Planning for the 2014 Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit is moving right along!
The event is scheduled for October 17-19, at University Place Hotel in Portland, Oregon. There is now a block of rooms set aside for conference attendees. To reserve one of these rooms, call (877) 635-1253 and ask for one of the rooms for the Pacific NW Drupal Summit event October 17-19. The PNWDS planning committee will continue to announce details as on a regular basis as they become available.
A splash page is live at http://2014.pnwdrupalsummit.org, and a full website is under active development.
Organizing Committee
Recently, a group of volunteers stepped up to help the original organizers of the event and to distribute the workload. The areas of responsibility, and the people responsible, are now as follows.
Project Manager
Amber Himes Matz
Contact: @amberhimesmatz (Twitter), ambermatz (IRC).
Areas of responsibility:
- Internal team communication.
- Schedule and milestone overseer.
Logistics
Sarah Prasuhn (Lead)
Contact: sarah_p (Drupal.org), sarah__p (Twitter)
Marlene Williams (On-Site Coordinator)
Contact: Mindewen (Drupal.org, Twitter, & IRC)
Areas of responsibility:
- Space: Acquire the rooms for the event, make sure they are setup appropriately, make sure it has the following related items.
- A/V: Collaborate with the Sessions team, and review data from last year to make sure we have mics, stages, projectors, etc.
- Wifi: Work with Stephouse to get a reasonable rate on wifi for the venue to cover 3 devices per person if at all possible, minimum of 2.
- Catering: Make sure there is coffee service, and any other lunch catering needed at the venue.
- Schedule: Work with the Sessions team and the Party team to set the schedule of the event that works with their needs, as well as what the overall event/space needs.
- Signage: Work with the Design team to make sure they know what signage is needed in what rooms.
- On-site Volunteers: Work with a volunteer coordinator to make sure there are volunteers at the right locations, with the right tasks lists ready ahead of time.
- Basecamp: Stock (printer, office supplies, etc.) and set up the basecamp (room for the organizers) on-site so that there is a place for all of the deliveries that will be happening (swag, etc.).
- Keynote(s)/Special sessions: Work with the Sessions team to make sure they have the space they need, as well as any room booking help etc, for special speakers and/or sessions.
Design
Lisa Jansen (Lead)
Contact: DesignZombie (Drupal.org, IRC)
Emilie Nouveau
Tyler Ward
Contact: twardnw (Drupal.org, Twitter, IRC)
Areas of responsibility:
- Style Guide: Produce a Style Guide (NOT a prototype and NOT a Drupal Theme) for the web team, design team, and marketing/communications team to use that outlines usage of the logo for each use case (with links to download), heading and text styles, and color palette usage.
- Swag: select swag in line with budget; deliver designs to vendor, place orders.
- Signage: Lisa and team: please outline the areas of responsibility for signage.
Sessions
Jonathan Hedstrom (Lead)
Areas of responsibility:
- Communicate vision in call for session proposals.
- Review and select sessions.
- Communicate room type and a/v needs to logistics lead.
Marketing/Communications
Dan Muzyka (Social Media Communications Lead)
Contact: danmuzyka (Twitter, Drupal.org, IRC)
Greg Boggs (Social Media Communications Team)
Eric Paul (Community Communications Lead)
Contact: mpgeek (Twitter, Drupal.org, IRC)
Social media communications areas of responsibility:
- Compose e-mail blasts, Twitter and Facebook posts.
- Respond to questions, replies, or comments posted on social media channels (Twitter and Facebook) when appropriate.
Community communications: areas of responsibility:
- Relay updates and communication about the conference to local and Pacific NW regional Drupal User Groups.
- Community point-of-contact.
- Respond to questions, replies, or comments sent to info@pnwdrupalsummit.org or posted on groups.drupal.org or IRC, when appropriate.
Website
Erik Baldwin (Lead)
Contact: BLadwin (Drupal.org)
Jakob Perry
Contact: japerry (Drupal.org, Twitter, IRC)
Tyler Ward
Contact: twardnw (Drupal.org, Twitter, IRC)
Jason Yee
Contact: jyee (Drupal.org and IRC)
Michael Prasuhn
Greg Boggs
Areas of responsibility:
- Implement theme according to style guide produced by Design team.
- Implement COD functionality according to Web Spec.
- Ensure that pages and registration functionality are launched according to schedule.
- Keep open channel of communication with Project Manager regarding schedule and deadlines.
- Produce copy/content for all pages and content blocks.
Registration
Jakob Perry (Lead)
Contact: japerry (Drupal.org, Twitter, IRC)
Tyler Ward
Contact: twardnw (Drupal.org, Twitter, IRC)
Areas of responsibility:
- Website registration
- On-site registration (if applicable - the event usually sells out well in advance)
- Registration packet
- Badges
Volunteer Coordination
Jason Yee (Volunteer triage and first point of contact)
Contact: jyee (Drupal.org and IRC)
Marlene Williams (On-site volunteer coordinator)
Contact: Mindewen (Drupal.org, Twitter, & IRC)
Katrin Silivus (Assistant on-site volunteer coordinator)
Contact: nonsie (Drupal.org, Twitter, IRC)
Eric Paul
Contact: mpgeek (Twitter, Drupal.org, IRC)
Areas of responsibility:
- Follow-up with people who have indicated an interest in helping via the Google Form on a weekly basis.
- Recruit volunteers to fill in working group teams.
- Communicate with on-site volunteers regarding expectations.
- Facilitate and manage team of on-site volunteers.
Party
Stephanie Gutowski (Lead)
Areas of responsibility:
- Work with the Logistics lead to secure venue.
- Provide details about the party to Marketing and Communications team.
- Communicate with Volunteer Coordination team about volunteers needed for party.
Sponsors/Treasurer
Brian Jamison (Lead)
Areas of responsibility:
- Sponsorship: Provide the Project Manager with a document outlining Sponsorship Levels/Tiers, including cost and number of slots. Communicate with Sponsors to secure funds, recruit potential sponsors to secure funds.
- Treasurer: Track expenses and incoming funds. Communicate to Logistics Lead and Project Manager regarding budget. Provide an interface (i.e. spreadsheet or other) for Logistics Lead and Project Manager to enter expenses.
Volunteer Pool
These are people willing to help with discrete tasks without assuming broad responsibility in any given area.
- Katrin Silvius
- Christopher Bloom
- Michael Prasuhn
- Jason Yee
- Ivan Boothe
- Greg Boggs
Volunteer Opportunities!
As many volunteers as we already have, we still have opportunities for others to help out! If you would like to be added to this list, please sign up at http://eepurl.com/XPYg9. When Jason Yee gets your submission, he will put you in touch with the right group.
Comments
Paying to Speak/Volunteer
In light of recent discussions re: costs associated with running and attending camps (see http://garfieldtech.com/blog/conference-letter, etc) what's up with this particular callout on the PNWDS registration page?
(http://2014.pnwdrupalsummit.org/registration-overview)
Speakers and volunteers are now required to pay to speak and volunteer?
That seems like a pretty raw deal.
Size vs Cost
Also note that Larry mentions this in his post:
The PNWDS Falls somewhere in between at around 200 attendees. With its already extremely low fee, small attendence numbers, and the fact that they typically provide services to the attendees like lunches means there isnt really a lot of room to comp tickets or cover expenses for folks.
A lot of conferences turn a profit, and those conferences should definitely cover expenses of their speakers/volunteers, but PNWDS isnt one of those conferences.
In-the-door costs
In the paragraph you cited, Larry is talking about travel and opportunity costs associated with being a speaker at an event, some sort of remuneration for their efforts -- in this case, I'm not suggesting PNWDS ever consider that.
I'm simply curious as to -- all other travel and time considerations aside -- why one would have to pay an entrance fee for the privilege of performing free labor for the organizers?
edit: Moreso on the volunteer angle than anything else; if somebody is volunteering to help, it seems like bad volunteer management at best and ungrateful at worst to charge them for their donated time and service.
While it's unfortunate that
While it's unfortunate that speakers cannot submit talks without paying because it limits our speaker pool, all the money sent to PNWDS goes to putting on the conference. No one is making a profit other than the businesses providing food, space, and equipment for the conference.
The conference is organized by 100% unpaid volunteers who also pay for the $55 dollar ticket. Some of the volunteers are donating hundreds of hours of their time and the web team is not only donating countless hours, they are also donating the code to the COD distribution so that future conferences can reuse all the work for free.
--
Portland Drupal Developer
tax deduction
Volunteer hours donated to a non-profit are tax deductible as is transportation to and from the volunteer activity. Other associated cost are as well. You could deduct the $55 fee if it was a cost of volunteering but if you get challenged don't tell them it was me that said so.
This seems to come up every year
https://groups.drupal.org/node/248173
https://groups.drupal.org/node/248573
It does come up every year,
It does come up every year, and from a planning perspective it makes sense.
Greg Boggs nails it in that everyone is paying. Nobody gets in free. Speakers are no different. Travel costs (as Larry points out) are a completely different question, and PNWDS is not equipped to even consider that.
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p>@eatings, i think the statement "why one would have to pay an entrance fee for the privilege of performing free labor for the organizers" is a bit overzealous, and could be considered detrimental to the community effort. Is this really "labor"? I thought we were all trying to learn and improve our skills together. Futher, volunteers are fully aware of the obligation to pay before they get involved. It's a personal decision they make themselves.
So instead of looking for the thorns, might we instead look for the roses and have a great event?
Well, I have to say that I
Well, I have to say that I didn't know about the obligation to pay before I signed up to help. I have yet to pay to attend a convention where I was participating as a volunteer/speaker/trainer. Having to do so would definitely count me out from being there at the event, unfortunately. As a college student, I just don't have the extra money for something like that. That would pay for a good chunk of groceries or a textbook. So I guess I have to bow out from being involved this year. :(
Jenni Simonis
http://www.forwardsupport.com
Not sure if we'll have scholarships, but...
We are certainly sympathetic to the limited finances of students. It's still too early for us as a planning committee to finalize our budget, but as sponsors and registrations come in, we'll be able to see if there is budget for scholarships, perhaps even in conjunction with on-site volunteer service during the event. I would like to encourage you to wait a month or so to see if scholarship/on-site volunteer opportunities become available for students such as yourself.
This is part of the reason that we start with "everyone pays" -- so that if enough do, we can make scholarships available to those who can't justify the expense.
PNWDS is a regional conference that rotates between Seattle, Vancouver BC, and Portland. Some years travel costs are negligible, sometimes they are high. As a community of developers, we are attempting to share our knowledge and learn from each other. Part of that sharing includes the sharing of costs, at least that has traditionally been the approach, as far as I know.
Amber Matz
It does come up every year,
It does come up every year, and from a planning perspective it makes sense.
Greg Boggs nails it in that everyone is paying. Nobody gets in free. Speakers are no different. Travel costs (as Larry points out) are a completely different question, and PNWDS is not equipped to even consider that.
@eatings, i think the statement "why one would have to pay an entrance fee for the privilege of performing free labor for the organizers" is a bit overzealous, and could be considered detrimental to the community effort. Is this really "labor"? I thought we were all trying to learn and improve our skills together. Futher, volunteers are fully aware of the obligation to pay before they get involved. It's a personal decision they make themselves.
So instead of looking for the thorns, might we instead look for the roses and have a great event?
Commerce versus community
Ah yes, the annual conversation about the difference between commerce and community. This is a commerce argument applied to a community conference. Community conferences are not a new idea. The 72nd annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is coming up next month in London (it's going to be an incredible event). It is an all-volunteer-run and has operated on the same community model since 1939. Almost every top science fiction author, artist, editor, agent, etc has attended at one time or another, many going every year. Every one of them paid for their own membership. Nobody is too famous. Only guests of honor (usually about 5-10 people) get their way paid. Sometimes refunds are issued to those who worked and those who were on talks/panels, but only if there's a surplus afterwards (surpluses always go back to the community because nobody gets paid), but there is no guarantee and everybody pays up front. It works very well for a conference with modern attendance in the 4K-8K range and has 71 times before and will again soon.
Sala kahle,
Grant
Commerce versus community
Ah yes, the annual conversation about the difference between commerce and community. This is a commerce argument applied to a community conference. Community conferences are not a new idea. The 72nd annual World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) is coming up next month in London (it's going to be an incredible event). It is an all-volunteer-run and has operated on the same community model since 1939. Almost every top science fiction author, artist, editor, agent, etc has attended at one time or another, many going every year. Every one of them paid for their own membership. Nobody is too famous. Only guests of honor (usually about 5-10 people) get their way paid. Sometimes refunds are issued to those who worked and those who were on talks/panels, but only if there's a surplus afterwards (surpluses always go back to the community because nobody gets paid), but there is no guarantee and everybody pays up front. It works very well for a conference with modern attendance in the 4K-8K range and has 71 times before and will again soon.
Sala kahle,
Grant
If you're good enough to
If you're good enough to speak, you're good enough to get the five hours of freelance it would take to cover this event, a hotel room, some hookers and some blow. Then you'll speak, land some more work, get some more hookers and blow... etc etc.
If you're somehow speaking and not good enough to get five hours of freelance work in a market more desperate for employees than Southern California is for rain... you should reconsider speaking.
Jesse Nicola -- Shredical six different ways to Sunday! -- My Portfolio
And it's comments like that
And it's comments like that which chase people away. Every dollar I make is going to go back into my college expenses, for my family, etc. If I'm going to put in some extra paid hours, then I'm going to put that towards expenses I already have - not to come and pay to work. Speaking, working registration tables, etc. is usually how I give back to causes/projects I support since I can't afford to do monetary support. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position.
But apparently those of us who can give time - but can't afford the monetary side - aren't good enough to help out. Glad to learn that before I put a ton of time in. I had planned to give a bunch of hours between now and when school starts again in late September.
Jenni Simonis
http://www.forwardsupport.com
Chased away by the concept of
Chased away by the concept of easy earned grips of cash empowering hotel rooms, hookers, and blow? Is this a CANADIAN event? I thought this was happening in AMERICA?!?!?
What is this event, $45? Fuck it, I've got freelance content entry and all sorts of other jr level stuff I never want/can find motivation to do. I'll give to you or the other budding college kid $45 to quickly do it so you can go enjoy this conference unencumbered by the worries of money and having to volunteer... or hell volunteer, what do I care. This is America be as motivated as you like... until it comes to having to pay your own way or whatever, then be a communist!
In theory if you'd be going for free as a voluneer I'd be paying for you anyways, so might as well start the process organically :D
Jesse Nicola -- Shredical six different ways to Sunday! -- My Portfolio
Jesse, you may think you are
Jesse, you may think you are being funny, but the above comment is not cool and detracts from your point.
--
Portland Drupal Developer
Incidentally, this has come
Incidentally, this has come up about four-five years running (on various PDX conferences) and I write something similar every year :)
Jesse Nicola -- Shredical six different ways to Sunday! -- My Portfolio
Be respectful
Jesse, if you are going to participate in discussions, please be respectful.
https://www.drupal.org/dcoc
Jenni, I am sorry you received such a disrespectful comment. Please know that the vast majority of people in the Drupal community do not communicate like that.
Good luck with your studies.
Unfortunately... best of luck
Unfortunately... best of luck on the ill advised journey of itemizing hours donated volunteering. The problem is at what rate is your time valued, and is Timmy's time really worth 8x what Ben put in, and then did the hours actually happen... etc etc. Pretty much a safe way to get audited if you can even find an accountant or accounting software willing to bother with this. Oh and then it has to be a recognized non-profit, and the list of reasons why this isn't plausible goes on. Been there, tried that :(
Plus then it's only $$$ off your taxable income, which if you can't afford to attend a very reasonable event like this to launch a great career (it's awesome come on in!)... is maybe a 12% federal tax rate... so uh... $12 refunded back on every $100 you legitimately earned. That $100 would fairly be 10 hours of volunteer work (possibly not even that)... so a wallet/purse/murse blistering $1.20 an hour can be attained from volunteering.
Bummer huh? I do a lot of work for various non-profits, and I really wish this were the case, even at the paltry $1.20 an hour, heh.
Jesse Nicola -- Shredical six different ways to Sunday! -- My Portfolio
Speaking, volunteering, paying, meh!
Let's do a little math.
The Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit has an attendance of about 200 people.
At last year's summit, there were 40 sessions. So, assuming a one-to-one ratio of "person who is speaking" to "session" (meaning each session has exactly one presenter and no one presents twice -- probably close enough), about 20% of the attendees were speakers.
How many volunteers are there? I see about 20 people listed in the post above as volunteering as organizers. At the conference, additional people volunteer to staff greeting tables, introduce speakers, and other roles... So maybe about 40 people? There would be some overlap between speakers and volunteers probably, but, probably we're up to at least 50 people now who either volunteer or speak.
So, I hope you get the picture: A very significant fraction of the people who attend Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit are either speaking, or volunteering, or both -- probably at least 25%. If all of these people received free admission, plus maybe people who were students and couldn't afford to attend otherwise, etc., then the ticket price for everyone else would correspondingly have to be increased significantly. The organizers of the Pacific Northwest Drupal Summit have traditionally made the choice that all attendees will pay the same very low cost of about $50, rather than increase the cost for the people who are not speaking or volunteering. It is a reasonable choice, when faced with that math.
Also, philosophically: This is a small, friendly regional conference, and it has always been about community and sharing. People willingly volunteer their time to put it on, and willingly share their expertise by speaking. Audience members at the formal sessions share their expertise as well, either by making points during/after the talk, or participating in the follow-on discussions that take place later in the conferences. There are numerous opportunities for the "hallway track", small discussions, coding sessions ("sprints"), etc... Everyone hopefully participates, and contributes to the conference community in some way. I personally rarely attend the formal sessions at conferences -- the "hallway track" is way more valuable to me.
Given that, making a divide between some attendees as getting free admission because their contribution to the community of the conference is more valued than others would, I think, cut into that feeling of equity and community among all attendees. Everyone has something to contribute to the conference, whether they present a formal session or not.
Finally... You should also remember that most of the speakers get some real, tangible benefit from speaking -- since it's a small regional community, the visibility and increased reputation lead to people remembering you when they need to make a hire, find a person to complete a project team, etc.
Note: We should take the best parts of the annual posts and replies on this subject and post them on the summit FAQ, making sure to transfer it from year to year... This does come up every year, and the arguments are always the same.
Drupal programmer - http://poplarware.com
Drupal author - http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920034612.do
Drupal contributor - https://www.drupal.org/u/jhodgdon
Sigh.. so I think some people
Sigh.. so I think some people don't realize some of the backend issues organizers face when putting on an event.
Free can be done in several ways. For badcamp and NYCamp, there are enough sponsors to pay for the costs to put on the event. Thats awesome! Linuxfest Northwest has a generous offering of a campus AND 100 student volunteers (drafted actually as part of their IT program) for next to nothing.
Unfortunately for PNWDS, the venue alone is nearly the entire budget of Linuxfest Northwest. and LFNW hosts a conference for 1500 people over 2 and a half days.
I'd love to see free admission to the summit, or for speakers and organizers, but the economics just don't work. Until PSU can get their CS department to convince the events department to donate space, all of the sponsors we get are just a fraction of the money needed to put on the conference. To be clear, to make registration free for all, you would need nearly $15k in sponsorship money to make up for that loss. For just the 80 or so speakers and volunteers, you'd need ~$4500 in sponsorship.
So while I agree about the premise of making the event free, it is a developer summit, not a camp, and everyone is an equal.
Regarding volunteering and going for free: DyanneNova has a wedding the same weekend as PNWDS, and cannot attend. Yet, she is still helping on the many tasks needed to be completed before the event. So even if you cannot go or don't want to pay for it, there are certainly other volunteer opportunities.
Actually I put together
Actually I put together multiple conventions, conferences, and trainings each year, so I know what goes into them. I've been doing these kinds of events for about 11 years now. There are ways to make events low cost enough to where you could give free admission to those who give over a certain amount of hours to the event (including using another venue instead of PSU). I've done it plenty of times.
But I'm done with the assumptions made about people being ignorant, snide remarks, etc. I'd turned down helping another convention the same weekend because I had already volunteered with you guys. I just got a hold of them and signed up for theirs instead. Good luck on your event.
Jenni Simonis
http://www.forwardsupport.com
Friday schedule
When I saw Friday thru Sunday, I assumed that it was probably Friday night social, which I could pass on (living a little ways away) and only reserved the hotel for Saturday night. Now I see on the website that it starts Friday morning. Can somebody tell me if Friday is full-on sessions, special paid trainings, coding, etc? Don't need details, which I assume you don't have yet.
There will be at least
There will be at least sprints on Friday, perhaps more as things come together, but no official sessions as far as i know.