drupalcon

This thread is for all throughts about tracks and session selection. The group came up with the following questions to get the ball rolling:

• 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?
• When should the call for submissions be opened? For how long should it be open?
• How far out from the conference should the schedule be announced?
• What is the right balance between offering popular (e.g. voted) sessions and curated cohesive conference program?

We'll be discussing this topic and the responses listed in this thread as a group at our next IRC meeting, October 1, 2009 from 11am-noon Central time.

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.

Considering notes from the BOF and many comments from Drupalcon Paris, why I thought Lisbon could be an interesting choice:
- International Airport.
- Number of conference venues (including University of Lisbon¹).
- Small city, easily possible to walk everywhere.
- Beautiful architecture and history, not a tourist trap however.
- Extremely friendly people.
- Inexpensive accommodation & living.
- Bairo Alto: 4 blocks of just bars, easy social meetup point!
- Beaches for those that want.

Hi

Sorry for arriving late. I've made a Google Doc of the notes from the BOF.

Quick summary:

• Possible cities for 2010 is Berlin, Cologne, Prague, Copenhagen, Maastricht and London (in no particular order). The community (probably meaning people engaged in this group) should have a pick ready by October 15th, but before that Drupal Association will look for venues in each of the listed cities.
• Get ready to suggest cities for 2011 as well, since it should be decided no later than April 2010 (and preferrably sooner).
• Anyone wanting to be engaged in arranging Drupalcons should be more focused on promoting him/herself for a particular task than promoting the city he/she lives in.

Ci siamo anche noi italiani, facciamoci sentire!
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23dcon_it

The old way of selecting and planning Drupalcons sites hasn't been working. Turns out we didn't really allot enough time for the necessary infrastructure ground work to be done.

But, we've learned a lot:

• We learned that organizers needed more then a year to schedule, reserve space, and get contracts signed, especially with the continued amazing growth in attendance at each successive conference.
• We learned that we needed professional assistance to help with things like better communications with the community, sponsors, vendors, organizers.
• We learned that focusing just on programming, scheduling and speakers is a large enough task to warrant its own dedicated team

As a result, the Association will be changing our process to build a new module for DrupalCons. Hence this group.

If you want to get involved, please subscribe.

Jag och Fabian sitter just nu en husbil på väg till Paris. Med oss har vi vår blå kompis Druplicon. Dries ska klippa bandet på Drupalcon Paris 2009 om tre dagar men hans sax har gått sönder och behöver en ny. Det föll på Druplicons lott att lösa problemet. Se hur det gick till när Druplicon hade tur som hittade oss att lifta med:

In the interest of creating an even richer environment for the exchange of ideas at Drupalcon Paris, I've written a "DrupalconParis IRC Backchannel Bookmarklet" for your favorite browser/IRC-client combination and made it available for free at www.chataboutthis.com/drupalcon-paris.html.

So, who's going to Paris?

There was talk on another thread about a meal on a floating restaurant, is that still happening? Are there any other plans for Montrealers getting together in the city of light?

Three of us from McGill are going, all arriving on 31st August, all on different flights that all arrive in the early hours.