FOSS Events Primer
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00:00
Structural equation modelingHexagonEvent horizon1 (number)TwitterFreewareInternet service providerSpacetimeMusical ensembleDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Open sourceSoftwareFocus (optics)Multiplication signPlanning
01:30
Multiplication signFeedbackEvent horizonSoftwarePlanningDifferent (Kate Ryan album)HypermediaComputer animation
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Type theoryEvent horizonQuicksortMachine visionDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Panel painting
02:47
Event horizonDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Content (media)Strategy gameData structureoutputMereology
03:29
Event horizonLevel (video gaming)
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Line (geometry)DataflowPlanningValue-added networkDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Projective planePlanningEngineering drawingMeeting/Interview
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Level (video gaming)Different (Kate Ryan album)CodeLibrary (computing)Multiplication signProjective plane
05:02
Decision theorySoftwareWebsiteSystem callMereologyPlanningLattice (order)Multiplication signDrawing
05:52
Multiplication signEvent horizonCore dumpProjective planeMereologyFigurate numberLength
06:30
Event horizonLevel (video gaming)Multiplication signSuite (music)Figurate numberExistence
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Event horizonBitDrop (liquid)Computer animation
08:41
VirtualizationBitEvent horizonScheduling (computing)Value-added networkComputer animation
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Event horizonMultiplication signSoftwareFreewareReduction of orderPoint (geometry)SpacetimeValue-added networkLecture/ConferenceMeeting/Interview
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Event horizonMultiplication sign
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LengthEvent horizonMultiplication signSoftwareProjective planeFamilyFreeware
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Event horizonContent (media)PhysicalismMultiplication signElectronic mailing listComputer animation
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Formal languageEvent horizonSelf-organizationMultiplication signError message
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FinitismusEvent horizonInteractive televisionFood energyValue-added network
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Event horizonSelf-organizationElectronic mailing listConnected spaceGroup actionEmail
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Library (computing)Multiplication signEvent horizonMachine visionValue-added networkSystem callGame controllerArithmetic mean
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Event horizonElectronic mailing listContent (media)Lattice (order)Different (Kate Ryan album)Data miningBuffer solutionRule of inference
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1 (number)WebsiteOpen setGoodness of fitLibrary (computing)Electronic mailing listEmailProgramming languageEvent horizonTrailValue-added network
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Office suiteAdditionFitness functionAngleComputer programming40 (number)Computer animation
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BitElement (mathematics)Computer clusterEvent horizonComputer animation
19:09
Type theoryEvent horizonFamilyMultiplication signVector potentialDesign by contract
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Category of beingEvent horizon
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Data structureSpreadsheet
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SpreadsheetElectronic mailing listLevel (video gaming)Group actionMereologyPresentation of a groupTask (computing)System callDigital video recorderEvent horizonBitVector potentialProjective planeMultiplication signStrategy gameField (computer science)Point (geometry)VideoconferencingSelf-organizationGoogolOrder (biology)
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SpreadsheetShape (magazine)Acoustic shadow
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SpreadsheetSource codeSingle-precision floating-point formatAcoustic shadowRepository (publishing)WebsiteDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Self-organizationPoint (geometry)Template (C++)Musical ensembleData structureEvent horizonMultiplication signComputer animation
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Multiplication signEvent horizonData structureMessage passingWordProjective planeConsistency
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Event horizonMachine visionMultiplication signRevision controlElectronic mailing listRepository (publishing)SoftwareShared memoryLocal ringFreewareSelf-organizationHypermediaComputer programmingHand fanNatural number
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Level (video gaming)ExplosionEvent horizonWordMetropolitan area networkLevel (video gaming)Drawing
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Event horizonFreewareMoment (mathematics)Table (information)GenderTrailThermal conductivityCodeValue-added networkChainMultiplication signComputer animationLecture/Conference
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Hill differential equationComputer fontPlanningWindowEvent horizonMeeting/Interview
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WindowRow (database)InformationNeuroinformatikShared memoryLine (geometry)Event horizonGroup actionSoftwareComputer animationMeeting/Interview
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Group actionRight angleTouch typingMereologyMultiplication signoutputEvent horizonLocal ringMeeting/Interview
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Event horizonOnline helpHookingForcing (mathematics)Local ringRight angleMessage passingMereologyQuicksortBit rateMetropolitan area networkMeeting/Interview
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SpreadsheetDependent and independent variablesPoint cloudSoftwareFreewareEvent horizonAcoustic shadowRight angleBlogHypermediaChemical equationMetropolitan area networkResultantWritingMeeting/Interview
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SynchronizationPoint cloudComputer configurationRight angleSingle-precision floating-point formatType theoryBit rateGame controllerFigurate numberComputer programmingRevision controlBlogMeeting/Interview
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Hill differential equationSpreadsheetComputer clusterFreewareSoftwareState of matterOcean currentCollaborationismMeeting/Interview
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Right angleMultiplication signTrailEvent horizonIntelligent NetworkTouchscreenMeeting/Interview
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TrailEvent horizonAreaFinite-state machineMachine visionRight angleAdditionMultiplication signRow (database)Meeting/Interview
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Limit (category theory)Meeting/InterviewComputer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:07
Hi. Welcome to FOSDEM. My name is Deb Nicholson, and I am going to talk about FOS events. Get out there and run one. This is mostly going to be for community events, ones run by volunteers who want
00:22
to just provide something exciting and fun and valuable for their community. There may also be some advice that is useful for more corporate events and things like that, but that's not the focus. So, you can get at me on Twitter. I'm also on Between Gigs, so if you know something that I should do for money,
00:42
let me know. So, I'm pretty passionate about events. I have been, before coming to free open-source software, I've been a concert promoter for small shows, like different kinds of things like that, mostly focused on bands that were not quite big enough or famous
01:01
enough or popular enough yet to be able to play at a big stadium or at a big concert venue. So, I would book them at dive bars, at gallery spaces, venues that schools had that they could provide. And I feel pretty confident that whatever the size of your community is, you can find
01:23
the right space and the right activities and the right venue to kind of have an event and bring folks together. I've done a lot of event planning in my time here in free software. So, like, I worked on Libre Planet now, like, going back over 10 years ago.
01:41
I am a founding member of the Seattle New Linux Fest. I founded the first Software Freedom Day here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and worked on meetups with Boston Python, tutorial events with OpenHatch, and user experience feedback events via SpinachCon.
02:01
So, I have done lots of different kinds of events. I think it's interesting to think of events as sort of, like, manifesting something into being that didn't exist before, and it can be pretty heavily imprinted with your vision, which is kind of what makes it exciting and rewarding.
02:21
Like, you can take a step back and think about exactly what is your community need right now and then provide exactly the type of event. You don't have to, like, if a hackfest doesn't make sense for you yet, you don't have to have one. If, like, a huge, you know, event in a hotel doesn't make sense, you don't have to do one.
02:41
You can figure out what your community needs and then tailor it to that. So, where to start? There's, like, there's so many different kinds of events out there. One thing that I think is helpful to start with is to think about what you've seen at other events that you've really liked and that you thought maybe while you were doing it,
03:02
like, oh, yeah, I bet we could do that for my community. Or that is a really clever way to get newcomers involved. Or that was a really great strategy for getting everybody's input on what we should work on for the next year. So, whatever it is that you've seen that you thought was good, you can borrow those ideas
03:22
and those structures and those kinds of content from other events and then really make them your own. So, once you start to kind of think about, like, what you like about events, you start to sort of, you know, see how it's going to be and you can get a sense of what you're shooting for, like, you know, just like the general tone, I guess.
03:46
And that's really helpful. I would also advise setting some goals so that it's nice to have an event, but if you're having an event just to have an event, it's maybe not going to feel as rewarding as if you maybe set up a map and, like, a roadmap on what you want
04:02
to accomplish during your event. And there are a lot of different kinds of goals. So, you'll probably have some primary goals and then some secondary goals. Like, maybe your primary goal is to make sure that all of the folks in your community can come together and have FaceTime and have an opportunity to discuss the project's kind of, you know, plans for the next year.
04:25
Or maybe your goal is to really set your project up for newcomers or something like that. Or you might have some other kind of thing on the map that you really want to get done. Maybe you want to hack together for a day or two and really, like,
04:44
just churn out some code on a couple of different libraries that you've been meaning to get to for a long time. So, those might be, like, some of the primary goals, but you might also have, like, some secondary goals, things that you can do while you're all together that might be helpful to the project's overall growth and health.
05:02
And that might be, like, maybe you're going to spend, like, a half a day working on documentation or looking at the website or maybe talking with other people that use your software but don't hack on it. And so you might decide that, like, hey, while we're all together, let's take, like, two or three hours to also do this other thing.
05:22
Don't add too many of those. Like, you can't have, like, five primary goals and 17 secondary goals because then you're basically spending a month together. I would also say try and separate your goals by day or part of the day. So, like, if you're going to have a big strategic planning meeting where everybody should come and then you're also going to have a big hackfest
05:44
where everybody should come and then you're also going to have, like, a keynote where you invite some famous person to speak, it's going to be just really confusing. Like, people aren't going to know where to go if you're going to have, like, all three of your super important things happening at the exact same time. And part of the beauty of an event is that you've got folks coming together in person.
06:06
So, like, you know, everyone can kind of comment on each other's work and the overall project and how things fit together. And so it's really valuable if you don't have your project core is, like, scheduled for, like, three really important things all at the same time.
06:26
So that said, like, once you start to, like, kind of figure out what you're going to do with the time together and what you want to accomplish with the time together, you start to, like, kind of bring it into being.
06:41
So this is a map of upstate New York and that town is Aglo. A-G-L-O-E. And it's the initials of the two map makers who did up a map and they put a fake town there because they really wanted to keep people from stealing their map.
07:04
So they put a fake town there made up of their initials and then what happened was people moved into this fake town and told them that it was called Aglo. They had seen it on the map. And so they're like, well, I live here, so I guess I live in Aglo,
07:21
which is really funny because it didn't exist. But once you tell people, like, what it is you're doing, they will help you make it come into being. So if you want to have a really professional event and you tell people that, then folks will show up in their suits. If you tell people you want to have a really casual event,
07:41
then people will show up expecting that. If you say you want to have, like, a really friendly event, then you tell people the folks who show up will be there expecting and helping to actualize a friendly event. So the way you talk about your goals and what you're trying to accomplish
08:02
is sort of, like, what makes people decide, like, if they're going to be involved and how they're going to be involved and how they're going to contribute to that. So the other thing I would say is keep it fresh. It can be really tempting for a new event to just get, like, three really big names and have them give the same talk
08:22
that they've given at, like, maybe 20 other little conferences. But I would really recommend getting a little bit of that, like, getting a little away from that and having some content that's super fresh and really original and specific to your event. So one of the things that we do at Seagull is that we split our keynotes
08:46
between newcomers and folks who have been around for a while. So a little bit of draw, but also a little bit of fresh new voices that people haven't heard from before. To make it kind of special and unique and interesting and worth attending our event, which is especially important
09:03
when you're doing everything, you know, virtual. So let's go through what you're going to do when you start getting organized. The first thing you're going to want to do is schedule your event. And you're going to kind of look around and see what else is happening in the community.
09:20
Like, obviously, you probably don't want to set up, like, a free software event on February 5th, because there's already a really big one happening. So that doesn't make any sense. If you're running a Python event in Brussels, but you don't want to have it be within, like, a couple of days of the big US flagship event. And there might be something in your town.
09:41
Like, maybe there's a beer fest that everybody attends, and it makes parking a nightmare and all the hotels are full. So you don't want to also have your event, if it's really big and you're going to need a lot of parking and hotel space, at the same time. If it's small, maybe you do, so that you can also go to the beer event. I don't know. But think about it, and then at some point,
10:02
you're going to realize that you'll overlap with something. And that's okay. But just kind of, like, thinking about who is going to attend and what is going to be really difficult for folks to split their time and be able to participate in your event. So, you know, so just because you've heard of an event
10:21
doesn't mean that you can't have yours on that same time. Okay, so choose the best time for your people. And this might be, like, a co-located event. Sometimes that's a really good place to start. The other thing I would say is think about the length of time that you want to get together.
10:41
There's an adage about fish and guests, and it's probably conferences, too. Unless your community is really used to hanging out and doing a lot of work together, and it's kind of like a family reunion. I'm looking at you, Deb Conf. But for most communities, it's really hard for people to pull a week or two weeks
11:00
to go and hang out with their free software project, unfortunately. So one or two days is a great place to start. Maybe a day, like an evening, and then the whole next day, like a Friday night Saturday thing. That's a great place to start. But I wouldn't go more than two days for your first event. It's really going to be a ton of work.
11:22
And if you are thinking, like, oh, actually, four to six hours is perfect for us, which is great for a virtual event. But if you're going to do a physical event, I would suggest looking into starting with a co-located event. This is really hard to get a global community come together from all over the world in person
11:43
for four to six hours worth of business or content. So you've scheduled your event. Now it's time to gather your resources. What do you need to have kind of in place and on your to-get list when you're going to run an event?
12:03
And the first one is that you need some people. And you are definitely going to need, like, not just like big names, like famous people. You want people who are going to be able to do a lot of work on your conference. A lot of times the folks that are famous and like a big deal in your community
12:22
have a lot of demands on their time. And so while it might be nice and they might be able to like keynote or they might be able to, you know, like re-share your event, like maybe someone who is a big deal in your language community is like, oh yeah, check out this new event. But they're not probably going to be able
12:40
to do a ton of work. So you want to look for folks that are willing to do a ton of work. If you don't believe me, ask the Fuzzdub organizers. The other thing is, is that you probably want to get some new people, like people who are raring to go and full of enthusiasm and are ready to learn stuff about how to run an event or ready to meet new people
13:01
or ready to like, you know, interact with their speakers or learn how you'd go about getting sponsors for things. And so like don't make sure that you, if you really want to get things done, you're always bringing new people in to your event planning committee because that energy is really hard to replicate.
13:24
It's finite. The other thing I would say is that when you're looking for folks to work with on your first event or maybe your third event or your 10th event, you want not just individuals. You might be looking for also like buddies,
13:40
like co-organizations that want to help run the event with you. If you're running a hyper local event, like maybe the, you know, the Python community and the Linux community want to like team up and run an event together. If you're running like a Pearl event, you might want to see what kinds of resources are available from like, you know,
14:01
the main big global Pearl community or something like that. So there may be organizations or user groups local to you or other kind of groups of people, like maybe a mailing list of people that want to participate in helping you make your event happen.
14:21
And so I would highly recommend looking for those organizational connections. The other thing you're going to need for sure is money. And it's worth thinking about how much time you want to spend raising money and then how fancy of a conference you want to have. Like if in your mind, we're all staying in a hotel
14:43
and we're having sushi for lunch and everything is paid for, then you need to get comfortable with spending a lot of time raising money. If in your mind it's cool if everyone throws money in a jar and we order some pizza and hang out in a library basement,
15:02
that is totally fine too. It means you'll have to spend a lot time, a lot less time raising money. So just make sure, I mean, it sounds kind of obvious to say like if you want to spend a lot of money, you're going to have to raise a lot of money. But just kind of think about that when you're thinking about your vision for your event.
15:21
The other thing I would say is that if you have helped run a corporate event, like for work or something like that, and you're thinking like, oh, I know about events. Nonprofit events are a little different. Like the kinds of things that people expect, you know, what ways
15:40
people are willing to pitch in. And some of the accounting is a little different. So just keep an eye out for that. Like it depends on where you live and how that works. But if you're running like a community event or you're running an event in conjunction with a nonprofit as like a fiscal sponsor of your event, the rules and the accounting
16:01
are going to be a little bit different than they are for a for-profit event. All right. So let's talk about finding speakers. This one, like the content for your event is really important. Like if you don't have content, then you don't really have an event. You just have a really long meeting.
16:20
So one thing that I think is really good to do is to make a list of people that you definitely want to have consider speaking at your event and reaching out to them individually and saying like, hey, we've seen your work on, you know, our programming language that we're having a conference about.
16:41
And our community is really interested in that library that you wrote. And I was wondering if you could commit to participating in our event. And those first couple of speakers really help set the tone. Like you might call them keynotes. You might call them featured speakers. You might say it's the main track, whatever it is, you know, or like an opening speaker
17:01
or something like that. But that first couple of speakers that you promote on the mailing list or website or social or whatever it is is going to set that tone for the kind of event that you're going to have. And so it's really good to get a couple good ones in first. One thing that I think
17:21
is really great for getting more submissions and more quality submissions is office hours. So we started doing this a bunch of years ago at Segal because people were like, we said we were open to new speakers, but people were still feeling really nervous. So we said, okay, swing by IRC,
17:42
tell us your idea and then we'll tell you if it's appropriate for our conference or if there's a slightly different angle or we could warn you like actually we already have 40 Docker talks or whatever it is. Like this is a few years ago. But people would come by and kind of talk with some of the program community
18:01
about their idea. And then we would help them shape it up into like a conference talk proposal that they felt really confident about. In addition to improving like the quality of the talks that we got and the fit that those talks had for the audience that we were expecting,
18:20
it also helped us bring in a lot of new speakers who felt like kind of vulnerable or nervous or not sure or like maybe I'm not good enough. And we were like, no, you can be good enough. This proposal just has to have a little bit more of those kind of proposal elements where you tell us what you're going to tell us
18:40
and specifically say what kind of audience you're hoping will attend your talk. Now the next thing, and I hope we get to choose venues again. I know it's a little weird to talk about that right now. I'm thinking that maybe it can take like a year or more to do your first event
19:02
if it's going to be of any size, but maybe in a year we'll be choosing venues again. So I'm just going to say a couple things about that. The type of venue you choose also really kind of says what kind of event you're expecting to have. So like, you know,
19:20
if you tell people like, oh, this is going to be a really great event for employers and potential employees to match, you know, to meet and match up with each other. And then you have your event at a campsite. Some folks are going to be a little confused and that's not really going to match your tone. There are other great types
19:41
of events that you could have at a campsite, like if your community has been pretty tight for a long time and this is essentially like, you know, a couple of days of family reunion types, you know, kind of event. Like, OK. But I would also go ahead and if you can, take a look at the event, a venue before you choose it
20:01
and sign any contract. Another thing you want to take a minute to think about is events are attended by human beings that need to eat food. So if you do not have food in your venue or really close to your venue, then you're going to have
20:20
to do some work to provide it or find it. So it can't you if you don't want to provide it because you've decided you want to a casual event and not get really into like you know, everybody's dietary stuff, that's totally fine. But then you're going to have to tell people where they can find it. And if you're looking and you're like, oh, where they can find it
20:40
is a 35 minute walk. Well, that's not going to work out so great. So because unless you want to give people like four hours for lunch. All right. So let's talk Nuts and Bolts about like your, the structure of your conference organizing team and resources.
21:00
So first of all, spreadsheets are your friend. I know, I know. It's not cool to say you love spreadsheets, but really spreadsheets are your friend. And they have to be shared in common where everybody can look at them and everybody can add to them or update them and see what's going on. So first, I would say,
21:20
as far as shared resources, you want to make a timeline and that might be a spreadsheet. It might be something else, but it should have like we're going to do these things and then these things can happen and then keep it updated so that if something else is a week late and then the next thing has to happen a week later, like you keep updating it. So everyone who is involved
21:42
with helping you set up your event knows what the general timeline is. Obviously, there are some things that just have to happen before the event. So you don't, you can't push things out forever. Also make a budget. I talked a little bit about this earlier,
22:00
but you can't spend money you don't have. I mean, you can if you don't mind pocketing, you know, or paying for the difference out of your own pocket, but you can only do that so many times. I don't recommend it and it kind of makes it feel
22:20
a little weird when one person has paid for the event out of pocket. Anyway, make a budget, like what you think you're going to need to spend and then look at how much your money you're going to be able to raise. And I would say be a little conservative your first year that you make a budget and make sure that you're going to come in
22:40
with a little left over because especially for your first time, there's going to be something that just you didn't think of and cost money. And so yeah, be a little conservative on that first budget. The other thing I would say, make committees. There's going to be people who are working on getting sponsors. There's going to be people
23:00
who are working on the video recording. There's going to be people working on getting the speakers and then there's going to be people working on promoting the event to potential attendees. And at some point, each of those tasks is going to get so detailed that the other committees don't need to be there, like the people working on the other parts. So make sure that each of those groups
23:22
can meet and get into the level of detail they need to without having everybody else in the room. And then another spreadsheet that you, or a couple of spreadsheets you should consider is a list of press sponsors, potential exhibitors, and user groups that you want to reach out to, either to promote your call for presentations
23:42
or to promote your actual event. And again, I'm all about the efficiency. If you make this list and then say who you've contacted, then anyone else who's like, oh, I had maybe some ideas for some user groups we could talk to, can go to the spreadsheet, see who's already been contacted,
24:00
and then not waste their time. And it's the same with sponsors, exhibitors, press, all of these different things. So the spreadsheet is good. And you have to put, like for this to work, everything has to actually be put into the spreadsheet. So like you, if you're the lead organizer, might find yourself saying
24:21
pretty often at the beginning, like, oh, that's great, you met someone from Google, put it in the spreadsheet. Oh, that's great. Like you talk to somebody who wants to donate coffee, put it in the spreadsheet. Eventually, you're going to say it so much that hopefully people will say, hey, I talked to someone who said they were interested in writing this up for like,
24:40
lwn. I put it in the spreadsheet. And there cannot be a shadow spreadsheet. This is like, if you're saying like, this one spreadsheet is the single source of truth, it can't secretly be like, six different things. And everyone maintaining their own local work. I do understand that you might have like,
25:01
say a repository for your website and then another place where you keep documents and templates or pictures or something like that. But if you do have two, and it should never be more than two, please don't do that. Make sure that those two things point to each other so that anyone who comes into the organization to volunteer
25:21
and bring all their enthusiasm is not confused as to why half the stuff is not there. all right. So we've talked about your structure and your organization and you've picked a venue and you've reached out to speakers. So now it's time to tell people about your event.
25:41
And the thing about telling people about your event is that you want like, branding, it sounds like kind of a marketing word and I don't think marketing is a bad thing. In like, nonprofit land, we often say messaging. But the idea is that it's consistency. So if you hear from one person about the event and then a week later you hear from another person
26:01
about the event, it doesn't sound so different that you think they're two different events. So it really should just be consistent. So whatever your project event's mission is, it should be like a short phrase that everybody kind of agrees on. So for Siegel, we're like,
26:20
we're a local free software conference that is dedicated to surfacing new voices and providing a venue for people to talk about free software. or some, you know, like we have slightly longer versions of that that we use for raising money and slightly shorter versions, but they're all in one repository where anyone can cut and paste it.
26:41
And we encourage everybody to talk about the event in the same way. So that that vision that you spend a lot of time thinking about for your event gets conveyed no matter who a person encounters within your organization. So if they talk to the program committee, they know what the event's about. If they're a sponsor and they talk to someone
27:01
about sponsoring the event, they know what they're talking about too. It's like everyone has like a similar vision of what the event is. And like I said, creating text for short use or long use and, you know, like reusing the same text and instead of everybody crafting their own thoughts
27:20
is going to be really a good way to do this. Then share it. Event calendars, mailing lists, tag journalists, social media, et cetera. All right. And then just a few words about this. You want to make sure your event is fun for everyone. And to me, that means accessibility should be the front of your mind. You know,
27:41
visiting the venue. Like I said, if we get to do that to make sure that people who are wheelchair users can actually navigate it. You know, and making a map so that people can figure out how to get to your event. All of these things, like, you know, it's okay if there's stuff that you can't provide or there are challenges,
28:02
but giving people as much information as possible so that they can navigate those challenges themselves is really the best way to go. Food questions. If you have an event of any size, you're going to be asked for vegan stuff and gluten-free stuff and nut-free stuff. If you just find out the answer to that early,
28:21
then when people ask you a question when you're really busy two days before the event, you're going to be able to give them a great answer. Like, yes, of course, we are going to have a couple of vegan things on the table. Gender-neutral toilets. These are pretty easy. Most venues are happy to accommodate, especially if you ask really early. Code of conduct. There are whole talks
28:41
about this. You should have one and you should enforce it. Travel funding. If you're asking people to come from all over the globe to your event, you should consider offering travel funding so that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in your event. And I highly recommend doing stipends as opposed to getting involved
29:01
with buying people's airline tickets and hotels. Swag and speaker gifts. This one, I would say keep it minimal and try and go with something that you don't have to track people's sizes for, especially for your first event. Everyone has t-shirts, big enough to manage all that.
29:20
If you're just going to do a small event for your first time, give people something else like a keychain or like a charger or something. After the event, this is really important. Two things. Make sure you thank people for their participation so that they know that you appreciate all the work they did and take a look back and see what worked
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and what didn't work and then make sure you write that down and refer back to it next year. These are some resources that you might find helpful as you're thinking about planning your own event, especially one all on the travel planning and picture credits and then I would be happy
30:01
to take your questions and I guess I'm going to show up in another window in just a second for that. Thanks so much.
30:25
All right. Thank you very much for that talk. I think it was very interesting. We do have a few questions. I know you've answered a few already, but I think it might be nice for the recording as well. LM8 asked, they tried to run a software freedom day event
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the past few years online and they did share information about it with computer groups in the area, but they only ended up with a few attendees. Do you have a few suggestions on how to get people to come? Yeah. So especially when you're inviting other groups, kind of asking them for input early,
31:00
like if you wait until it's time to say, okay, we've done all the work. We've crafted the whole event. Now you can attend. That's not as great of a way to get those other groups involved as contacting them a few times. So letting them know like, hey, we're going to schedule this event. Can you put it on your calendar?
31:22
And or are you interested in doing anything co-located? Or can you make sure that your folks know about our call for presentations? Or would you like a booth? So if you're talking to other local user groups, like giving them a few different opportunities
31:40
to be involved along the way, it's going to create more buy-in with those groups and that's going to make them feel more like kind of part of your event and they're going to be more likely to attend. Okay, thank you. There were a few more comments. One from Johan
32:02
who did the previous talk. I'm basically saying that Fast North loves to support co-located events the day before and that they will hook you up with local venues provided by local companies and help promote, which I think tags into this and like you said, the co-location thing. I don't know if you have any more comments to that or?
32:22
Yeah, co-located events are really great and it sort of uses the five step thing of like getting other people to organize a part of the event for you, which is fantastic. But yeah, if you're holding an event and you know that the venue is just there the day before or you know of other venues
32:41
that would be easy for folks to use, that's great. I would just also be really clear about the messaging. So say if you do decide to have like, you know, oh, we're going to have a whole MongoDB co-located day. Make sure the messaging is really clear so that you don't get questions about like, hey, how come
33:01
I'm not going to be able to speak at the Mongo event? You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're running the main event. Like you have to contact the Mongo folks. So just make sure that you when you if you're going to co promote a co-located event, you make it really clear who is in charge of which parts. So then folks can
33:21
contact the right people, attend the right parts, like sponsor the right parts, etc. Right. Then Florian mentioned, I think this was in response to the spreadsheet thing you pointed out. Next cloud or a path with markdown supports would also work well.
33:42
What's your thought there? Yeah, so my thought is, I mean, obviously we're a free software conference. You should use free software whenever possible. If you're, you know, if your event planning team is not comfortable with the command line,
34:00
then you have to choose something that they're comfortable with. Like I talked a lot about like shadow spreadsheets. Like if you make the thing too hard to use, then people will do their own local work and then you won't really have everything in one place. So you have to figure out like you can't have a really
34:21
complicated free software solution that's difficult to use. So you want to kind of balance that. Like if someone's like, oh, I just thought it would be fun to like, you know, I could do some social media stuff and some blogs and you're like, cool. So you have to learn Perl and it's like, okay, so that's not really working.
34:43
Like, so if you want to have people that are a little less technical to help you with some of the promotion stuff, then your tooling has to be user-friendly enough for them to do their work. Right. Yeah, what I think though, I don't know if you've looked at the Nextcloud,
35:01
it's like a cloud sync thing that you, right, right. So I do think that makes it easy. Yeah. So in that respect, I personally agree with him, but yeah. Yeah, Nextcloud is a great option. A lot of the Git stuff is a lot easier to use than it used to be. Like when I first started doing free software,
35:20
I was just telling everybody we had, we're going to use version control for everything. It was like, really? Like everything? Like, there's just a typo on the blog post. Like, and I have to download a new program to figure that out. And, but it has gotten a lot better. So just make sure that you're, you're not picking in a solution
35:40
that's too esoteric or too, has too much of a barrier for your casual volunteers. Right. Then there was a question from, or from someone, Don Fede, asking for a few suggestions for spreadsheet sharing, not Google Docs. And then Carol mentioned
36:01
critbat.fr, which I haven't heard of. Maybe you know. Oh, I also don't know that one. But yeah, I mean, like this is like a long, I feel like there could be a whole talk on how, what the current state of free software tooling is for remote collaboration.
36:23
But yeah, again, just don't pick something that your people can't use. And then after that, pick the freest possible option. Yeah, I think, I think that's it for comments and talks from people who watch the talk. Do you maybe have something that you were thinking of
36:41
while you were looking at the comments that you think might be nice to mention? We've got two minutes left, so might as well. Yeah, right. No, just that this is really great. And, and I did call out Fazdom a couple of times. I guess I would just reiterate that your first event,
37:01
like while you might take a lot of inspiration from Fazdom, I wouldn't recommend doing 102 tracks for your first event. So just start a little more modestly. Maybe two or three. And, you know, and maybe you too in 20 some odd years can be a large global event that everybody attends.
37:22
Right, yeah. I mean, in that context, I think it's relevant to mention that the very first Fazdom had like three tracks as well and five rooms, and that was it. That was 20 years ago. And so, yeah, you don't go from, from zero to 100 in one event. Just doesn't work that way. Yeah, and it's also like
37:40
not every event is, you know, again, when you're thinking about the goals and the vision for your event, not every single event is looking to be like, oh, we want to be selling out every hotel in our town. If your community is small and everyone who needs to be there is there because you're having something
38:00
that's a little more niche, it's okay if you never get more than a couple hundred people. So that's what Fazdom is for. You can still come here. Very true, right. And on that note, it's time, or we're running to the end of our time slot. So I think we'll have to wrap it up here. Thanks for your talk. And hopefully I'll see you next year
38:22
in person then. You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Sure, no worries. Thanks. Cheers. Bye bye.