There is currently being held several small events around Drupal in the nordic countries (Norway, Sweden and Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark). However Majority of these events have now faced challenges in terms of getting enough interested people to A) Organize the event B) Maintain local activeness outside of these spikes (camps and sessions). The main problem is the lack of contributions (aka time) people are currently able to give for local presence. It’s good to note that organizing events while being in the core of the Drupal community can be time consuming and since this type of responsibility has now fallen to shoulders of just a handful of people, there is a need for a solutions to do things more efficiently. This is especially the case now when people see that these events tend to have characters of being obligatory and not voluntary because there is no optional events people could join.
People have recently given some thoughts of having a single more larger event that would centralize the offering of the currently held camps in several countries in the northern Europe. This is something that could be found to be as a solution to the problem Drupal community is facing in the area. Even though the focus of the event would be much similar to other Drupal events it would not try to compete with them but to be as addition. I believe Drupal being a true open source solution we can only improve by doing this and therefore any As mentioned before the event would be held yearly and everytime in another country.
The major parts of why this kind of arrangement would be beneficial is sort of obvious:
1. Instead of investing a lot of time and money to produce small scale events this could be invested in creating much bigger and more reaching event
2. By allocating more potential resources in organizing a single event would be more volunteer based work, therefore people would see this as more voluntary and not as obligatory (as they currently do)
3. The event would have more potential in terms of content (sessions, attendees, speakers and reach)
4. When organized event is bigger there seems to be more motivation to volunteer
5. Possibility for more people to arrange events in general
Instead of just mingling with this theory we obviously need to do something more concrete to go forward with this.
First of all we should gather everyone who is interested in organising this event and start getting input from each country and what their situation is currently.
Second thing would be to start planning the event with dedicated team(s) where we find out the real need for this event. One thing I would suggest to keep in mind is that this is the first time this kind of event is being planned so it is possible to find major issues that could have effect against the event.
Main concerns that remains:
Who is it for?
Who will be organising?
How it will be created?
Is there any other benefits that comes in mind?
Hope to see active discussion.
Comments
I attended the BOF in
I attended the BOF in Gothenburg and I really hope this way of organising Drupalcamps can be doable. We should as mentioned try to work together and not have to compete about speakers and visitors. I personally would rather have one or two drupalcamp nordic/year than missing out because the camps are to close in dates. (Yes i have family that also needs attention)
With that said i volunteer to help out in any way i can be of use. And even if we do not manage to get this project live i think the different nordics drupal associations would benefit of discussing when to arrange theirs camps. And also share their knowledge among each other.
well this dosnt make planning time smaller
Hey
So this looks a bit like the idea some of us brainstormed last year in stockholm (well alchohol was involved, so nothing really came outta it) But there was a couple of things that i saw as a flaw in the idea, even that i think it would be pretty rad to have a drupal north event.
So lets take that bad things first:
Planning isnt gonna be "smaller" - belive me i have done my fair share of international events, but yes the turnaround can be way bigger.
Planning is gonna be a bit more pita than just doing an event in you local city.
Sponsorships are gonne a bitch, cause well besides of wunderkraut, propeople & peytz & co, i dont think theres any companys that really get so much benefit of crossing the borders (a truth that the DA also have learned over the years & why we dont have the crappy sponsor party's but instead have community events at drupalcon Europe)
Is this gonna kill the local events? on one hand we have done Drupalhagen (DC in copenhagen) now in 7 years in a row, naybe its time to do a new format, but will that kill the local's breading ground?
Will this grow the local community ?
will this class with Drupal Dev Days ?
bikeshedding about where its gonna be + whos gonna do what, theres a lot of planning that can be really hard to get logistics fixed, making things work with people is just hard.
OK enough of the whining the good things:
Do an event in april-may, so were on the other side of the summer vacation + the rain, cold & snow have dissapeared (no reason to export our shit weather) That could end up being a good a good 400 ppl event, that would be both socially & technically interesting for the "professionals" to get to.
A bigger event means that theres more money to fly in potential "high end" speakers.
Lets face it besides of DC EU & US, we need to be able to sponsor flight tickets + a sofa somewhere for people to crash.
We can go apeshit in viking stuff, which will be a ton of fun + showing off the general scandinavian way of doing things.
/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale
Yeah I dont think its gonna
Yeah I dont think its gonna be smaller than one event but its gonna be less than multiple events.. By doing this we still have to figure out only once the venue, food, wifi & basic stuff.
We could try to market it as an event for all the scandinavian countries so companies don't think its cross border sponsoring. Instead they think its for the local community which just has a bit wider borders.
I don't think the plan is to kill local events. People can organize local events if they feel so. What this could fix its not necessary to organize all the events if the local community doesn't feel so.
Hopefully we could grow the local community by creating more noise. Of course more fun means more growth for the local community. This also forces different communities work together which can also create new perspectives how the local community could work.
Hopefully not. I suppose we are trying to do more marketing in the nordics countries than elsewhere. The presence of nordic people in ddd was very small. I think we can encourage with this concept more people who are less in the community.
I agree.
Problem atm with april & may is that they are very crowded with events.
My two cents
I think that this is a great idea, and as an co-organiser of pan-country event DrupalCamp Baltics in Tallinn on 2013, I can agree with the points Morten said.
Despite that, this is so big thing that it is worth striving for it.
My comments on Morten's and Lauri's points:
1 - Organising event of this size requires a team of people that are dedicated to make it happen (dedicated meaning having dedication, not working full time on the event). We had four core people in DrupalCamp Baltics and then number of people helping with various stuff - typically from local companies.
2 - I agree with Morten, but I also think that with proper planning this could be overcome - for example, having different pricelists and categories for local and abroad companies.
Example follows: in Finland, Exove, WK, Druid, ActiveArk, etc. are interested in paying big amount of gold sponsorship, but ProPeople might not be. So instead asking them to take bronze package with reduced visibility and also maybe brand damage, they could opt for "gold for remote companies" with way less price and no booth, but otherwise similar handling in marketing communication.
Next year in Copenhagen, Exove, WK, Druid, ActiveArk, etc. would think taking "gold for remote companies" and ProPeople would take gold package, and so forth.
3 - I think that this should not replace the local events, as there are certain part of community that cannot travel far due to multiple reasons. Replacing all local events would mean that you would have DrupalCamp in your own country every four year (five, if we count Iceland). This is too long.
Instead, I would propose that the event replaces Helsinki event when it's organised in Helsinki, Stockholm event when in Stockholm, etc. And by creating bigger event, the local events can be a bit more compact, focused on country specific items, and act as springboards for new speakers to try out their skills before going to Nordics or Baltics level.
5 - I don't know Dev Days that much, but I think that it and DrupalCamps serve a bit different audience with different agenda.
6 - See point 1. Get organised, ask for help from local communities and companies, as they have people on payroll that can help with practicalities.
Despite these, I think that this is a great opportunity. There is not that much of time, so I suggest getting all interested people together and making a charter of going forward. Discussions are always good, but they don't move us any closer to the goal. And summer is pretty close, already.
--
Janne
Janne: I personally think
Janne: I personally think your point 2. is really good. I like the idea of having "remote" sponsors. What do you think if there would be some sort of price levels depending on company size? Of course that causes problems with companies which main business is not Drupal. But maybe we could give sponsorships for cheaper price if company size would be less than 5 etc? Just to make it possible for more companies and by that way encourage them to send their employees there.
About sponsorships I think it worked quite well at DrupalCamp Helsinki that companies who have done some major favours etc. for the event get 10% cheaper price. Do you think that is a good thing? For the event I think that was good because it motivated companies to help organizing the event.
Having to many sponsorship
Having to many sponsorship packages will just be more complex to administer for the team executing the event, and for the sponsors to figure out what they get. Instead of a "gold remote" package, could the solution be that none of the sponsor packages contains a booth or table at the camp. This could instead be an option. Similar to being coffee or lunch sponsor at DrupalCon's. We used to have bronze, silver, gold and platinum packages for Drupalhagen, but we dropped that a couple of years ago, after a situation where a sponsor wanted more and more due to them signing up for a platinum sponsorship (as the only one). Instead have we just sold simple and cheap sponsorships to DKK 3000 where the companies only get their logo on the website and on a poster or rollup banner at the venue. Even the small companies can afford this price if they want.
I don't like the idea with cheaper sponsorship prices for companies with for example less than 5 or 10 employees. Again will it be difficult to administrate for the team, and how do we define how many employees a company is actually having? A company can be only a couple of employees and then be in the segment for a lower sponsorship price, but at the same time use 10 more or less full time free lancers or contract workers, that are not register as full time employees. I mean it's difficult to measure and also manage. So much better to go with some simple and clear packages, and then with the option to buy som add-ons. E.g. booth, lunch, coffee etc.
How did you define "major favours" in Helsinki? The number of man hours that each of the companies dedicated to the event planning or....?
Example of the sponsorship packages from DrupalCamp Berlin that took place 2 weeks ago with 40+ sessions and approx. 200 attendees. http://drupalberlin.de/dcb14/dcb14_sponsoring_information_EN_31.pdf.
Economy and responsibility
Another important topic we should start to discuss. Actually one of the most important ones I guess :-)
How are we going to handle the economy and the responsibility in relation to economy when doing a cross-border camp? Each of the scandinavian countries probably have a local Drupal association getting the revenue from local camps and activities. Should we send the revenue back to the local associations organising the nordic camp, or should we create a nordic association that is the responsible for doing the event and handling the economy?
UPDATE: VAT is probably going to be a funny thing - specially because Norway is not a part of EU. We probably therefore need that one of the local associations are responsible for the nordic camp. It could be the association that exists in the country where the camp is held.
Problem on using local
Problem on using local associations is that not all the cities/user groups in Scandinavia have association or legal entity to handle that kind of things. There might be also some special limitations on the associations such as we in Finland can only have maximum turnover of 8500€ which sets its own limitations.
One of the ideas was to use Drupal Association as a legal entity but that has to be discussed with them whether its possible or not. If that is not possible we have to figure out the easiest way to handle the money which might be local associations.
If we did this we should use
If we did this we should use the DA as the entity
Over the last 3 years of Frontend United we have used the DA for this and it have worked out good, another thing is that we have a clear view into where the money is & well thats also what we should use the DA for ;)
I know we have this on the agenda for the DK association meeting tomorrow & we will discuss this + figure out where we stand.
/mdk
/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale
How is this going?
I'm interested in help from Stockholm side. Just organised a few Drupal meetups in Stockholm and it seems that this year we are not going to have an official DrupalCamp because it's too hard due to small community here.
What I can do to help?
Calm Down & Clear the Cache
Slightly off-topic
I was informed about this group/initiative last week. We haven't discussed this in the board of the Norwegian Drupal Association yet, but it does seem like an interesting idea.
While we are waiting for this to happen - he-he, we have already decided to arrange our annual Drupalcamp Oslo 13th and/or 14th of November 2015. I'm just about to warn the guys in Gothenburg so we avoid the same weekend this year ;-)
Happy Drupaling!
Not happening in Helsinki 2015
I've got unfortunately bad news w/r/t the event. There is currently nobody in Finland (that I know of) who would handle the planning and run the event. Lauri has declined to organise the event and the local association has decided to implement a normal Helsinki based Drupalcamp.
I'm actually the chairman of the board for Finnish Drupal Association, and we had a discussion about this in our board meeting. As running such pan-Nordic event would require someone with a lot of passion and time, we couldn't risk failing the event with wishful thinking. That said, there is a planning meeting tomorrow. If someone says that he/she is interested in running the event, the association is happy to support in all possible ways.
I'm part of planning committee for DrupalCamp Baltics that will take place in Tallinn this year (last year in Riga). If we don't get Nordics done now, at least Finns and Swedes could come over to Tallinn, as it is quite easily reachable on ships.
If someone would be interested in acting as a local representative of DrupalCamp Baltics (advertising in local gatherings, boards, etc., and gathering speakers and audience), please let me know.
--
Janne
I'm sorry that unfortunately
I'm sorry that unfortunately I'm not able to organize Drupal Nordics in Finland this year. I still think it's an idea worth building and if there is going to be anyone else willing to take the responsibility on organizing it outside Finland, I would be more than happy to help with that.
I wrote short blog post about the reasons behind my decision to my personal blog.
Technically, Estonia, Latvia
Technically, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania aren't Nordic countries. They're Baltic.
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nordic_countries
If you want to include those three, I recommend renaming the group.
Similarly, the Scandinavian countries consist of Sweden, Norway and Denmark (even though only Sweden and Norway are located on the Scandinavian peninsula).
As for camps. Some of my co-conspirators are trying to get a camp going in Stockholm. I'm not directly involved but I think chances are good there's gonna be something.
Kudos to Morten for keeping the *Hagen crowd wild :)
Jakob Persson – Leancept – Results-only digital and marketing consultants – Personal blog
I know
I know that they are not part of Nordics, despite at least some Estonians wanting that. Anyhow, my point was that it seems unlikely that there will be DrupalCamp Nordcis this year. If so, there is an alternative of helping to organise another pan-country event and gain experience.
I believe it's still time to
I believe it's still time to bring new ideas so..
I was thinking about changing Drupal Nordic model from ordinary event to "Drupal Nordic" as a title - DNaaT (every year another camp). That title could go from one country to another so every year we will have, at least, one big event in our part of Europe. That could be also good for organisers - we won't drain one group of people and we can share knowledge and know-how between national teams to build integrated, stronger Drupal community here, in Northern Europe.
We have five possible camps which could hold Drupal Nordic title: Copenhagen, Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki.
First Drupal Nordic in Oslo?
Hi, Jakub (zaporylie).
I think "Drupal Nordic" moving from country to country might be a good idea. Maybe Drupalcamp Oslo could be the first Drupal Nordic? We already have 4 confirmed international speakers. I haven't discussed this with the board of the Norwegian association ...
PS! Drupalcamp Oslo is planned for 13th and/or 14th of November - possibly extended to 15th for sprints and stuff.
Drupal North
Great to see that the discussion lives on. I was at the BoF in Gothenburg in November with Lauri and other enthusiasts and I think a bigger camp would be a good thing, mainly for not wearing out speakers and for gathering visitors in one place.
That said, I remember that Drupal North was spoken of, partly because the catchphrase then would be "Drupal North - Winter in coming" or even better, "Drupal North - Dries is coming". #gameofthrones
I think Drupal North would be a better name since we then could involve all of the northern countries in Europe, from Finland to Iceland, from Poland to Norway. But - even if the name is a big thing - I still think it's better to actually have a camp.
"Just my five cents."
// Adam
✄-----------------------------------------------------
Adam Evertsson - Came for the code, stayed for the community!
Drupal North is kind of
Drupal North is kind of already taken twice over though. Drupal North in Canada and DrupalCamp North in the UK. But we have other options open to us if we decide to go forward with something.
I think it'd get too vague if we include countries more south than Denmark. At that point, you're pretty much in Central/Western Europe. I think it also has to be at a size where the economics of organizing together make it attractive. By that I mean that overall people feel like it's easier to do than a local camp. Which, according to some earlier comments, might not be the case.
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didn't read the whole thread
didn't read the whole thread but it would be nice to have a shared Google calendar for all Drupal Events in Oslo
Hadi Farnoud
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