Jeff D. 'Spud (Zeppelin)' Almeida writes:
> 1) I don't think getting 200 people to attend a mod_perl conference is
> particularly ambitious at all, especially if it's held in a manner
> convenient for people to attend. 20,000 people went to Linux World in New
> York, and it wasn't THAT great of a show.... If you hold a conference
> where you already have a fairly thick concentration of mod_perl
> developers, and you get the right people to speak, people WILL come.
Right, I think 200 people is very do-able. I think you're fooling
yourself if you think that Linux World is anywhere comparable to a
mod_perl conference. It's beyond apples and oranges. It's peas and
watermelons.
> 2) What people are saying isn't that we want a huge, IDG-ish production
> with tracks and a tradeshow floor and catered water and soundsystems and
> skirted tables. Several people have said they would rather have something
> along the YAPC model... a small, productive session, perhaps better suited
> for the conference facilities of a University than those of a hotel. If
> ever there was something calling for the "KISS" mantra, it was this con. :)
Right. But I'm saying that putting on a YAPC conference blows the
organizer's mind. Kevin Lenzo, the YAPC organizer, had to worry about
food, tracks, sound systems, projectors, rooms, accomodation, and
printed proceedings. These problems didn't go away because YAPC was
on a smaller scale, and in some ways they became more of a problem
because there was one person doing the organization and he had to
handle it all. I'm not saying that a YAPC-style conference can't be
done, I'm just saying that it's not as easy as it sounds.
> Would we appreciate logistial support from O'Reilly? Of course. Do we
> want this con to be large enough to have to worry about revenue models?
> Not particularly.
Actually, O'Reilly is pretty mellow about revenue too. They're
willing, unlike a lot of companies, to put in time building and
promoting conferences. They don't expect wild successes initially. I
know this because of my work with them on the Perl conference, which
has certainly never been a cash cow.
I'm not forcing an O'Reilly conference on anybody, and I don't even
have the authority to promise it. I just have the ears of the right
people and could suggest that they work with the mod_perl community
to put on a conference.
Frankly, I think your Route of Least Pain (coincidentally also the
Route Most Likely to Succeed) is to have separate mod_perl tracks at
the Open Source conference. You'll get rooms dedicated entirely to
mod_perl, you (or Doug or whoever the program chair is) can put
whatever talks you want in there, you can have your own tutorials.
You can even have a room during tutorials for the folks *behind*
mod_perl (Doug, Staks, Vivek, etc.) to meet and hammer out future
directions and development issues. When I spoke with the conference
folks last week, they were keen to get more into helping the
developers of the open source tools meet and plan. There was a
some-random-java-technology developers meeting at the O'Reilly Java
conference, where the folks writing the code that others use got to
meet and iron out tricky issues. They had a recorder, whiteboards,
the whole nine yards.
I'm sure that such a track might even be called a conference in the
materials, if you wanted that cachet.
Ok, I'm going to shut up now unless people actually ask me a question.
I'm sure you all think I'm some kind of O'Reilly stooge.
Nat
