Just getting this out there freshly for those who might have missed it
before...
-David
On Jun 11, 2008, at 1:44 PM, David E Jones wrote:
This year (2008) at the ApacheCon conference in New Orleans on
November 3-7 here will be a special "track" of the conference that
is dedicated to OFBiz.
This OFBiz Symposium @ ApacheCon will include:
* a 2-day training course covering the OFBiz Framework (Mon, Tue)
* a 1-day training course covering the OFBiz data model and related
functionality at a high level (Tue)
* 6 business oriented conference presentations (Wed)
* 2 business oriented BOF sessions (Wed)
* 6 technical oriented conference presentations (Thu)
* 2 technical oriented BOF sessions (Thu)
The Apache Conference Committee (ConCom) is still working on some of
the details related to this, but registration is planned to be the
same as for the rest of the conference, and those who attend can
freely choose among the OFBiz Symposium sessions and the general
conference sessions (they'll have around 4-5 other tracks in the
conference).
This is an exciting opportunity for OFBiz and for all of us involved
to gather as a community, and reach out to a wider audience than has
been possible with previous conference efforts. We have had OFBiz-
specific conference that are mostly of interest within the
community, and various people have attended and presented at larger
conferences and reached a wider audience. This is a nice combination
of the two because the OFBiz Symposium will be featured in
conference materials and advertisements, and it sounds like there
may even be advertisements specific to the OFBiz Symposium @
ApacheCon.
What we need:
1. There are a number of presentation and BOF sessions open for
people to fill. I'll be contacting certain people individually who
have participated in this way in past OFBiz conferences, but this is
also an opportunity for anyone who wants to get involved and share
their experience with, and knowledge of, OFBiz and by so doing gain
exposure and recognition. We have 12 presentations to line up, and 4
BOF sessions. I have some candidates for 3 business oriented
presentations so far... so things are wide open. If there is room
for it I'll do one or two technical presentations in addition to the
business oriented one I plan to do, but I'd rather give other people
the chance to get involved as this really is a great opportunity. If
you are interested please contact me ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and
send along a title and abstract for the presentation (or BOF), and a
short bio for each presenter. BTW, the timeline on this is short, so
even if you're not totally confident in what you want to present,
please contact me immediately. We need to have the schedule
finalized in about 2 weeks (by June 25th).
2. There are various sponsorship and promotion opportunities related
to this. Those who sponsor the conference will receive various
benefits depending on the level of sponsorship. This will include
promotion at the conference itself including signs, t-shirts, hats,
meals, exhibition space, and possibly even special presentations
that are allowed to be offering oriented. This will also include
being featured in advertisements in print ads and on the ApacheCon
site, and that's especially a big deal because of the special
advertising and other promotion that the OFBiz Symposium part of
ApacheCon 2008 will receive. If you're interested in this and would
like to chat about it, feel free to contact me. If you're ready to
go for it or want to see the prospectus (which has just been
finalized, BTW) then contact the conference sponsorship coordinator,
Delia Frees ([EMAIL PROTECTED]).
We've been talking for quite a while about doing some group
advertising, and having a big event to rally around, and pool our
dollars around, in order to get the best effect possible. Well, this
is it! I'm excited and pleased by this and plan to not only attend
but contribute as much as I can to this effort, and I know others at
Hotwax feel the same way... and we do plan to do some significant
sponsorship at this event, recognizing that our sponsorship will be
of more value to the community, the project, the conference, and to
Hotwax with more and more sponsorship and involvement from others.
And of course for those who aren't interested in presenting or
sponsorship this is still a great opportunity to meet others in the
OFBiz community, and the general ASF community, to learn a lot about
OFBiz and other ASF projects, and of course to have a good time. :)
Registration details are not final yet, but the registration site
for ApacheCon 2008 should be up fairly soon.
I'm looking forward to seeing ALL of you there! That's right all 400
of you receiving this message (or however many are on this list
these days...)!
-David
