Re: NPW 2010 proposal

Hi Andrew,

I have "heard" of two other "proposals".

- G=F6teborg in Sweden
- Reykjavik in Iceland
- and I am thinking about organizing "something" in Copenhagen in 2010

Nothing is settled yet though.

I am actually more keen on the idea of a Baltic Perl Workshop, =20
traveling between the 3 countries. I am not saying that we will not =20
promote it and a lot of people will probably attend.

But in my opinion the Workshops serve a very special purpose and the =20
goal should be to attract a local audience.

1. Workshops are not YAPCs
2. Workshops should target local Perl users
3. Workshops should not necessarily be in English (see: German Perl =20
Workshop)

Long term:

1. We want more Perl users adopted into the community as:
	- Local monger group members
	- CPAN contributors
	- YAPC/Workshop attendees
	- CPAN testers
	- Community Project contributors (Rakudo, Parrot etc.)

2. We want Perl on the world map and on peoples CVs

3. We want Perl world domination // Profit, beer, free stickers, cool =20=

t-shirts // Nirvana based on the Perl virtues - what ever...

So when we evaluate the people attending our Workshops, we see the =20
following groups:

1. Local Perl Mongers
2. Local Perl Users, which come because it is local to where they work
3. Others, frequent flyers, crazy french, crazy americans, people with =20=

too much time, friends of 1. etc.

- It is nice organizing something for group 1. which is a big larger =20
than your normal tech/social meet.

- We want to attract 2. so 1. gets bigger and more sustainable

- We simply cannot avoid group 3. and they are often delivering extra =20=

ordinary content, making group 1, happy and group 2 interested.

 =46rom a historic perspective

NPW, started out as SPW (Scandinavian Perl Workshop), but the =20
Helsinki.pm wanted to join (but never did). Anyway, we think we are =20
too small a language group, so it was interesting for us to =20
collaborate with Sweden and later Norway. This was from the beginning =20=

due to the proximity of our countries and relations through local =20
Linux User Group (SSLUG), which used to be the largest in the world =20
until the Brazillians discovered the Internet, Open Source and Orkut.

NPW was the first workshop to cross country borders, but we simply do =20=

this our of necessity and to attract the audience.

We do as such not have a board evaluating proposals, so nothing can =20
stop anybody from organizing a NPW, so we might even have several in a =20=

year, the annual things is also pure coincidence.

Anyway I hope you will organize something with the above points in =20
mind, since workshops are truly grass root and we JFDI. I just want =20
you to evaluate the following:

1. Primarily attract group 1
2. Get locals (group 1) involved in the organization
3. Attract group 2
4. Group 3 will come whether you want them too or not, but group 3 =20
will never be larger than groups 2 and 3
5. NPW is slowly starting to show signs of becoming too strained =20
geographically.

About the last bullet. Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen have all hosted =20=

several workshops and I expect they all want to do so again, but we =20
want to attract more people from group 1, so we are interested in =20
covering some of the grey areas in Denmark (=C5rhus), Sweden, (G=F6teborg/=
=20
Malm=F6) - I do not know about Norway, but I guess other venues/cities =20=

could be hosting in the future, I will have to talk to Oslo.pm.

We want to keep our sponsors in the loop and our audience on their =20
toes. We have seen a lot of people going from group 2 to group 1. And =20=

later they become YAPC attendees. But this takes time and we have to =20
keep their interest sparked and to some traveling too far to attend a =20=

workshop is comparable to going to a YAPC, so they don't go. So please =20=

look into your target audience and make a decision based on this.

Sorry this mail got so long, it was just my 2 cents,

jonasbn

On 14/05/2009, at 22.11, Andrew Shitov wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I would like to propose to host next year's Nordic Perl Workshop in
> Riga, Latvia.
>
> Let me explain why I am doing this. There are several reasons for
> choosing Riga as a host city of NWP 2010.
>
> If you have attended my lightning talk in Oslo this year, you might
> remember the map I demonstrated to show the coverage of Perl events.
> Today it looks like this:
> http://blog.shitov.ru/i/9000km-of-perl/06.gif. Maybe I've missed some
> events in Spain and other countries in the West of the continent, but
> I definitely sure that the white corridor which currently splits two
> coloured parts really exists. Organizing my own events in five
> different countries I was trying to cover as much of Russian-speaking
> land as possible, conquering even the territory of Bulgaria, which is
> not really Russian-speaking. I would also like to fill the gap, namely
> Baltic states.
>
> I have briefly examined the state of conference halls in Riga and see
> that at least from financial point of view it is possible to host the
> event there, because rent prices are quite reasonable.
>
> Riga is also the hub of AirBaltic and that means there are lots of
> planes to and from all the countries NPW is aware of.
>
> Latvia is within the Schengen territory now which makes it easy
> accessible by Europeans.
>
> And just to add another plus, I might say that my bank account in
> Latvia bank AB.LV was approved today. So I may collect money there now
> :-)
>
> Noone yet from Baltic states are now subscribed to this mailing list,
> and I am trying to persuade Tallin.pm's leader to take the part in the
> organizational processes. Anyway there are people here in Moscow who
> will not refuse to help me with the stuff, I think.
>
> Nordic Perl Workshop is the (only?) annual event which is moving every
> year between neighbouring countries. This year's NPW in Oslo showed
> that not only people from Nordic countries are interested in attending
> that event. I propose to make that "moving waves" more strong and
> touch Baltics.
>
> P. S. I am writing this e-mail from the hotel in the capital of
> Uzbekistan, where we have organized yet another Perl Workshop outside
> our country of residence.
>
> --=20
> Andrew Shitov
> ______________________________________________________________________
> [email protected] | http://shitov.ru