[board] Fwd: Interest in the Horde "advisory board"?

[Kevin Konowalec]

I'm forwarding this to the board list as per Chuck's request.  Just a  
few thoughts we were throwing around regarding meetings/conferences.


K




Begin forwarded message:

>
> On Jan 24, 2008, at 4:23 PM, Chuck Hagenbuch wrote:
>
>> Quoting Kevin Konowalec <webadmin at ualberta.ca>:
>>
>>> Very good.  We were discussing my travel budget for the year  
>>> (since year-end is coming up) and he was saying it'd be awesome if  
>>> there could be a horde conference similar to the JA-SIG conference  
>>> we went to and that's when I mentioned our discussion.
>
>> Okay, cool. Honestly the logistics here are a bit overwhelming to  
>> me - I'm not sure who's going to pay for things, for instance. But  
>> I guess it's all solvable.
>>
>
>
> Yeah.  The way I kind of had it in my mind is that the first thing  
> we'd want to do is get a small group (ie this board) together for a  
> face-to-face.  I was thinking San Diego this August (i say San Diego  
> only because I've been there many times for conferences and I know  
> it fairly well... and August since it's the easiest time for me, and  
> likely others in the educational environment, to get free.  Not to  
> mention its a good place to start a vacation).  Contact a hotel so  
> we can book a meeting room and spend a couple of days talking about  
> the project as a whole and where we want to take it (My first  
> suggestion would be the Town and Country hotel in SD.  They have  
> been AWESOME for the LISA conference and have not only a beautiful  
> resort complex but also huge conference facilities if and when they  
> are needed).  Then we can start talking about a general conference.   
> I was also thinking that if we piggybacked on LISA for the first one  
> all that it'd really cost us is admission to LISA - we could set up  
> a few BOF sessions throughout the week, which cost nothing, and I'd  
> bet it'd attract all kinds of sysadmins there.  The step after that  
> would be a solo conference, once we had a feeling of how much  
> interest there actually was.  At that point we'd want to go after  
> corporate sponsorship for the conference to help with costs.  I bet  
> we could get a sponsorship from Telus communications here in  
> Edmonton since they use Horde for their residential internet webmail  
> system so I'd think they'd have a pretty huge interest in the  
> continuing development.
>
> Anyway that's just my top-of-the-head thoughts on it.  I'm open to  
> suggestion.  I'm curious what you think, tho.
>
>
>
>
>>> No prob!  I'm pretty sure that if we wanted to we could piggyback  
>>> on an existing tech conference like LISA.  Of course if there was  
>>> going to be a lot of people interested we could always venture off  
>>> on our own as well.  How many attendees could you theoretically  
>>> see at a horde conference?
>>
>> It's hard for me to say. I think it would depend a lot on the  
>> target audience - developers vs. system administators vs ... well,  
>> probably not end users? Developers I would guess around 20 people.  
>> An administrator event, it'd depend on how well it was marketed I  
>> guess.
>>
>> -chuck
>>
>
>
> Yeah... and that's why a bunch of BOF sessions, or even having  
> yourself or Jan or whomever give an official talk, at LISA would be  
> a great place for exposure as well as a way to gauge interest in a  
> solo conference.  Not to mention that it would cost nothing to do  
> that (other than flights and accommodations... and I think if you're  
> giving a talk you get some of that taken care of but I'm not sure).   
> And even if we didn't move on to a solo conference for a few years,  
> the increased exposure at LISA or other conferences would only  
> help.  In fact I know there's a few large PHP conferences that a  
> Horde talk would fit in perfectly at... might even find some  
> additional developers there.
>
> K
>
>
>