On Monday, February 2, 2015, Ross Gardler (MS OPEN TECH) < ross.gard...@microsoft.com> wrote:
> Content is our responsibility but given I undertook to convince people > outside the usual ASF crowd to submit talks I can assure you that a lack of > promotion for the event was the biggest hurdle. To paraphrase the typical > conversation I had (with at least two dozen people): > > Ross: "Hey, you know you are doing cool stuff, you should consider > submitting a talk at ApacheCon" > > A.N.Other: "Isn't that just for Apache people though" > > Ross: "Traditionally, yes. But we are trying to make it much broader than > that. Apache is about producing open source software, so anything open > source related is a potential fit. Anything that uses ASF software, like > your work, is a really good fit" > > A.N.Other: "I see. But from what I see there are only Apache folks in > attendance. They might be interested in hearing about our work, but I don't > think it will bring value to me. I'll fix any issues in the ASF stuff that > I need to, but I have little interest in talking to the Apache community as > a whole. It won't bring me any direct benefit over and above fixing the > issues that affect me." > > It's a chicken and egg problem. If we don't market the event as being > something more than an ASF event it's hard to make it something more than > an ASF event. > > I understand LF are still in the "don't tinker" mode while they learn the > lay of the land, but I (and others) were very explicit when we gave them > the contract. We want LF to make the event a success. I tried very hard to > build a coherent track this year. I'd say only around 20% of the people I > approached submitted a talk. End result, yet another ApacheCon with a > scattergun approach to content. > > That being said, I think I'm going to be able to build a reasonably > coherent track with what I've seen so far. So we are doing our bit with > respect to content. It would be so much easier if LF helped us get speakers > from outside the ASF. > > Food for thought, Rich and I have discussed this a number of times. LF > promotion is only a part of it. We need ASF people to think outside the ASF > box. We should really make that clear to people, I strongly believe the general opinion is non-project talks are not welcome. I base this on the fact that a number of talks for Denver and Budapest was rejected for being too company like. When I started helping a year ago, I had ideas about having 2 tracks (or the talks scattered around) - User (including companies) experiences with ASF projects - Companies presenting solutions based on ASF projects I quickly learned that that was not the purpose of ApacheCON, I am very trilled if that is the way we want to go because that is a real way to get AC to grow again. LF cannot market this message alone, they need clear public statements from us, that we want companies to come and present. I am convinced that if we (e.g. for ACEU) make early press releases about wanting companies to talk, tell it to LF, then we will be a lot more successful. If we just relax, and hope LF can lift that alone we will fail and keep telling each other how great projects we have ( which happens to be the truth, but maybe not the whole truth). rgds jan i > Ross > > -----Original Message----- > From: jan i [mailto:j...@apache.org <javascript:;>] > Sent: Monday, February 2, 2015 10:47 AM > To: dev@community.apache.org <javascript:;> > Subject: Re: ApacheCon NA CFP closed > > On 2 February 2015 at 19:30, Jim Jagielski <j...@jagunet.com <javascript:;>> > 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). > > 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.gard...@microsoft.com <javascript:;>> wrote: > > > > > > Great job Rich, and those who helped. > > > > > > Sent from my Windows Phone > > > ________________________________ > > > From: Rich Bowen<mailto:rbo...@rcbowen.com <javascript:;>> > > > Sent: 2/2/2015 12:19 AM > > > To: dev<mailto:dev@community.apache.org <javascript:;>> > > > 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 > > > <c...@linuxfoundation.org <javascript:;>> 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 - rbo...@rcbowen.com <javascript:;> - @rbowen > http://apachecon.com/ - > > > @apachecon > > > > > -- Sent from My iPad, sorry for any misspellings.
