There were a lot of talk of transparency when this whole drupalcon 2010 + 2011 started
i for one is missing this now
We are at least a month over the deadline - and very little have been told out to the public from the european group.
I know im not the only one who really hope to just hear something. - yup the danes & ze germans did meet in stockholm this weekend, and without any fighting breaking out ;)
To be dead honest - we need to hear something soon - else its gotta be pretty hard to get everything done in good time for 2010.
So could we:
* get some date pointers (wait for an answer in december, marts etc)
* have a look at those score cards. (those should be filled out now)
* get cookies ;)
I dont think thats to much to demand for - we busted ass to get in time for a deadline that were very harsh under 14 days
Right now both the Copenhagen & German group are loosing momentum that was build up a month ago, and we basically have to start it all up again, so the longer we wait the more work have to be done in shorter time.
I know that we are all volunteers, and its a lot of work to choose between the 3 strong contenders.
and its drupal so everything always takes a bit longer than it was supposed to take...
So im asking very politely (with all the Boyish charm i can muster) with a big "pretty please" with sugar on top :)
We really wanna hear whats happening with the 2010 + 2011
Im sorry to spread the bad vibes :/
Comments
Transparency? How about manners? Politeness? Throw us a bone?
After fighting very hard to convince many Drupalistas of the value and potential of the new DrupalCon Europe decision making process, you have managed to prove the skeptics right and me wrong. I hate being wrong.
After forcing me and many others into working long, hard days to get the con proposals in on time because we have deadlines people, you have missed your own deadline by a month so far.
You promised us results for the 15th of October. I would have no problem with you missing that deadline if you had kept us posted: "Hey everyone! This is what we are up to and the answer about the con will be late because ..." Since we took seriously the demands on us about venues and other event collateral, we even had an option on a gorgeous, very affordable venue in Berlin ... until the end of October, because you told us we'd have a decision by then. If we had heard anything from you, we might have been able to maintain an open door at the venue. Doing it this way, we didn't have anything sensible to tell them. Oh well ...
What did we get instead of transparency? Stony silence ... Where are the scorecard scores? Progress reports? What about some news? What about a progress report from Blue Project? Anything? At? All?
Oh there was something: rumors of rumors and secrets of the type: "he heard something, but can't say in public" kind of crap. I have no idea what it was all about, but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
This has had - and will have in future - a negative impact on the (European) community's willingness to "work with" the Drupal Association on cons. I consider it a breach of trust.
Sorry.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong somehow at this point.
roadmap
First off, my apologies for this process being drawn out longer than expected.
As we have stated earlier, the main reason for us not being able to make a decision sooner was incomplete information: Halfway in the selection we realized that there were several important questions for which we needed to have a concrete venue, for 2010 we didn't have one pinpointed for Copenhagen. The extra report from Blue Project that we got last week gave us the missing pieces, so we could compare apples with apples. Last week then, we were able to finish our evaluation for the location for 2010.
Now before we can make a public announcement, the board needs to vote on this recommendation. The statutes dictate that a board meeting needs to be called at least 1 week before it takes place, this means we could have a decision by the end of next week.
Once that decision is made, we can make a public announcement.
Then I would like to have a conference call of the selection task force with the leads for both remaining teams respectively. So they can have a last chance to iron out any remaining questions about their proposal/teams for 2011 after which we can make a decision also for 2011.
Only after all this can we publish the scorecards. Doing it earlier could be detrimental to our bargaining position with venues.
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Simple solution
Make a closed group and invite people who have been involved in the proposals. Ask the participants not to disclose beyond the closed group. Once the decision is published you can make the group discussion public without fear of jeopardizing bargaining positions.
In the closed group, show us the output from Blue Projects; I know I'm finding it a very one-way process too. When I set up a conference, I expect to see some draft budgets in spreadsheets, some comparison of venue possibilities, and some discussion amongst the participants.
I can see that the attraction of the proposal + scorecard system is a lot like tendering, and that separating the decision from the participants is sensible, but IMO too the process not working well, and you are missing out on a lot of expertise. I think that the timelines seem disproportionate because we can't see any of the discussion or output from Blue Project. I'm sure that there's a huge amount going on, but it's amazingly frustrating to have put in all the work under huge time pressure, and then for it to seem as if deadlines don't apply to the other half of the selection process.
Regarding public announcement: why can you not say what your recommendations are? This is not the same as an announcement of the conference - it's being open - and if the board chooses to discard your recommendations, that's a separate matter. It also seems sensible to me to give the teams the opportunity to challenge and correct scorecards if in the their view some scoring is inappropriate or based on incorrect assumptions or I'd imagine you'll end up with complaints about inaccuracies, but without the means to fix them because an announcement will have been made.
I'm also quite surprised that Blue have not been talking to the teams. (Maybe they have to the 2010 teams?) They are local experts and I'm sure would be adding value, and costing less than having Blue do legwork. This would also have given Blue a view on the ability of the teams to carry it through. I would have imagined that the Copenhagen guys would have been only too pleased to flesh out the missing pieces, and I can't imagine that other teams would have a problem with clarification, especially if discussion was transparent.
I want to make clear: this is not a complaint - it's an attempt to make the system work better, and come to the best possible decisions.
I agree
the input from mortendk, horncologne, and smoothstr, thanks for being so open.
Sad but true. Looks like decisions are made over the heads of the local people.
Nothing to add.
. . .
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Bettina
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To be honest i have been in
To be honest i have been in running contact with the DA - but thats only me as a person. - and not the rest of the copenhagen, german of London group (venue spotting in cph) or the rest of the community around the europe drupalcon.
Im still very much for the the transparency working cause imho thats the best way (and only way) even that its gonna cause some noise and bitter shouting. My problem here is the waiting time, where we loose the momentum as a local group (and trying to whip people into action in december is a pain)
I dont bye the we need to keep it a secret so we have a better position with venues, as long as no decisions are made from the DA then everything is open.
But okay this is the first time we do transparent - so off course there will be some errors, and mistakes.
So this is (hopefull) only the very first alpha release.
/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale
What the heck?
Drawn out process - The length of the process wouldn't be a problem if you had communicated. At. All.
Delay due to incomplete proposal - I would have thought an incomplete proposal would have rejection as a consequence or at least to a reduction in scorecard score? Since we have an ... open scorecard ... process ... oh ... never mind ...
Bargaining position - I call shenanigans. - What the heck do you mean, "Doing it earlier could be detrimental to our bargaining position with venues"?
How does that make sense? In at least one of the three cases, the venue is booked, with a fixed price and a 50% discount signed, sealed and delivered. Are you going to negotiate a better price? The only weakness in our position is that they were promised an answer for the end of October.
Publishing score card scores any time in the last 4 weeks could have kept up momentum (Morten), let Germany maintain and manage the contact to the Berlin venue and helped us to feel not left out, ignored, trampled on, etc.
I had understood the whole point of the new process was to do it the open source way, to avoid secrets (meetings, decisions, etc.) and hurt feelings - like happened in a certain recent Con process. I'm just sayin'.
Delay due to incomplete proposal
I can see your point of views, but I don't think that incomplete proposals make a difference. It's the first time they are doing it like this, and I wondered how they were going to do it without firm venue suggestions because one of the key decisions in a conference is the venue, not the country the venue is in, except insofar as how difficult travelling to the venue will be. The venue price drives the pricing on the conference, and that's a critical consideration for Drupalcon.
Also, with 2 weeks to prepare the proposals, with all-volunteer staff working in their spare time, most of whom are without experience of running large events, without the guidelines requiring the sorts of things I think are needed to make a decision on venue (what-if draft budgets, venue comparisons, venue visit reports) I didn't expect any of the proposals to be ready to be the basis of a decision.
Bargaining positions: If possible venues can see what the other quoted prices are, then they may not feel the need to pitch their best possible price, and more importantly, will probably not offer the extras that are the basis of negotiation when price is as low as they can viably offer. I completely agree that exposing this information to the possible venues would be unfortunate, but I think it would be sensible to publish this in a private forum.
I'm also not so worried about momentum: this is the very beginning of at least an 11 month process. But what I would worry about if we were bidding for the 2010 conference is the loss of a month.
All good points and well-expressed.
Thanks, I understand all of the points you make.
Now that I had the chance to vent (and feel better for it), you taking the time to communicate does the rest to make me feel better.
Thank you.