Posted by rcross on September 21, 2009 at 4:51am
Without further ado, lets start the location discussion.
Things to consider:
1 - travel arrangements/costs for non-local attendees
2 - local community presence
3 - experience running events
4 - suitable venue to accommodate attendees
5 - fun/interesting area for social events
Comments
A few more things to add
A few more things to add could be.
Preparation
Promotion &
Sponsorship
Relevance?
Those are important things, but I'm not really sure how they are tied to a specific location. Can you clarify how these items would relate to choosing a location?
--Ryan
Ryan Cross
Drupal Development Services
ProjectPier project management and collaboration software
I guess it might be easier
I guess it might be easier (in Asia anyway) to get certain sponsors in certain markets.
Symetrik Design
Drupal Consulting
http://www.symetrkdesign.com
Singapore?
It has the advantages of being a transport hub; it is geographically centred in the region; I hear it is a good city to visit; it should have plenty of hotels and conference centres.
On the downside - I would imagine it to be quite an expensive venue.
In regards to location,
In regards to location, here's some input I can provide:
I live in Hong Kong and organize events outside of the IT/Drupal realm, and I would be able to contribute a significant amount of time to help organize the event in regards to logistics.
That being said, let me try to be as objective as possible in regards to location:
Hong Kong and Singapore are both pretty good choices in regards to location, because both are generally centrally located and hubs for the airlines. You can fly from pretty much anywhere to both HK and Singapore. Hong Kong and Singapore are competitive cities when it comes to regional offices and conferences. Downsides to both would be that real estate is at a premium so conference venue and hotels might be a bit more expensive. Both have excellent public transport. There are many food options, Hong Kong has more nightlife and fun things to do.
Macau would be a great option in regards to conference venue and hotel rooms. It might require a connecting flight from some cities or ferry from Hong Kong.
Bangkok would be a cheaper option. There are several price ranges of hotels/restaurants to choose from. It is also an enjoyable place to visit in regards to foods, sights, nightlife, cultural excursions, etc. There does seem to be a little bit of political strife at the moment.
Shanghai / Beijing seem to be hotspots for activity at the moment, and they would be cheaper, but both are very spread out. China requires a single entry visa which is currently at about $170 for most countries.
Bali, Indonesia would be a nice place to visit. I'm not sure about connectivity issues and suitable conference venues.
Is there any way that we can find where Drupalers are located, because if the majority are all in Australia / New Zealand, it might make more sense for the Asian Drupalers to make the 8+ hour flight down that way.
Symetrik Design
Drupal Consulting
http://www.symetrkdesign.com
DrupalCon in Asia-Pacific: call for proposals
On the location, maybe first a call for proposals posted to all Asia-Pacific local groups, with a link to this organising group, so that information can start flowing and a list of candidate cities can be opened. Currently, there are 17 Asia-Pacific countries with local groups.
Estimating community
Estimating community size
It's very difficult to judge the size of a community by geographic region because there may be;
I updated the Local groups directory to include numbers for some countries in Asia-Pacific. This is quite time consuming so I only did ones that I and this group are most likely to be interested in. Please add more counts if you have time for that or need more detail.
Most surprisingly there are 30,000 accounts on d.o from India. China and Australia seem to be similarly sized (but a lot smaller than India), though China's community is harder to measure. Most others I checked are significantly smaller than China or Australia, though some are not to be forgotten; Thailand, NZ, and probably others I didn't get numbers for. Note these numbers do not consider the population or geographic size/spread of the respective countries, which also needs to be considered.
Locations
As for locations, I agree Singapore and Hong Kong are ideal geographically. From that point of view, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and maybe Balie are also great candidates. (Bali has great connections from NZ and Australia – I don't know about elsewhere.) Bangkok and KL would probably be more accessible to more people due to the economical barriers that Hong Kong and Singapore are likely to present (as a result of high costs of production and logistics for both event mgmt and individual attendees). If we are happy to do DrupalCon Asia-Pacific in an "expensive" city, I also think Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane would be great locations.
In practice it will probably come down to where there are most resources; energy from volunteers, Drupal devs and companies willing to invest time, effort and/or money, venue facilities, event management companies, multi-linguality, etc.
Proposals
I think the idea of making a call for proposals is a great idea. Though proposals should not be competitive – as they have been for recent North-American and European DrupalCons. Instead they should be complementary and constructive. They should not "sell" a location but show due diligence in researching facilities, food, venues, resources, costs, event management companies, a draft budget including proposed capacity, expected sales, risk management and proposed profit (for future DrupalCons and/or the DA) or risk of loss. Proposals could also include sponsorship pledges from local organisations. E.g. "Acme Drupal" pledges Platinum sponsorship of $10,000 if DrupalCon is in Grandsville, or $2,000 if held elsewhere in Country1 Coutnry2 or Country3." or "John Smith has promised he will design and theme the website if it's held in this location, in exchange for a link on the website footer".
To discourage competitive proposals and encourage collaboration, it would also be useful for authors of the proposals (the researchers) to prepare their proposals in an open forum and compare their proposals with others' and make recommendations about each other's proposals. Perhaps a template or standard format for proposals should be provided or developed for subsequent use.
Bevan/
Estimating community size
Bevan wrote:
I've just completed the numbers for drupal.org users in countries of Asia-Pacific (including in the list only those countries with local groups; however the numbers for specific groups are yet to be completed). Naturally, many other important factors should be considered for the location of the first DrupalCon in Asia-Pacific.
A summary:
(In the drupal.org user profiles, "Hong Kong" and just "Korea" appear in the list of countries).
The country with the most drupal.org users in the world seems to be the United States (139925 users).
There is a Dries' post on Drupal.org country demographics (May 27, 2008), and some related graphs.
Indonesia numbers
The numbers posted for Indonesia seem very interesting as, as far as I know Indonesia is not known to have a large billingual IT community.
Wondering if they happen to have a very active IT community or something.
Re: Indonesia numbers
I've just verified the Indonesia data. They don't need a large percentage of Drupal users in the country to be #3 in Asia-Pacific, since it's the world's fourth most populous country (after China, India, and the United States).
Well, China + Hong Kong are in fact #3 (in the profiles of registered users they are separated), and then Indonesia #4.
Thanks so much for all that
Thanks so much for all that juan_g. I knew someone had graphed these stats before but I couldn't remember where...
What I think is fascinating (and relevant) when you look at the statistics per-capita is that the populous countries' (India, China and Indonesia) Drupal communities seem negligible, while some of the less-populous countries' communities that don't rank on the totals are now significant. Most notably; Singapore, NZ, Australia, Israel, Malaysia.
Note that I have not mentioned Afghanistan because it's statistics are broken and not recoverable as Simon Roberts "lyricnz" pointed out on Dries' blog. Given the political situation, an international event in Afghanistan is out of the question. And given the economic situation and geographic location it will also be difficult to cater for attendees from Afghanistan. Note though it's total population is not to be forgotten; 28 Million.
Bevan/
The link to Dries' blog
The link to Dries' blog should be http://buytaert.net/drupal-org-country-demographics
Simon Roberts
Taniwha Solutions
These are interesting
These are interesting numbers. According to it South-East Asia has almost 40K Drupalers.. My inclination would be to promote Sotuh-East Asia as the venue for the first DurpalCon Asia-Pacific... India would then be the most logical candidate :)
It sounds to me like we have
It sounds to me like we have some issues specific to Asia that may not be as apparent in North America and Europe.
I think it's also fair what someone else said in another post about Drupal users in Asia Pacific might not be as active on G.D.O., but are willing to attend a conference.
I think that we need to determine where the active Drupal community is in Asia Pacific, and who is willing to pay to travel to and attend a Drupal conference and then base our conference location on those variables.
What about setting up a Drupal site with a survey for DrupalCon Asia-Pacific and advertise it on the main Drupal.org site? This way our statistics on the number of users, their locations, how far they are willing to travel, and where they would like to have the conference; would be much more accurate and represent Drupal users across the board, not just the ones that are actively participating in this discussion on this group.
Symetrik Design
Drupal Consulting
http://www.symetrkdesign.com
some thoughts : G.D.O centric is easier
I understand the situation that Drupalers interested in Asia Pacific might not be as active on G.D.O, but my thoughts on this is, if one were to be organizing an event in the region, if all interested G.D.O groups from each of the countries could join into this group and share their feedbacks, participate in discussions and organize information within their country, that would be one step less, than keeping track of Drupalers who are not active on G.D.O. from this Asia Pacific group.
Basically I would like to suggest a G.D.O centric structure, where those interested in Asia Pacific events would join some group at G.D.O. through some form of local advertisement if needed, in turn I think that would make organizing easier for the region (language, contact info, centralized etc..).
Now if the event organizers find themselves in a position to allocate some responsibility to particular G.D.O group(s) in each of the countries, this might become a hairy process unless a fair mechanism can be put in place. I think promising to move the responsibilities around periodically might be a solution.
Just some thoughts, please let me know if I don't make sense.
Scott
p.s. I suggested this in another thread but I would personally like to push Taiwan as the first place to meet. My guess is that it will be a Drupalminicon for the first one which we might not actually want to call it a Drupalcon, but it's a start.
Fuji, I agree we need better
Fuji, I agree we need better representation from a wider range of the GDO groups in Asia-Pacific. I think this will happen over time as this group becomes better-publicised. However the DrupalCon Asia-Pacific Organizing Group is supposed to take on responsibility for finances and other issues on behalf of the Drupal Association. So there will be a probably-small core group of individuals who make key decisions and are charged with that responsibility. That group probably won't be able to fairly represent all of the wide ranging nations in Asia-Pacific, due to the wide range and scale of those nations. However it will draw input from these GDO groups.
As for Taiwan, it is certainly a great candidate, but there are many great candidates. The best way to improve the quality of a location as far as hosting DrupalCons goes is to build the Drupal community, create better relationships between it's members. DrupalCamps or mini conferences are the best way to do this. I see there is one being planned for Taiwan next Wednesday. Try to meet others there that want a bigger better Drupal event and organize it. Try to get a well-known Drupaler or someone with something very interesting to talk about and market it to your mainland peers too.
Bevan/
My thought on G.D.O.
Scott,
I agree that this way is the ideal, but I also think we cannot force people to join any group at G.D.O. first, obviously. So I think we still have to come up with some ideas to inform those who are interested in attending a DrupalCon in Asia-Pacific region, whether they are participating any given G.D.O. group.
At the same time, to host an event successfully, we need a strong community, because there are tons to do to host an event. For this purpose, G.D.O. will serve best.
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Yes, these are all issues
Yes, these are all issues that make DrupalCon Asia Pacific more difficult. DrupalCon South America has similar economic and geographic issues, but is generally less populous and concentrated in fewer but larger centres (Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro).
For Asia-Pacific these economic centres are harder to define and are more separated by geographic and economic differences, but are probably all the cities we've mentioned already. I just realized we forgot Jakarta in that list though.
About a survey, I think that's a great idea. I am currently running a similar survey for DrupalSouth Wellington January 2010, which is proving useful, though I learned a lot about what questions to ask, not to ask and how to ask for answers to get useful processable statistical data.
The information we would be seeking would be quite different, and probably based around discovering lingual, travel-visa and financial limitations.
As well as drupal.org we should also blog it and ask folk from each GDO group to repost in their localized language, group and 3rd party website when appropriate.
Bevan/
Considering all this
Taking into consideration all of the discussion here, I think that a DrupalCon should try to cater for the following countries, roughly in order of importance, where importance is determined by;
NOTE: I'm not very well informed about the economic state of many of these nations. Further, this may or may not be something we want to consider when trying to select our target audience.
NOTE: Numbers are drupal.org counts, which are probably the most useful for our purposes;
I put together a map of all the cities we've mentioned and ordered them by appropriateness, which I determined by;
NOTE: I also tried to consider my limited knowledge of main flight routes in the region.
NOTE: I'm not well informed about many of these cities' costs.
NOTE: I have not considered local volunteers, companies, venues, event managers and other resources, because I am not able to.
I made a map of these cities which I uploaded to flickr and you can browse and edit on google maps;
Bevan/
the number of web pages is still important
The stats is very interesting to me, because the number of web pages with the keyword "Drupal" and the number of drupal.org user account are not always proportional. For example, according to a survey by juan_g, the number of web sites written in Japanese comes 3rd, but the number of Japanese drupal.org accounts comes only 13th. This may indicate Japanese Drupal users are more enthusiastic and each publishes more web pages about Drupal than do people in other countries.
From this, I think not only the number of drupal.org accounts but also the number of web pages of each country is important to decide a region where people are most enthusiastic about Drupal.
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
I agree these numbers alone
I agree these numbers alone do not show the size or enthusiasm in a regional drupal community.
Or that Drupalers in Japan don't have drupal.org accounts, because the write on their own blogs, or on locale-specific drupal websites, like http://drupal.jp/.
Bevan/
That is also possible.
That is also possible. Or, they have language barrier and only few of them can read English therefore registered at drupal.org.
Anyway, you said my opinion very clearly:
I'm thinking about what else data we need to determine the user-base size and enthusiasm in a given country/region.
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Interest in Drupal by country
I'm also surprised by the relatively moderate number of registered users from Japan. Maybe one of the causes is drupal.org being in English. I visit Japan regularly, and few people speak English; probably most users prefer to learn Drupal with documentation in Japanese, rather than reading drupal.org. Also, they are indeed very active and productive people, as Mr. Aki Iwata has suggested.
I wouldn't be surprised if Japan were -possibly- the largest Drupal community in Asia, but an almost only-Japanese-speaking community. In some other countries this is different, like of course India, where English is frequently spoken.
The above linked statistics on web sites mentioning Drupal are numbers by language, with Japanese as the third language in the world (and first Asian language) after English and German.
I've just seen a more hidden option for region (or country) instead of language in Google's advanced search. I'm not sure how accurate is that filter, but the results in number of web pages mentioning Drupal, as a partial measure of interest in Drupal by country, are the following for Asia-Pacific countries with Drupal groups:
(There are separate numbers for China and Hong Kong, now part of China; there is no data for North Korea).
I still think that communication with the local groups (call for proposals, etc.), also commented by Bevan and others, will be more significant than these more secondary statistics on possible community size, which only give a very basic, initial orientation about Drupal in Asia-Pacific.
communication with the local
I agree that the secondary stats alone should not be used to decide the location for an Asia-Pacific DrupalCon. However, I think it is a fact that we need to know the strength of the local community of each country, because for an event of an open source software, volunteers and sponsorship are essential. Other than such secondary stats, what will give us the picture of community size? Any ideas?
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
Please make sure and include
Please make sure and include public transport as a variable in the decision making process on where the location will be.
Symetrik Design
Drupal Consulting
http://www.symetrkdesign.com
I think the European group's
I think the European group's organisational document is a necessary read for anyone involved in this discussion. Probably it is something we need to adopt for this group. I don't think any one on the Drupal Association is based in Asia-Pacific. This might be something we and the DA need to address in January when there are DA elections.
I also think they have renamed the group well; "European Regional DrupalCon Organizers"
Perhaps that will be the convention, meaning we could be; "Asia-Pacific Regional DrupalCon Organizers"
Bevan/
DrupalCon Honolulu
Hi,
Honolulu is the perfect location for the first Asia-Pacific DrupalCon. Hawai'i is centrally located and offers affordable travel (for the most part) between:
The Americas:
• Los Angeles, CA (QLA), from $459 Roundtrip, Duration: 5hr 30mn
• Vancouver, BC, Canada (YVR), from $419 Roundtrip, Duration: 7hr 46mn
• Chicago, IL (CHI), from $662 Roundtrip, Duration: 8hr 55mn
• New York, NY (NYC), from $556 Roundtrip, Duration: 10hr 40mn
• Mexico City, Mexico (MEX), from $1056 Roundtrip, Duration: 13hr 5mn
Asia:
• Tokyo, Japan (TYO), from $703 Roundtrip, Duration: 7hr 0mn
• Seoul, South Korea (SEL), from $819 Roundtrip, Duration: 8hr 15mn
• Manila, Philippines (MNL), from $794 Roundtrip, Duration: 10hr 15mn
• Shanghai, China (SHA), from $1210 Roundtrip, Duration: 10hr 55mn
• Taipei, Taiwan (TPE), from $1028 Roundtrip, Duration: 11hr 40mn
• Hong Kong, Hong Kong (HKG), from $816 Roundtrip, Duration: 12hr 45mn
Australia:
• Sydney, N.S.W., Australia (SYD), from $2509 Roundtrip, Duration: 9hr 45mn
Honolulu has the infrastructure to support the conference as well as tremendous drawing potential for spouses/partners of Drupal enthusiasts. They offer world-class hospitality at reasonable rates. Expedia currently lists 34 hotel room deals for $100 (or less)/night.
Thanks!
-NP
Note: Data was gathered from Expedia.com on 9/22/09 and I am reporting the lowest cost as well as the shortest flight (which may not be the same plane). Obviously, costs and times will vary.
I don't think this is the
I don't think this is the right conversation to discuss specific locations in this much detail. Feel free to nominate Hawaii once we've determined a process for receiving location nominations, researching locations, evaluating and deciding locations. Note that a good nominating may require extensive research.
(For the record, I disagree that Hawaii would be a good location. It's distant & expensive for a large part of the Drupalers this event targetted to (South and SE Asia). My understanding is that it's culturally North American and often considered geographically North American too. Thus a DrupalCon in Hawaii would have too much crossover with DrupalCon North America, especially San Francisco. Hong Kong, Singapore, or somewhere in Japan or Australia, would be better locations if we were happy with an expensive host city (which makes the event less accessible to attendess from the the many economically disadvantaged nations in Asia-Pacific). Bali, somewhere in the Philipines, or maybe Taiwan would be better if a place that caters for holiday-makers/spouses were desirable (I think this is a bonus, not a requirement. E.g. Paris has that, DC and Boston don't, but all were very unique and successful DrupalCons).
Bevan/
Thanks for your replies
Hi Bevan, thanks for your reply,
"I don't think this is the right conversation to discuss specific locations in this much detail. "
Oops, sorry!
"It's distant & expensive for a large part of the Drupalers this event targetted to (South and SE Asia)."
Good point. I was thinking it's relative proximity to North America would boost attendance, but we certainly don't want that gain to come at the expense of users from Asia.
Hi Marc, thanks for your reply,
Hawaii is "a U.S. State which requires us (third-world country citizen) to apply for expensive U.S. visas (which most likely will be denied)."
This did not even occur to me, good point.
Compliments for the flight-fare canvas. I wish the 'from/to' destinations were mentioned.
Thanks. All fares are roundtrip from the airport or city code mentioned to Honolulu Int'l Airport (HNL).
Blessings!
-NP
YES HAWAII!
+1 for Drupalcon in hawaii. Our University, BYU-H, uses drupal and we would definitely attend a drupalcon in hawaii!
My Drupalist friends from
My Drupalist friends from Hawaii told me that it's going to be real expensive to hold it in Hawaii, not to mention that it's a U.S. State which requires us (third-world country citizen) to apply for expensive U.S. visas (which most likely will be denied).
Compliments for the flight-fare canvas. I wish the 'from/to' destinations were mentioned. Eitherway, it gives a good benchmark of flight ticket prices. I'd have to add that early booking to our country (the Philippines) even goes 50% off at times.
Marckee for Short
Clearly the earlier numbers
Clearly the earlier numbers vastly understated the size/activity of some countries' Drupal activities, especially Japan. And those earlier numbers are far less useful than I had thought. As well as the issue of guaging the size & activity of a Drupal community, this raises the significance of the issue of language;
Imagine a DrupalCon in some perfectly-accessible location (which doesn't exist, btw) where numbers of attendees from each country is proportional to the size and activity of each country's Drupal community. If most of the attendees are mono-lingual, then how do attendees communicate with each other? What language are sessions in? Likely the event would become more partitioned into several sub-events for each major language or language-group.
Language groups are usually localized geographically, e.g. the Chinese languages are mostly only spoken in China (and some neighbouring nations, I believe), Japanese is only spoken in Japan, Hindi is mostly only spoken in India and neighbouring nations, and native English speakers (mostly from NZ and Australia (Singapore? Hong Kong?) tend not to have any Asian-language skills, etc. A segregated event like this would have little extra value over several separate events targetted towards specific locales/regions/languages.
Perhaps this group should be trying to facilitate local user groups to run frequent small DrupalCons, instead of one large DrupalCon ever 1-2 years?
It's important to note my assumption that "most attendees are mono-lingual". This may or may not be correct. Further, mono-lingual attendees are less likely to attend a Drupalcon unless it specifically caters for their language. Or we may choose not to cater to mono-lingual attendees, which raises the issue of "what language!?".
I think the only way to properly guage the severity of language issue is to survey. A centralized survey can also give us a better idea of what attendance would be like in specific candidate host cities and what price will make it most accessible to most people. The survey needs to be very well planned and tested with very clear goals and be in several languages (or more) in order to get useful and meaningful results. I think probably we need the assistance of experienced/professional surveyers to run it effectively. Probably the community can translate it.
Bevan/
Language barrier is very high, indeed.
I would say the language barrier is very high here in Japan. Not many Japanese peopler are able to understand spoken English, while many may be able to read English texts. I don't know about other countries but I guess many countries other than India, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries have the same problem.
If we try to have a conference where sessions must be done in the local language, then many Drupal ninjas cannot give their presentations because they will not be able to use the local language, which makes the event meaningless. I think the primary language should be English and the second be the local language of the place where the event is being held.
To address the language barrier for the local people, can we not consider utilizing interpreters (preferably real-time interpreters, but non-real-time will be still helpful)? Is it unrealistic?
This question may be too early to be asked, but I just don't want to give up hosting a large-scale DrupalCon in this region just because of the language barrier, not only in Japan but also other countries where English is not the first language there.
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
To address the language
It's certainly possible. It remains to be seen whether it's feesible or not. Translating real-time is difficult, and expensive I imagine. And more difficult for highly technical talks.
Bevan/
Language & simultaneous interpretation
About the language barrier, we should take into account that surely most attendees will be intermediate and advanced Drupal users. That is, intermediate users like webmasters accustomed to combine modules, and advanced users like programmers developing their own modules, rather than beginners trying to understand Drupal for the first time.
Advanced users tend to know more English, perhaps because more advanced information is often found in this language, while basic information usually gets more translations into other languages. A great part of the advanced development around the world -even in non English speaking regions- is originally in English, in order to easily exchange information between developers from different countries.
I think you can expect that not all, but a good part of the attendees will understand English. For example, most intermediate and advanced users from the countries mentioned by Iwata-san: India, Philippines, and naturally Australia and New Zealand. I would add Singapore, Hong Kong and possibly Malaysia.
On the other hand, you can as well expect that many advanced users from other countries like Japan, China (apart from Hong Kong), etc., will also understand English, but not so much the intermediate users from those countries.
Still, most attendees will need simultaneous interpretation, part of the time at least, and more when languages other than English will be spoken. In an open source event like this, the solution comes clearly from volunteers. Every country should bring one or several local volunteers who know Drupal, speak English well, and therefore can act as interpreters.
Of course, equipment rental companies should be contacted for those portable, multi-channel, FM interpretation receivers typically used in international conferences, not for the small meetings but for the general speeches. Receivers usually have one channel for each language (#1 English, etc.).
In this way, if a speech is in English, translations into other languages will be direct. If in other language, English can be an intermediate language: one interpreter translates into English, and the rest from this English translation to the other languages. Interpreters should be provided with summaries of the speeches in English.
All this is for spoken English. As Iwata-san also mentioned, written English will probably be less of a problem for many attendees.
I disagree about volunteer translators
I disagree that this would work. Knowing and even learning a language is comparatively easily compared with translating – especially live translating, is especially difficult. If there happen to be professional live translators in the Drupal communities, then great, I'm sure DrupalCon organizers could sponsor their attendance in exchange for some translating services. However volunteer-driven real time translating would almost certainly fail, in my opinion.
A similar example of Drupalers trying to do things we're not good at and not doing it well are DrupalCon videos. Occasionally they're great, sometimes they're so bad you can't watch them, and most of the time they are bad to average – much like home videos. Since videos are not critical to the success of DrupalCons, this is acceptable (but frustrating). However communication is critical to the success of a DrupalCon, and if the quality of translations were only as good as the videos then the DrupalCon would be a failure for those needing that service to communicate.
The phrase "lost in translation" exists for a reason. Have you ever played the game that westerners call "Chinese whispers"? (Excuse the insensitive name – I have no idea why it's called that.) The players sit in a circle, one person starts by whispering something into her neighbours ear, who whispers the message on to their neighbour, etc, until it comes back to the person who started the round. Usually the message is completely unrelated.
And that game uses just one language. Together with translations, and in real time, the quality of the secondary translations would be appalling, I expect.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect even a professional translator to communicate a message of the same quality as the speaker presents. However they will be able to do a much better job than an untrained translator – even if they are fluent in both languages.
Bevan/
Volunteer and/or paid interpreters
So, in reality this means there are several options available, and it will be done in some way. For example, paid interpreters when possible and, if this is not feasible in some cases, then volunteers to cover the holes. Naturally, one of the factors to choose a location is sponsors for this and many other conference expenses.
An example in another open source community
Today I talked with a director of Linux Foundation Japan.
According to him, presentations in Linux conferences in Japan are mostly done in English even when the speaker's first language is not English. This is because Linux conferences are targeted at developers instead of users and it is better for a developer that he/she can communicate in English if he/she wants to learn the most advanced issues about the Linux world. Learning from this, I think we'd better figure out what the aim of an event we are currently talking about and who the event is targeted at. If the event is targeted primarily at developers, then it may be reasonable to hold it mainly in English. If we want users to join the event, we may need to figure out the means to communicate them in their local language. I will add a comment about this thought on the "process for choosing location..." topic.
Additionally, in Linux conferences, professional simultaneous interpreters are hired for very important presentations such as a keynote by Linus Torvalds. And some casual interpretations are provided for less important but still important presentations and meetings, in which a presenter speaks in his/her first language, then a interpreter translates the original speech to the local language, which surely takes a very long time.
Personally, I think we can ignore the language issue for the moment not to let this newly-born energy die away. After all, if the topics discussed at a DrupalCon is beneficial for one, he/she will attend the event anyway. And we can leave the effort of localizing and sharing the topics at a DrupalCon to each local community.
Aki Iwata
FOREST & trees
We will hold first Linux conferebce in Japan.
Thanks Iwata, we are working on holding first Linux conference next month.
http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/japan-linux-symposium
(sorry it is not Drupal but Joomla,But our main site is Drupal
http://www.linux-foundation.jp/ )
In addition to his comment, if we can have focused topics such as deep technical, procurment, CRM, workflow, people may have common words in English and the language is not a big problem.
The problem we have is visa. Some people in some contry have very dificult to get their visa.
We spend time and we need to garantee their visit in Japan. This is time consuming.
Anyway. we are crazy busy now but after our conference I hope I will be able to provide our experience.
Thanks
Open source Asia-Pacific event
"Japan Linux Symposium: The newest Linux Foundation event that brings together developers from Asia Pacific and around the world to educate and collaborate - October 21-23, 2009"
Osonoi, thank you. It will be really interesting and useful to hear about your experience.
Something I learned.
We hold Japan Linux Symposium 2009. This was a first large Linux conference in Japan. We had over 400 attendees from all over the world(Including Linus Torvalds). There are some items that is important to this events.
http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/japan-linux-symposium
-Sponsors
Thanks to sponsor companies, we could have good facilities, http://www.akibahall.jp/data/outline_eng.html invite named kernel developers and everything.
-Volunnteer
We have over 20 volunteers. Some people took paid vacation for a week and contributed this events.
This is really great and also they enjoyed this events.
Most of them are core member of Linux user group of Yokohama.
To have a events like this, you need strong users group's support.
-Experienced people in core team.
We are some experienced people in steering committe and volunteers who have attended or organized big events. These people's experience was helpful. You may need some people who have attended or work for big events like DrupalCon.
Hope this help someone who is interested in organizing DrupalCon asia pacific.
Thanks osonoi. We appreciate
Thanks osonoi. We appreciate your input. Do you think any of the people involved in organizing the Linux Symposium might be interested in helping organize DrupalCon Asia-Pacific?
Bevan/
I will ask them and user group member
We will have event called "Open Source Conference Tokyo" this weekend.
This is grassroots open source event and some of our volunteer and Drupal user people will participate.
And I am also interested in helping organizing it.
osonoi, best wishes for a
osonoi, best wishes for a successful conference...
i am working with organising OSI Tech Days in India.. its not easy, but loads of fun :)
Event added
This event has been addeed to the new "Open source events" section of Drupal events in Asia-Pacific, as an example from another open source community. I hope it's going very well.
Bali
Why not Bali?
Good
1. It's pretty central
2. There is accommodation at every price level
3. Bali could use the support
4. It's religiously 'neutral'
5. Heaps of facilities
6. Good people
7. Plenty of interesting night life
8. Would need to be in the dry season before September so could be timed say 2 weeks before European holidays
9. Multi lingual - English, Dutch, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesian
8. I don't think there are restrictive visa issues but that would need research
Bad
Awful traffic (typical of Asia)
Security fears (I doubt this is valid)
Police entrapment, a culture of bribes
I don't think you can say that about many places. From a simple losmen to a 5 star hotel -- $20 -- $2,000 a night
I had zero issues with English in Bali and Java when I was there in 1999. As far as I know there is a pretty reasonable number of Japanese visitors to Bali so a translator isn't going to be an issue. Given they are Hindu in the main if Indian languages are an issue then at least culturally there are some linkages.
Heaps of restaurants, really fun venues, waterslides, beaches and a disco where there is bungee jumping into a pool until 3AM. AKA a total lack of the 'Safety Nazis' we have in Aus.
But would absolutely need to be in the dry season. Not only does it rain buckets but when it does a zillion plastic bags used by locals to drink tea and thrown into the gutters are washed into the ocean. You can still swim at the beach but it is gross with a plastic bag every 10 cms.
Come to Brisbane... Save me the trip. ;) Except for as Marc said the visa issues. Oh and that famous Dr Who quote... "Nearly as boring as Brisbane".
Here is the page on that for Australia http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/event-organisers-participants/participan...
If it was Australia then Byron is a good location.
SAE have a great facility there, they might be willing hosts during student holidays
http://byronbay.sae.edu/en-gb/home/
For a small country area Byron/Lismore has a high proportion of web people. Lismore Uni as well, they did run a web/multimedia course. (I have a feeling it was dispatched to a sister Uni)
Byron has plenty of accommodation options, backpacker > 5 star. It would suit an October date. And is 'internationally interesting'.
Yani
Discussing process
The discussion her has become very broad and covers a wide range of topics and issues and specific locations. It is very useful and enlightening. It has made it clear that we need to agree on a process for determining Asia-Pacific DrupalCon locations before we can agree on a location. It has also uncovered a number of factors that need to be evaluated and considered in order to properly evaluate nominations for host cities.
So what should the process be? I started a new discussion to reboot this conversation in what I hope will be a more productive direction.
Bevan/
[deleted]
[misposted]
Bevan/
China shenzhen is a best choice
1, shenzhen is a city that very very near HONKONG, people from other contries can arrive HONGKONG first, and then from HONGKONG to SHENZHEN.
2,Many chinese drupaler can attend the meeting, China is the largest markest in the world,
3, Shenzhen is near Austrialia, India, Singapore,.....
我的drupal博客Think in Drupal
the location of Shenzhen and Hongkong
http://ditu.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=102870683737979221479....
View Shenzhen and Hongkong in a larger map
我的drupal博客Think in Drupal
Thoughts on Location
I live in Bali so of course that wd be nice, but realize that the high tourist traffic here means that the planning wd have to take into account Peak Season loads -- and the changes in pricing associated with that. Essentially it means avoiding July through mid-September, Chinese New Year, Golden Week, and Xmas/NYE. That's not insurmountable, but it needs to be right up front in planning.
Also, concerning Bali, while it is true that accommodations are available at a wide range of prices, the real down side here is not security or police corruption, the real issue is infrastructure. Internet connectivity will be hit or miss and electrical outages are not uncommon.
My 2 cents on this whole issue: Singapore.
Why:
(1) easily accessible; it's a hub and you have great access for the Indonesian, Singaporean and Malaysian members.
(2) great infrastructure
(3) reasonable prices (certainly a lot better than Hong Kong)
(4) language - English, Chinese and Bahasa -- no place else in Asia gives you that sort of cover
(5) great access to potential facilities
(And, though I don't want to start a flame war I have to say this: Those of you promoting PRC (ex-Hong Kong) must realize that visa issues, combined with language barriers, make that a huge no-go.)
Concerning Australia: I love it, but it is just too far out of the way for many of the potential audience -- at least for a first year event. We need an easy location with maximum accessibility for Year One. Year One needs to be a big hit -- after that we have leeway to move it around.
best,
rico
water&stone
a full service digital agency
www.waterandstone.com
I would suggest that when
I would suggest that when selecting a location, we not only look at how easy the organisation of DCAP will be at the location, but also the aftermath of the event. By that I mean - what is the objective of DrupalCon. Is it a forum for promoting and discussing Drupal alone?
Considering above, I would, personally, not want to hold events at places that see a high volume of events throughout the year (even though that would make organising the event easier). I would prefer a location that is accessible, viable and not overcrowded with events. I am looking at giving the boost to Drupal Communities in Asia Pacific and not just organising a commercial, heavily-attended, event.
Since, everyone has been taking about various suitable locations, I would like to promote India as a suitable venue for the event.
Good about India:
Widespread Local Drupal & Open Source Communities (will help in organising)
Strong Community Networks and Enthusiasm (will help in organising)
Rising Demand of Drupal-based Solutions (will help with sponsorships)
Emerging Regional Power - Political, Economical
An Acknowledged IT Hub
Good Tourist options as well - Old Culture, Rich Traditions, Loads of Tourist Spot
No Language Barrier - English widely accepted and spoken
Obvious about India (and any other location):
Availability of Good Venues
Availability of decent transportation, stay and catering
Feasibility of organising a good Event
High levels of activity around Drupal and FOSS (as can be seen from many statistics published here)
Bad about India:
Traffic (stands true for almost every Asian Country)
India will host a Drupal Sprint in Pune on Oct 30-31, FOSS.in in Bangalore on Dec 1-5 and Open Source India early next year.
In order to better document
In order to better document and evaluate Drupal events in AP, it is useful to add the sizes of the events to the Drupal events in Asia-Pacific wiki page. Since it's a wiki any member can edit it.
Thanks!
Bevan/