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Posted to dev@community.apache.org by Pierre Smits <pi...@gmail.com> on 2015/02/04 09:42:50 UTC
Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process for
the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
get everybody on board regarding helping out.
Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle? And
how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
and Projects?
As soon as it is known what it is, we can investigate and define the target
audiences and set up a plan to communicate with (our public information can
be found in 20.700 pages found
https://www.google.nl/search?sitesearch=apache.org&q=apachecon and the page
listed first is related to the conference of 1998) , setup a plan to get
the attracting talks in. And I presume, that will help increase the success
of the event, the projects and the ASF.
Now, I also surmise that we don't know the size of the potential audience.
We talk about 500+ members, 5000+ committers. But we are forgetting the
number of the other contributors (subscribers to dev@) participating in our
projects and the followers of our products (subscribers to user@). These
are also numbers we can use when promoting the event. Extrapolating the
ratio of members vs committers we could say 50.000+ contributors and
500.000 followers. Communicating those numbers add to the importance of the
event for sponsors, presenters and attendees.
Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more contributors
to the projects.
I must admit that I don't know the exact figures per event held (e.g. EU
2014, US 2013, EU and US 2012) and what has been learned and gained from
each.
Best regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:52 PM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
Ross.Gardler@microsoft.com> wrote:
> There is nothing stopping LF from promoting the CFP.
>
> Ross
>
> Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
> A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Steitz [mailto:phil.steitz@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 12:38 PM
> To: dev@community.apache.org
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>
> On 2/2/15 11:47 AM, jan i wrote:
> > On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski <ji...@jagunet.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Agreed!
> >>
> >> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some time to breathe,
> >> I'd like to know just how helpful LF was this time around. From the
> >> sidelines, it seems that they really didn't do an aggressive job
> >> promoting the event and being a pro-active producer in trying to
> >> drive speakers.
> >>
> > Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we
> > need to divide issues here.
> >
> > Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so
> > finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.
> >
> > Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not
> > very rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February,
> > when the schedule is in place (work which just started today).
>
> Right. One thing that might help would be to push back the CFP close
> date, so there is more time between content selected and the event itself.
>
> Phil
> >
> > All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to
> > motivate our projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks,
> > but also getting people to come).
> >
> > just my opinion
> > rgds
> > jan i.
> >
> >
> >>> On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
> >> Ross.Gardler@microsoft.com> wrote:
> >>> Great job Rich, and those who helped.
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my Windows Phone
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> From: Rich Bowen<ma...@rcbowen.com>
> >>> Sent: 2/2/2015 12:19 AM
> >>> To: dev<ma...@community.apache.org>
> >>> Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> >>>
> >>> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the
> >>> CFP system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be
> >>> decided how many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be
> >>> (roughly) 108 talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
> >>>
> >>> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd
> >>> like to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross
> >>> <cc...@linuxfoundation.org> and ask to be added to the CFP review
> >>> system, and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being
> >>> added to the list.
> >>>
> >>> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled
> >>> and notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
> >>> Thanks in advance.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ -
> >>> @apachecon
> >>
>
>
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com>.
On 02/04/2015 01:04 PM, Pierre Smits wrote:
> Rich,
>
> There is no need to pick on OFBiz. I have organized the speakers for ACEU
> 2012, ACEU 2014 and together with Sharan interesting talks for ACNA 2015
> are lined up. Each were/are full tracks. Again for ACNA2015 I experienced
> unwillingness upfron at some parties because of skewed cost/benefit ratios.
> Nevertheless, like for ACEU 2014 we have more talks for ACNA 2015 than
> space in a track. We even have input for a panel/Q&A session, that we are
> looking into.
>
> If you (or your assisting organisation) want sponsors for such tracks, I
> suggest you/the ASF run to the names you know and start asking.
I didn't intend to offend. I picked OFBIZ *because* you've done such a
great job in the last dozen conferences, providing content and sponsors.
Sorry if that was unclear.
--
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
RE: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" <Ro...@microsoft.com>.
Pierre, Rich is not picking on anyone. He used a relative example, nothing more.
As for Rich and others in the ASF running to the names they know what do you think he and others have been doing to get the talks in that we got? If Rich (and others) didn't work so hard there would be no talks and *that* is the point.
Rich - thank you.
Ross
-----Original Message-----
From: Pierre Smits [mailto:pierre.smits@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 10:04 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Rich,
There is no need to pick on OFBiz. I have organized the speakers for ACEU 2012, ACEU 2014 and together with Sharan interesting talks for ACNA 2015 are lined up. Each were/are full tracks. Again for ACNA2015 I experienced unwillingness upfron at some parties because of skewed cost/benefit ratios.
Nevertheless, like for ACEU 2014 we have more talks for ACNA 2015 than space in a track. We even have input for a panel/Q&A session, that we are looking into.
If you (or your assisting organisation) want sponsors for such tracks, I suggest you/the ASF run to the names you know and start asking.
Best regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
>
>> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
>> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
>>
>
>
> For what it's worth, we have made a concerted effort for ACNA15 to ask
> project communities to step up to make ApacheCon what they think it
> should be. If a project wants a track (even now) and can provide the
> content for it, we'll schedule it.
>
> If OFBiz, for example, wants to provide us with a track that has more
> the focus that you think we should have at ApacheCon, make it happen,
> and we'll schedule it. (I pick on OFBiz, at least in part, because
> they made a real effort to do this exact thing in EU.) If that brings
> sponsors along with it, all the better.
>
> The open CFP phase is over, but if someone brings me a track (n * 6
> talks, for an n day track), we'll make it happen. Within reason - in
> agreement with Joe's comments else-thread, I'm not keen on running
> corporate advertisements at ApacheCon. But if there are companies that
> are deeply involved in an ASF project (as is the case at OFBiz), then,
> yeah, I'd love to see their content showcased.
>
> So, yes, we can only schedule content that is submitted, but we've
> made an effort this event to go out and get those submissions from
> specific communities. At future events, we'd like to see more
> communities step up to do this hard work.
>
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ -
> @apachecon
>
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Pierre Smits <pi...@gmail.com>.
Rich,
There is no need to pick on OFBiz. I have organized the speakers for ACEU
2012, ACEU 2014 and together with Sharan interesting talks for ACNA 2015
are lined up. Each were/are full tracks. Again for ACNA2015 I experienced
unwillingness upfron at some parties because of skewed cost/benefit ratios.
Nevertheless, like for ACEU 2014 we have more talks for ACNA 2015 than
space in a track. We even have input for a panel/Q&A session, that we are
looking into.
If you (or your assisting organisation) want sponsors for such tracks, I
suggest you/the ASF run to the names you know and start asking.
Best regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:37 PM, Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com> wrote:
>
>
> On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
>
>> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
>> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
>>
>
>
> For what it's worth, we have made a concerted effort for ACNA15 to ask
> project communities to step up to make ApacheCon what they think it should
> be. If a project wants a track (even now) and can provide the content for
> it, we'll schedule it.
>
> If OFBiz, for example, wants to provide us with a track that has more the
> focus that you think we should have at ApacheCon, make it happen, and we'll
> schedule it. (I pick on OFBiz, at least in part, because they made a real
> effort to do this exact thing in EU.) If that brings sponsors along with
> it, all the better.
>
> The open CFP phase is over, but if someone brings me a track (n * 6 talks,
> for an n day track), we'll make it happen. Within reason - in agreement
> with Joe's comments else-thread, I'm not keen on running corporate
> advertisements at ApacheCon. But if there are companies that are deeply
> involved in an ASF project (as is the case at OFBiz), then, yeah, I'd love
> to see their content showcased.
>
> So, yes, we can only schedule content that is submitted, but we've made an
> effort this event to go out and get those submissions from specific
> communities. At future events, we'd like to see more communities step up to
> do this hard work.
>
>
> --
> Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
> http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
>
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com>.
On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
For what it's worth, we have made a concerted effort for ACNA15 to ask
project communities to step up to make ApacheCon what they think it
should be. If a project wants a track (even now) and can provide the
content for it, we'll schedule it.
If OFBiz, for example, wants to provide us with a track that has more
the focus that you think we should have at ApacheCon, make it happen,
and we'll schedule it. (I pick on OFBiz, at least in part, because they
made a real effort to do this exact thing in EU.) If that brings
sponsors along with it, all the better.
The open CFP phase is over, but if someone brings me a track (n * 6
talks, for an n day track), we'll make it happen. Within reason - in
agreement with Joe's comments else-thread, I'm not keen on running
corporate advertisements at ApacheCon. But if there are companies that
are deeply involved in an ASF project (as is the case at OFBiz), then,
yeah, I'd love to see their content showcased.
So, yes, we can only schedule content that is submitted, but we've made
an effort this event to go out and get those submissions from specific
communities. At future events, we'd like to see more communities step up
to do this hard work.
--
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Pierre Smits <pi...@gmail.com>.
I guess, a couple of thousand attendees would make a lot of parties happy.
Best regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 3:54 PM, Niclas Hedhman <ni...@hedhman.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Pierre Smits <pi...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
> > precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
> > projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
> > the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more
> contributors
> > to the projects.
>
> Sorry for nitpicking (although I welcome you raising the question), but
> ApacheCon doesn't need to "be cost neutral". "Cost is what you Pay, Value
> is what you Get.", so as long as we "Get" more than we "Pay", it is a Win
> for the Foundation. Now, what "Get" includes can be hard to define in
> dollar terms (unlike the "Pay" part).
>
> My view of ApacheCon goals;
>
> - Community Face Time!!! I have only attended two conferences (distance
> plays a huge factor for me), but those are unforgettable days. People are
> much different in real life, and we get along remarkably well.
>
> - Hackathon - talk project, new ideas, hack on bugs (bugathon), discuss
> collaborations across projects, seek advice from some project expert, and
> all that good jazz. Don't know a community? Just sit down and strike up a
> conversation... Build lasting relationships, sign PGP keys.
>
> - Educate "Management". On licensing, on adoption "Use --> Modify -->
> Contribute", on Non-profit Org status and tax breaks, on sponsorship
> programs and so on. Corporations can contribute more resources, IF they are
> aware of the value it brings.
>
> - Industry Use-cases. People like to hear about someone else did
> something, and what were the results. "We changed from 200 MySQL servers to
> Cassandra. Here is what we like, and here are what we had problems with."
> kind of presentations always inspires others in similar situations.
>
> - Apache Content to Developers. All the classic project presentations.
> IMHO, this shouldn't be more than 50% of all activities.
>
> - Innovation. When smart people come together (with beer) innovation
> happens (The crux is to remember the great stuff next morning.). Seriously
> though, it should be possible to 'inspire' innovation some way, by creating
> a marketplace and/or a nursery of (crazy) Ideas, and give those who "click"
> on a given idea, the necessary space to run with it. Not entirely sure
> about the mechanics, just a vague concept in the back of my head at the
> moment.
>
> - Marketing. Apache needs marketing, and ApacheCon is a reason to contact
> every technology firm within the catchment area. For some of us, we may use
> this as an opportunity to meet potential customers or strengthen ties with
> existing ones.
>
>
> Personally, I think ApacheCon should be moving towards a brighter future.
> Apache is home of ~200 projects, many of which are exciting and fresh. This
> should interest the public, and with a decent location and good marketing,
> it should be impossible to drive record numbers to the Event. A couple of
> thousand should be a reasonable goal, and if JavaZone in Norway can do that
> on an all-volunteer basis, Apache should not set the goals too low.
>
> Hope to see you at ApacheCon "soon"
>
> Cheers
> Niclas
>
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Niclas Hedhman <ni...@hedhman.org>.
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Pierre Smits <pi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
> precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
> projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
> the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more contributors
> to the projects.
Sorry for nitpicking (although I welcome you raising the question), but
ApacheCon doesn't need to "be cost neutral". "Cost is what you Pay, Value
is what you Get.", so as long as we "Get" more than we "Pay", it is a Win
for the Foundation. Now, what "Get" includes can be hard to define in
dollar terms (unlike the "Pay" part).
My view of ApacheCon goals;
- Community Face Time!!! I have only attended two conferences (distance
plays a huge factor for me), but those are unforgettable days. People are
much different in real life, and we get along remarkably well.
- Hackathon - talk project, new ideas, hack on bugs (bugathon), discuss
collaborations across projects, seek advice from some project expert, and
all that good jazz. Don't know a community? Just sit down and strike up a
conversation... Build lasting relationships, sign PGP keys.
- Educate "Management". On licensing, on adoption "Use --> Modify -->
Contribute", on Non-profit Org status and tax breaks, on sponsorship
programs and so on. Corporations can contribute more resources, IF they are
aware of the value it brings.
- Industry Use-cases. People like to hear about someone else did
something, and what were the results. "We changed from 200 MySQL servers to
Cassandra. Here is what we like, and here are what we had problems with."
kind of presentations always inspires others in similar situations.
- Apache Content to Developers. All the classic project presentations.
IMHO, this shouldn't be more than 50% of all activities.
- Innovation. When smart people come together (with beer) innovation
happens (The crux is to remember the great stuff next morning.). Seriously
though, it should be possible to 'inspire' innovation some way, by creating
a marketplace and/or a nursery of (crazy) Ideas, and give those who "click"
on a given idea, the necessary space to run with it. Not entirely sure
about the mechanics, just a vague concept in the back of my head at the
moment.
- Marketing. Apache needs marketing, and ApacheCon is a reason to contact
every technology firm within the catchment area. For some of us, we may use
this as an opportunity to meet potential customers or strengthen ties with
existing ones.
Personally, I think ApacheCon should be moving towards a brighter future.
Apache is home of ~200 projects, many of which are exciting and fresh. This
should interest the public, and with a decent location and good marketing,
it should be impossible to drive record numbers to the Event. A couple of
thousand should be a reasonable goal, and if JavaZone in Norway can do that
on an all-volunteer basis, Apache should not set the goals too low.
Hope to see you at ApacheCon "soon"
Cheers
Niclas
RE: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" <Ro...@microsoft.com>.
I attended Nicks sessions in Budapest - they were *excellent*. Using them as a model for Austin is to be recommended.
Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
-----Original Message-----
From: Hadrian Zbarcea [mailto:hzbarcea@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 4, 2015 3:23 PM
To: dev@community.apache.org
Subject: Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Awesome Nick. Is there a recording or something for it?
Hadrian
On 02/04/2015 06:10 PM, Nick Burch wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
>> For example, I would love to have some kind of an event at the
>> ApacheCON that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn
>> about various ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind
>> of lighting talks/reading group where each participant is randomly
>> given an ASF project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or
>> something.
>
> Or you could go crazy, aim for sharing information on an even greater
> number of projects, pick ~40, give them all to one person, and get
> them to do a 40 minute talk with a minute on each one!
>
> I actually did two such talks in Budapest, one for content related
> projects:
> http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/2236d3a762fd00df45922ca084ec326
> a
> and one for big data related ones:
> http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/30981664d3aba98f8a84a16136602ce
> b
>
> They're a non-trivial amount of work to put together, and you probably
> won't fill a room, but they almost always get great feedback from
> those who attend. One memorable comment was someone from a project I
> covered saying I'd done a better elevator pitch for their project than
> they'd ever managed :)
>
> So, based on those experiences, I'd very much encourage people to
> propose and give many-project overview talks like those, and even
> better come up with ideas like this to help spread the load of
> delivering them. They do work, they are popular, and we need more!
>
> Nick
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Hadrian Zbarcea <hz...@gmail.com>.
Awesome Nick. Is there a recording or something for it?
Hadrian
On 02/04/2015 06:10 PM, Nick Burch wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
>> For example, I would love to have some kind of an event at the
>> ApacheCON that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn
>> about various ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind
>> of lighting talks/reading group where each participant is randomly
>> given an ASF project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or
>> something.
>
> Or you could go crazy, aim for sharing information on an even greater
> number of projects, pick ~40, give them all to one person, and get
> them to do a 40 minute talk with a minute on each one!
>
> I actually did two such talks in Budapest, one for content related
> projects:
> http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/2236d3a762fd00df45922ca084ec326a
> and one for big data related ones:
> http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/30981664d3aba98f8a84a16136602ceb
>
> They're a non-trivial amount of work to put together, and you probably
> won't fill a room, but they almost always get great feedback from
> those who attend. One memorable comment was someone from a project I
> covered saying I'd done a better elevator pitch for their project than
> they'd ever managed :)
>
> So, based on those experiences, I'd very much encourage people to
> propose and give many-project overview talks like those, and even
> better come up with ideas like this to help spread the load of
> delivering them. They do work, they are popular, and we need more!
>
> Nick
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>.
On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Roman Shaposhnik wrote:
> For example, I would love to have some kind of an event at the ApacheCON
> that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn about various
> ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind of lighting
> talks/reading group where each participant is randomly given an ASF
> project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or something.
Or you could go crazy, aim for sharing information on an even greater
number of projects, pick ~40, give them all to one person, and get them to
do a 40 minute talk with a minute on each one!
I actually did two such talks in Budapest, one for content related
projects:
http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/2236d3a762fd00df45922ca084ec326a
and one for big data related ones:
http://apacheconeu2014.sched.org/event/30981664d3aba98f8a84a16136602ceb
They're a non-trivial amount of work to put together, and you probably
won't fill a room, but they almost always get great feedback from those
who attend. One memorable comment was someone from a project I covered
saying I'd done a better elevator pitch for their project than they'd ever
managed :)
So, based on those experiences, I'd very much encourage people to propose
and give many-project overview talks like those, and even better come up
with ideas like this to help spread the load of delivering them. They do
work, they are popular, and we need more!
Nick
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Roman Shaposhnik <ro...@shaposhnik.org>.
On Wed, Feb 4, 2015 at 5:58 AM, Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com> wrote:
> On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
>>
>> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
>> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
>>
>> It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
>> ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
>> intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process
>> for
>> the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
>> communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
>> get everybody on board regarding helping out.
>>
>> Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
>> we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
>> with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
>> networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle?
>> And
>> how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
>> and Projects?
>
>
> The conference exists to build Apache community, intra- and inter-project.
> Other goals have historically orbited that, as Nick describes - fundraising
> (in the early years), marketing of the ASF, user education (still an
> important goal). But primarily, in my mind, it exists as a way to build
> community.
That's how I've always looked at it. In a way, you can look at it as yet
another service we provide to our communities. Just like we provide
SVN, git or JIRA. IOW, this is a chance for even the smallest communities
to have something like a summit for its members.
Given how many projects we host, there's also a non-trivial residual benefit
for inter-project collaboration to be sparked. I think this is an area where we
can do better. For example, I would love to have some kind of an event
at the ApacheCON that would encourage as many folks as possible to learn
about various ASF projects. I have some ideas around running a kind of
lighting talks/reading group where each participant is randomly given an
ASF project and is required to present on it in 5 minutes or something.
Thanks,
Roman.
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Rich Bowen <rb...@rcbowen.com>.
On 02/04/2015 03:42 AM, Pierre Smits wrote:
> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
>
> It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
> ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
> intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process for
> the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
> communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
> get everybody on board regarding helping out.
>
> Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
> we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
> with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
> networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle? And
> how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
> and Projects?
The conference exists to build Apache community, intra- and
inter-project. Other goals have historically orbited that, as Nick
describes - fundraising (in the early years), marketing of the ASF, user
education (still an important goal). But primarily, in my mind, it
exists as a way to build community.
Or, perhaps, to give a different response ... If the membership has a
different answer to this question, they should articulate it, and, more
importantly, step up to make it happen.
Over the years, for many, many reasons, some intentional and some the
byproduct of history, Apache conferences outside of ApacheCon have
enjoyed increasing success, and have eclipsed ApacheCon. We (the board,
the membership, various people that I have discussed this with) believe
that ApacheCon still has a role as a place where the disparate Apache
communities meet and build strong bonds between projects.
Of course not everyone agrees with this, and I'm sure that there people
who feel that ApacheCon's day is over and that we should retire it. I
know that folks think this, and I suspect that some are reluctant to say
it out loud for fear of hurting my feelings (and those of the other
people who have invested thousands of hours and more than 15 years in
this event). Frankly, if people think that, I'd rather they speak up and
make their case.
As to costs - yes, the conference costs. It costs me (and other people,
notably Jan) hours and days of my life. And it costs LF time and
financial investment to produce. These are investments that I (and
others) make because we believe that it strengthens the Foundation.
I welcome this conversation. It's important that we have it every few
years. I welcome even more people who will step up with answers, and
energy and time to make those answers into a reality. Pierre, you have
done this for Ofbiz, providing content and community excitement. What we
need is more communities to do this, both inward facing and outward
facing, as well as telling us (the ComDev list) what changes we need to
make to the event to make it more effective.
A point of history: There used to be a ConCom (Conference Committee),
and it was eventually disbanded for the simple reason that we had become
incredibly difficult for vendors to work with - the micromanagement that
Nick refers to. It turned into a single point of contact - me - to work
with LF. This doesn't mean that I don't need/want help. I desperately
need help. I am not an event expert, despite doing this for 15 years.
I'd like to see an events committee (ie, more than just ApacheCon) that
would figure out our overarching event strategy, from ApacheCon to how
we work with events like Hadoop Summit, to how we manage our presence at
events like OSCON and FOSDEM. (See new thread, later today, about
FOSDEM.) But what we don't want to see, and what the Board will shut
down, is the kind of ConCom that we had several years ago, with the
endless debates that paralyzed forward motion and pissed off numerous
fine producers. (Note here that I was on concom almost from day one, and
was part of that problem - not pointing at anyone else here.)
--
Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen
http://apachecon.com/ - @apachecon
RE: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by "Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH)" <Ro...@microsoft.com>.
The ASF has failed to produce a coherent ApacheCon strategy for years. That's why we killed ConCom and outsourced everything. It's not our role to define strategy. It's the producers.
The producer is relying o. Us to produce all content so what they are getting is the usual 2-3 talks for each of our 150+ projects. We end up with a conference with no coherence and potentially no compelling reason to attend.
We end up rejecting valuable talks because they describe how a particular product benefits from the ASF, so no case-studies, just deep technical talks that are only interesting to developers of that specific project. We end up with no content of general interest.
Of course I'm over stating it, its not quite that bad. However, it wont change until the producer is ready to build that missing strategy. I do understand why they are nit changing too much too quickly, but as someone who made this requirement explicit during the negotiation stage I had hoped they'd have at least given ApacheCon a vision by now. One I could communicate to speakers so that I could create a coherent track that would convince the bosses to approve travel.
Lets not go down the path of us telling LF what event they should put on. We killed ConCom because it failed to do that and restricted the producer as a result.
If someone here has a vision for a specific Apache conference the. Go ahead and do the work. ApacheCon is not the vehicle for a volunteer run event.
Sent from my Windows Phone
________________________________
From: Pierre Smits<ma...@gmail.com>
Sent: 2/4/2015 12:45 AM
To: dev@community.apache.org<ma...@community.apache.org>
Subject: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
It appears, at least to me as I have seen the discussions before, that the
ASF misses a clear strategy regarding the event, why we do it and what the
intended audience is. This should be fixed prior to opening the process for
the next event (Apachecon EU 2015), because then it will be easier to
communicate, easier to invite speakers (and yes, we should do that), and
get everybody on board regarding helping out.
Is the event to be considered as the bi-annual party for ourselves, where
we can all (all the presenters) claim how good we (as the individual) are
with the products of the various projects? Is it an promotion and
networking event? Or is it something that sits somewhere in the middle? And
how does it fit with the strategy and other activities of the ASF Offices
and Projects?
As soon as it is known what it is, we can investigate and define the target
audiences and set up a plan to communicate with (our public information can
be found in 20.700 pages found
https://www.google.nl/search?sitesearch=apache.org&q=apachecon and the page
listed first is related to the conference of 1998) , setup a plan to get
the attracting talks in. And I presume, that will help increase the success
of the event, the projects and the ASF.
Now, I also surmise that we don't know the size of the potential audience.
We talk about 500+ members, 5000+ committers. But we are forgetting the
number of the other contributors (subscribers to dev@) participating in our
projects and the followers of our products (subscribers to user@). These
are also numbers we can use when promoting the event. Extrapolating the
ratio of members vs committers we could say 50.000+ contributors and
500.000 followers. Communicating those numbers add to the importance of the
event for sponsors, presenters and attendees.
Let's face it: the event costs... It cost effort to organise, it uses
precious ASF resources. And net-wise it should be beneficial to both the
projects and the ASF regarding supporting the projects. Meaning adding to
the budgets, or at least be cost neutral, and leading to more contributors
to the projects.
I must admit that I don't know the exact figures per event held (e.g. EU
2014, US 2013, EU and US 2012) and what has been learned and gained from
each.
Best regards,
Pierre Smits
*ORRTIZ.COM <http://www.orrtiz.com>*
Services & Solutions for Cloud-
Based Manufacturing, Professional
Services and Retail & Trade
http://www.orrtiz.com
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:52 PM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
Ross.Gardler@microsoft.com> wrote:
> There is nothing stopping LF from promoting the CFP.
>
> Ross
>
> Microsoft Open Technologies, Inc.
> A subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil Steitz [mailto:phil.steitz@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 3, 2015 12:38 PM
> To: dev@community.apache.org
> Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
>
> On 2/2/15 11:47 AM, jan i wrote:
> > On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski <ji...@jagunet.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Agreed!
> >>
> >> Also, after all is said and done, and Rich has some time to breathe,
> >> I'd like to know just how helpful LF was this time around. From the
> >> sidelines, it seems that they really didn't do an aggressive job
> >> promoting the event and being a pro-active producer in trying to
> >> drive speakers.
> >>
> > Being one who tries to do a little more than just help, I think we
> > need to divide issues here.
> >
> > Content is our responsibility, as I believe it rightly should be, so
> > finding and driving speakers is our part, of course with the help of LF.
> >
> > Promoting an event before the content is known is pretty hard and not
> > very rewarding. The real (external) promotion start 14th February,
> > when the schedule is in place (work which just started today).
>
> Right. One thing that might help would be to push back the CFP close
> date, so there is more time between content selected and the event itself.
>
> Phil
> >
> > All that said, I believe in general we should look for ways to
> > motivate our projects a lot more to participate (not only with talks,
> > but also getting people to come).
> >
> > just my opinion
> > rgds
> > jan i.
> >
> >
> >>> On Feb 2, 2015, at 11:11 AM, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) <
> >> Ross.Gardler@microsoft.com> wrote:
> >>> Great job Rich, and those who helped.
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my Windows Phone
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> From: Rich Bowen<ma...@rcbowen.com>
> >>> Sent: 2/2/2015 12:19 AM
> >>> To: dev<ma...@community.apache.org>
> >>> Subject: ApacheCon NA CFP closed
> >>>
> >>> Thanks so much for people that got their last-minute papers into the
> >>> CFP system. We currently have 235 proposals. It is still to be
> >>> decided how many tracks we're going to run, but 6 tracks would be
> >>> (roughly) 108 talks, just for reference. So we should be good.
> >>>
> >>> If you've volunteered to review, you can start any time. If you'd
> >>> like to review and aren't in the system yet, email C. Craig Ross
> >>> <cc...@linuxfoundation.org> and ask to be added to the CFP review
> >>> system, and cc this list, so that we have some idea of who's being
> >>> added to the list.
> >>>
> >>> We have 2 weeks from today to get the talks (tentatively) scheduled
> >>> and notify speakers on the 14th, so there's a lot of work ahead of us.
> >>> Thanks in advance.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Rich Bowen - rbowen@rcbowen.com - @rbowen http://apachecon.com/ -
> >>> @apachecon
> >>
>
>
Re: Why the Apachecon (was Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed)
Posted by Nick Burch <ni...@apache.org>.
On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Pierre Smits wrote:
> We are discussing again, as it seems to me, what the purpose of the
> Apachecon is based on talks submitted. And why is that?
I'm not going to answer your email directly, but instead I'm going to try
to offer some background and some history, which hopefully will help a
wider/newer audience to do so, fingers crossed...
In the past, we have tried giving large amounts of direction to producers
(some might say micro-managing), along with supporting large parts of the
conference organising. The general consensus, looking back on those
events, is that the volunteer effort to conference success ratio wasn't
working. Producers struggled with it too.
In the past, we have tried putting on a large event ourselves, outside of
traditional city-centre conference hotels, with assistance from a producer
but us in charge. By some measures, we pulled it off an had a great
success! But almost everyone involved said after that it was a success
that should never be repeated... (Some varient of that might work, but
such a model hasn't been come up with so far)
We have some community members where if you say "come to our small
conference and speak and attend, tents are provided outside", they will
turn up! http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertburrelldonkin/5150859365/ has
photos of the tents from when we did that :) However, that won't work for
all of our community, and is unlikely to work for many of the people we're
looking to bring into our projects and their communities. We've asked
them, producers have asked them, and many of these folks want a nice-ish
hotel somewhere they can easily get to.
Some sponsors are happy to fund a hundred ASFers in a field or a youth
hostel. Some sponsors are willing to fund conference spaces if we come
to/near them, but that number might not be that large. Some sponsors have
indicated willing to cover travel+food+lodging for certain key people so
their staff can meet+learn from them, but no model to tap that has thus
far been proposed+accepted. Some sponsors are willing to contribute to the
cost of getting people the ASF thinks are important to our events, which
is what funds TAC. Many sponsors frequently pony up for the "traditional"
sponsorship of booths, giveaways, lunches etc at "traditional" city centre
conference hotel events.
Some want ApacheCon as an excuse to meet up with old friends. Some want
ApacheCon to learn about new projects to use or get involved in. Some want
ApacheCon to allow the foundation to explain itself to new projects +
newish committers/community members, to help the foundation grow + replace
those who leave. Some want to learn about the very latest cutting edge
things from the people who wrote the code yesterday, and want to be using
it in their solutions tomorrow. Some have heard a bit about a project or
two, and want to learn more. Some want to use the event to draw in new
users and contributor who've already heard of the project, some need the
conference to to draw in those with a problem yet to hear of the project.
Some want it to rival big events (FOSCON or Hadoop Universe type things),
others want the USP to be a pure Apache focus. Some change their mind.
Some of these things are mutually exclusive, some may require "creativity"
to combine!
In many ways, the ASF is a terrible client for a conference producer... In
some ways, we are wonderful!
I hope that helps those without the ConCom battle scars with some
background. I've tried to keep it neutral, as best as I can, but it's not
perfect. With any luck it's good enough to assist the thread
Nick