The Drupalcon NA Regional Organizing Committee had its first meeting in IRC today. Our initial goal was to wrap our arms around the topics that we want to consider as a group: programming, speakers, sponsors, dates, logistics and location recommendations.
The plan moving forward is to set up individual threads for topic clusters in this g.d.o group. All are welcome and encouraged to comment. The group will continue to meet in IRC for an hour every couple of weeks to drive to consensus on these topics. Our draft findings and recommendations will then be published for comment here in this group for further comment before we vote on them as a group.
Note: this group is establishing Drupalcon policies and best practices that will take effect starting with Drupalcon 2011. Drupalcon SF 2010 team is welcome to incorporate any good ideas as they see fit, but not obligated to do so.
Programming:
- How many tracks and sessions?
- What is the right ratio of presentations and BOFs offerings to conference attendees? How do we determine more sessions vs larger rooms for sessions.
- What should the tracks be?
- Should there be track chairs and, if so, what are their responsibilities?
- Clarify the timing of the call for submissions?
- Should there be some free content (could be N00b sessions, author talks) available in an exhibition hall to registered free passes?
- What content, if any, should be pre-Conference: core developer conference, code sprint, paid workshops, etc?
- How should session selection be handled?
- What is the right balance between offering popular (e.g. voted) sessions and curated cohesive conference program?
- BOF: how many rooms should be allocated?
- Should BOF content be free?
- Should some BOFs be pre-scheduled?
- Should room(s) be allocated for an unconference separating unscheduled presentations from BOFs?
Speakers:
- What can we do to influence speaker quality?
- Should speakers be given comp'ed admission?
- Should some speakers be invited to speak outside of the session selection process and, if so, based on what criteria?
Sponsors:
- What should we be doing for the care and feeding of our sponsors (who shoulder the majority of the conference costs)
- Should access to the exhibition hall be free?
- Should non-sponsors be allowed to purchase exhibition hall space?
- How can we make exhibition hall space worth it to sponsors?
- How should sponsorship level be acknowledged in the exhibition/presentation hall?
- Should we offer sponsorship add-ons, like after parties, lanyards, bags, etc.?
Dates:
- Given that conflicts are somewhat unavoidable, what *major* conferences do want to avoid conflicts with? (SXSW, OSCON)
Logistics:
- Should a local clone of Drupal.org be available on-site during the conference?
Location recommendation:
- Criteria and process for future (2012 and beyond) city recommendations