On 2008/08/26 3:08 PM, James Fee wrote:
I overheard someone say at GeoWeb 2008 that they could care less about FOSS4G outside of North America and they have no interest in what will probably be the next couple FOSS4Gs around the world.
Hearing things like that, and the reactions about it being 'impossible' for USA state and local government employees, etc., make me wonder if there is any value in having the organizing committees of 'foreign' OSGeo events doing any marketing directly to such people. The "glass half empty" view would be that such marketing is 'a waste of time and money', because such people either aren't personally interested, or their workplace has policies that won't allow them to attend. The "glass half full" view is that by directly marketing to such people (who might want to self-identify, to make sure they are on the relevant 'marketing lists') they get the opportunity to have discussions with their supervisor(s), and that if, over time, enough people raise the issue enough times, along with examples of how other jurisdictions get value from sending their staff to 'foreign events', maybe things will change. -- Dave Patton CIS Canadian Information Systems Victoria, B.C. Degree Confluence Project: Canadian Coordinator Technical Coordinator http://www.confluence.org/ OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference: Workshop Committee Chair Conference Committee member http://www.foss4g2007.org/ Personal website: Maps, GPS, etc. http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/ _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
