FOSS4G 2012 Lessons Learned - Revision history

Wiki-Leo at 11:09, 25 February 2015

2015-02-25T11:09:12Z

Wiki-Camerons: /* Who wrote the original version of this Lesson's Learned? */

2015-02-04T09:29:46Z

Who wrote the original version of this Lesson's Learned?

Wiki-Punkish: /* Loosing key LOC members */

2014-09-19T21:19:20Z

Loosing key LOC members

Arnulf: /* OSGeo Oversight */

2013-04-17T09:45:12Z

OSGeo Oversight

Wiki-Camerons at 12:42, 20 August 2012

2012-08-20T12:42:38Z

Wiki-Camerons: /* Engaging international organisers */

2012-08-20T12:22:31Z

Engaging international organisers

Wiki-Camerons: /* Engaging international organisers */

2012-08-20T12:22:14Z

Engaging international organisers

Wiki-Camerons: /* Collective Knowledge */

2012-08-20T12:15:35Z

Collective Knowledge

Wiki-Camerons: /* Cultural Differences */

2012-08-20T12:13:03Z

Cultural Differences

Wiki-Camerons: /* Cultural Differences */

2012-08-20T12:11:42Z

Cultural Differences

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 The telling of history is always influenced by the perspective of the narrator, and as such it is useful to know who the narrator was. This narration was by myself, [http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate#Cameron_Shorter Cameron Shorter]. I was the chair of FOSS4G 2009, I'm a member of the OSGeo Conference Committee, and I voted for FOSS4G 2012 to be held in Beijing. I helped volunteers add Chinese translations to the OSGeo-Live DVD, and commit to handing the DVD out at FOSS4G Beijing. I later attended weekly meetings with FOSS4G Beijing's LOC and other international volunteers, until it was decided by the LOC that the conference should be cancelled.
-[[Category: FOSS4G]]
+[[Category:FOSS4G2012]]
 [[Category:FOSS4GLessonsLearned]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 09:29, 4 February 2015
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 From what I can gather, the PCO were not contractually engaged with the PCO up front, which allowed them to disengage later. What are the lessons? The LOC should contractually engage with the PCO very early in the conference cycle, and OSGeo oversight should ensure this happens.
-===Loosing key LOC members===
+===Losing key LOC members===
 One of the key Chinese OSGeo community members, Professor Yu, passed away shortly after Beijing was awarded the conference. This was very unfortunate, both on a personal level, and organisation level.

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 : We need to put harder stops in place to short circuit failure. If you don't have a call for workshops out by February, [serious questions are asked, such as should the conference be cancelled?]. If you don't have $30K in sponsorship in place by April, [serious questions]. If you don't have a call for papers out by May, [serious questions].  This [FOSS4G 2012 conference] dragged out longer than it should of because there were no hard stop points.
-During the build up to FOSS4G Beijing, one of the key volunteers on OSGeo conference committee, who had previously been very active, was showing signs of burnout and was not contributing to his prior levels. This left a noticeable hole in the OSGeo conference committee which was not filled by another volunteer.  The OSGeo Conference committee had previously provided checks on conferences, such as reviewing and approving the conference's budget and submitting to the OSGeo board for approval, however this didn't happen for the FOSS4G Beijing conference.
+During the build up to FOSS4G Beijing, one of the key volunteers on OSGeo conference committee, who had previously been very active for personal reasons contributed much less (see also "Loosing key LOC members" above). This left a noticeable hole in the OSGeo conference committee which was not filled by another volunteer. The OSGeo Conference committee had previously provided checks on conferences, such as reviewing and approving the conference's budget and submitting to the OSGeo board for approval, however this didn't happen for the FOSS4G Beijing conference.
 What are the lesson's here? It may be that the critical role of approving finances should be covered by a paid position, funded by profits of FOSS4G conferences. Something like this was considered as described under the [[#No_mentor|No mentor]] section below.

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 The following discussion ground rules applied:
-* Avoid letting this discussion break into a witch hunt, or blame game. Remember that almost all people involved in FOSS4G 2012 were volunteers, giving of their precious time freely.
+* Avoid letting the discussion break into a witch hunt, or blame game. Remember that almost all people involved in FOSS4G 2012 were volunteers, giving of their precious time freely.
 * Instead, identify an event or decision, discuss the implications of the event, and ideally follow up with some recommendations on what we can do in future.

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 ===Engaging international organisers===
 Compared to prior international FOSS4G events, there was minimal international involvement in organising the FOSS4G event. Of particular concern was that the international academic track lead [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-February/001646.html resigned], saying:
-: ... that I regret [the LOC] did not fully support the setup I proposed. Specifically, the LOC insists on using their own deadlines and reviewing and  publication plan. Of course they have every right to do so, because it is in fact their conference...
+: ... I regret [the LOC] did not fully support the setup I proposed. Specifically, the LOC insists on using their own deadlines and reviewing and  publication plan. Of course they have every right to do so, because it is in fact their conference...
 There is a significant amount of work involved in organising a conference, and it is very valuable to share tasks with the international community. This has two key benefits:

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 # Collect our conference running knowledge in a central source, that can be handed on without the high level of communication currently being used. In particular, I'm suggesting starting to collect our processes in a [[FOSS4G Cookbook]] or similar.
 # Set up a permanent FOSS4G coordinator role (one person, or an international PCO, or similar) who are responsible for coordinating conferences and personally remembering lessons learned between conferences. (Note the risk of this person resigning and loosing all collected knowledge)
-# Alternatively, ensure key members in the LOC can communicate fluently with the rest of the OSGeo community. In most cases at the moment, this would mean speaking fluently in English.
+# Additionally, ensure key members in the LOC can communicate fluently with the rest of the OSGeo community. In most cases at the moment, this would mean speaking fluently in English.
 ===Response to emails===

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 The OSGeo board representative to FOSS4G 2011 [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-August/001896.html noted]:
-: For a while I attempted to play [the FOSS4G board representative] role ... Also, while I was nominally involved in practice there was never any discussion on any mailing list I was on ...
+: For a while I attempted to play [the FOSS4G board representative] role ... Also, while I was nominally involved, in practice there was never any discussion on any mailing list I was on ...
 : To me, a lesson of the Beijing effort is that it is hard to be involved remotely if the LOC won't communicate by email/irc/etc. I presume all the discussions that did happen were done by private email or in person but I was left with no visibility or ability to assist.

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 ===Cultural Differences===
-I question whether cultural differences contributed to communication shortfalls. From my observations, it seems Chinese are more circumspect about sending public communication, often using face-to-face meetings, and waiting for review from a superior before making a public statement. This contracts with open source communities I've observed, where many opinions are discussed publicly, both amongst senior and junior developers, until a rough consensus is reached.
+I question whether cultural differences contributed to communication shortfalls. From my observations, it seems Chinese are more circumspect about sending public communication, often using face-to-face meetings, and waiting for review from a superior before making a public statement. This contrasts with open source communities I've observed, where many opinions are discussed publicly, both amongst senior and junior developers, until a rough consensus is reached.
 The OSGeo board representative to FOSS4G 2011 [http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/conference_dev/2012-August/001896.html noted]: