I think you raise excellent points, Alexandro and I understand Florian's
perspective, too. And while it seems to me that both of you (and all of us)
are seeking to serve the same objective (ie: wise stewardship of community
resources) in terms of 'how expensive is expensive' I humbly suggest that in
any collaborative endeavor in order for an informed decison to be made about
the 'wise' allocation of funding or other resource, there must first be a
'marketing plan' so it can be determined whether the (proposed) project
actually serves the marketing objectives that we (the community) seek to
achieve.
That is, until we have ratified a marketing plan which clearly articulates
our (current) objectives, it is impossible to make a rational/logical
decision regarding the appropriateness of any (proposed) project funding
budget. Only after clear marketing objectives are ratified can specific
project costs (face-to-face conferences, exhibit booths, travel subsidies,
promotional materials stipends, virtual networking, etc.) be honestly (and
relatively easily) evaluated in proportion to the actual/potential 'return
on investment' being made by the community in the interest of (effectively &
eficiently) 'getting the word out' about OOo.
Anyway, just my 3cents <smile>. ~Christine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexandro Colorado" <[email protected]>
To: "dev" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2010 8:40 AM
Subject: [marketing] Virtual conferencing system Was: [Funding request for a
Visual Identity meeting in Hamburg]
I rather move the conversation to a new thread, about the discussion
on face to face vs virtual meetings. Is easy to say that face to face
is better, is harder to justify who should be involved into this face
to face and why. Does his tittle makes him eligible just because he is
the lead, or his nearbyness is the main factor that can make him
viable for him even if he/she is not the best person just because
"face to face is better".
I agree that face to face is better, but only if everyone that want to
participate is available to assist. Yes we do have an OOoCon, but it
also have those same issues. I WOULDNT say that the marketing meeting
failed to provide a consensus even thought it was face to face. But I
would say that time was also an issue and with many activities in such
few days, face to face proved to not have much effect on reaching a
final decision on a new marketing plan for 2010.
The way I see, the only way to provide a good overview is to have most
parties involved and carry on the conversation. Like Lars said, there
is IRC, Skype and also VoIP. However there is also other services that
many people use like TinyChat, Stickam, UStream etc.
Hanging with Web 2.0 people, they have proved to be quicker to adopt
new technology while I still struggle to have a skype conference with
many people in Sun/OOo because they are not used to the technology.
Then there is the question of price, how expensive is expensive, for
people be very concern with price on paying a company to provide
infrastructure, we are very loose to grant travel budgets. example,
nothing wrong on having 2 600 euros meeting a year but we would think
that is too expensive to pay 12000 euros to a company for virtual
services.
So I want to define how expensive is expensive.
Then there is the issue on openess, we are a free software project and
we should support free and open source options. SIP is by far more
open than the skype protocol, but skype make it so easy to use that is
also prefered than the free alternative. I dont think this is a good
way of looking at things. We should discuss this further.
The other issue is that we see no problem wasting money on
transportation companies, but how about spending money on our own OOo
people. I would like to discuss paying for a ticket vs buying a SIP
phone, Webcam, USB professional microphone for a project lead or
Marcon.
I much rather spend money in Sophie, Eric, or John than in Luftansa or
ibis... but that's just me.
--
Alexandro Colorado
OpenOffice.org Español
IM: [email protected]
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