First meeting agenda[edit | edit source]

Post stuff here, and if you're coming, mark what days are good for you to talk here (we'll pick a date first, then a time). Meeting will be on IRC, on freenode's #appropedia channel. That's here for webchat if you don't want to install an IRC client just for the meeting.

  • Goal - what are we trying to do here?
    • Post your ideas here.
    • Form partnerships between OSN-involved groups
    • Disseminate OSN knowledge - make all our work available to each other and the world - perhaps create a directory?
    • Bring new contributors into the various groups
    • Create a study group on OSN that will tackle a different topic, monthly, for a year - set up the infrastructure here Mchua
  • Who are we targeting?
  • Budget - decide whether...
    • We want to provide food (if so, how much, what kind?)
    • We want to provide swag (tshirts buttons stickers etc)
    • We want to make attendees pay (or suggested-donation)
  • Schedule - decide...
    • How tightly scheduled we want things to be
    • Do we want all sessions to be ad-hoc announced at the beginning, or do we want one or two "starter attractions" (Mr. Foo and Ms. Bar will be running workshops on Shiny Things X and Y... propose your own!)
    • Keynotes?
      • I'd rather not. It sets up some people as "way more special than others" and I'd like to not have VIPs. Mchua
    • A sprint or competition?
      • These can be fun - a rocket pitch competition where you got a random grab bag of words, 30 minutes, and 2 minutes to present a business plan for an OSN-type activity that uses the random words in your project's name - in random teams - to break the ice. Mchua
      • Sprint time is also fun - ditto the grab bag of random words, but teams have 24 hours to come up with something actually useful (whereas the business plan rocket pitch deal is totally whimsical) to one of the existing projects.
  • Registration - decide whether
    • We want attendees to register in advance (how far?)
      • Suggest optional registration, but set a limit - so only registered attendees are guaranteed a place.
      • This gives us an idea of who will be there, and what they will contribute.
      • BIL style reg is snazzy - requires an email address, but doesn't publish it. But BarCamp style works well enough, and much easier. EventBrite also has been mentioned.
      • Ask if people are attending full or part time? (This will affect how we apply our limit.)
    • We will accept-walk-ins (presuming we haven't gone beyond our limit).
    • We will accept people who can only come part-time
  • Who wants to do what? (Point-person-pointing time!)

Critical issues[edit | edit source]

Issues both urgent and important:

  • name - settle on an official name, and probably on a catchy unofficial name as well.
    • Is this settled? Seems like we have:
      • Open Sustainability Conference 2008 (formal name)
      • OSNCon 2008 ("catchy" name?)
        • Sounds settled to me --David.reber 07:12, 27 August 2008 (PDT)

Once these are settled, next issues are:

  • how we handle registration

Provisions[edit | edit source]

To keep things low cost, provisions can be very basic.

Essentials[edit | edit source]

Nice extras[edit | edit source]

These add to cost and some add to our environmental footprint:

  • Food: if people can buy food nearby, that keeps things simple. An attendee may choose to do some impromptu sponsorship - e.g. buy pizza for everyone as happened at BarCampSydney3, which is great and very unconference-like.
    • I have checked in with the resteraunt owners in the building - they say that they can't stay open on the weekend because their employees have second jobs. I will work on this more and get back to you. --David.reber 07:09, 27 August 2008 (PDT)
  • T-shirts are nice if sponsorship covers it. Green = unbleached, possibly organic cotton. A good T-shirt is a good conversation starter.
    • We will at least need an icon developed for printed materials. I was thinking of creating an incredibly basic icon as a place holder in the hopes that someone would come along with something better --David.reber 07:11, 27 August 2008 (PDT)

Those who can not come[edit | edit source]

The online conference[edit | edit source]

Video streaming, podcast, chatrooms... don't highlight this to much lest we discourage people from coming in person? (Coming is a far richer experience).

Presenters who can't come, present by via video? Answer questions by Skype? Could help to involve some from the "majority world".

Related conferences[edit | edit source]

OSN Camps elsewhere... and also carry the themes into other BarCamps & ecoCamps. Let's get these things being discussed at Camps around the world.

These are conferences that are very similar in unstructure and in themes - useful to give ideas, learn lessons, see how many people are likely to turn up to such things. We should also network as they're likely to be interested in what we're doing:

  • BIL - probably had 300 people in 2008
  • GreenDevCamp - early June 2008. 225 places, 130 registered so far (7 April).
  • ecoCamp - 80 people - in rural (?) Italy at short notice. Julius, the unorganizer, is advising us.

Publicity[edit | edit source]

Planning tools[edit | edit source]

As suggested at Appropedia:Project management tools, simple tools, mainly wiki pages and an email list, are probably the most efficient.

Other tools:

  • Pentabarf - good features, widely used, but might take a couple of days of serious hacking/learning to get it working (and we don't have the volunteer time to spare). The Submission System looks useful - we can give these options but using wiki pages.
  • Open Conference Systems - not suitable as it's for scholarly conferences, presentation of papers etc, but might give ideas for things we want to do (take the relevant features of scholarly conferences).

Subcommittee members[edit | edit source]

Note: This is not just an Appropedia project - others are welcome, especially those with experience in conferences and BarCamps, and those who share the values of the Open Sustainability Network.

External links[edit | edit source]

FA info icon.svg Angle down icon.svg Page data
Authors Chris Watkins, David Reber
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 22 pages link here
Aliases Open Sustainability Network Conference 2008/planning, OpenSustainabilityCamp 2008/planning
Impact 423 page views
Created April 1, 2008 by Mel Chua
Modified October 27, 2022 by Felipe Schenone
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