I've been watching this thread with interest and have been pleased to see the
enthusiasm. However, I feel the need to temper this somewhat by presenting a
view of how much work is involved in organising a conference.
Having been part of the organising committee of the Open Source Developers'
Conference held in Sydney in 2008, I know how much work is involved. If you're
going to undertake this without the help of professional conference organisers
(which obviously adds to the cost) be prepared for many, many hours of effort!
With that dampening note out of the way, let me offer some positive suggestions:
* establish an organising committee with at least the following roles and/or
sub-committees:
- Conference Chair
- Venue
- Program
- Treasurer
- Publicity
- Sponsorship
* draw upon the experience of other local tech conference such as Linux
Conference Australia and PyCon Australia (being held later this month in Sydney)
* aim to schedule the conference so that it doesn't conflict with Rails Camp
(May and Novermber), RailsConf US (May or June), RubyConf US (November) and
Ruby Kaigi (July or August)
* schedule the conference in the Australian summer so that it is more
attractive to international speakers and attendees
* aim to secure two high profile international keynote speakers, one to open
the conference and one to close it
* aim to secure an entertaining keynote speaker for the conference dinner
* aim for concurrent streams (I'm guessing two would be about right)
* include an hour each day for lightning talks
* allow time for BOFs (Birds of a Feather sessions) - e.g. the obligatory beer
BOF
* aim to establish the organising committee well in advance of the conference
(if the conference were to be held in February 2011 I would suggest that the
organising committee needs to be established in the very near future)
So I encourage those who have responded enthusiastically to the prospect of
RubyConf Oceania to think about what's involved in organising such a conference
and suggest to Luke in what capacity they are prepared to help.
Regards,
Keith
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