOM conferences have been very low budget so far and OSCOM 
> doesn't have any money for taking risks re attendance or revenue
> 
> 2) It was very important to have someone (or better two persons) onsite 
> feeling *really* responsible for the following items:
>   2.1) Organizing the location/rooms
>   2.2) Organzing the infrastructure (projectors, microphones, network, 
> etc.)
>   2.3) Organizing the food for the coffee breaks
>   2.4) Organizing hotel for the speakers
>   2.5) Organizing the registration desk and the helpers
>   2.6) Organizing side-events (official dinner or whatever)
>   2.7) Cleaning up after the conference
> 
> 3) The organizing committee should be rather small (maybe 3, but max 5)
> and taking actions in the interest of OSCOM

I wonder if it would make sense to copy another similar conference? 
E.g., an OSCOM US conference sounds similar in scale and structure to 
PyCon (pycon.org) -- you could book the exact same location, same 
caterer, copy some of their materials, get advise from the organizers, 
etc.  That should reduce both risk and workload.  I don't know what 
other small volunteer-organized open source conferences are out there, 
but there must be several, and I'm sure the people behind those would be 
happy to help.

-- 
Ian Bicking  /  [email protected]  /  http://blog.ianbicking.org