Open Stack

On Fri, Feb 26, 2016 at 10:39:08AM -0500, Rich Bowen wrote:
> 
> 
> On 02/22/2016 10:14 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> > 
> > TL;DR: Let's split the events, starting after Barcelona.
> > 
> > ....
> > 
> > Comments, thoughts ?
> 
> Thierry (and Jay, who wrote a similar note much earlier in February, and
> Lauren, who added more clarity over on the marketing list, and the many,
> many of you who have spoken up in this thread ...),
> 
> as a community guy, I have grave concerns about what the long-term
> effect of this move would be. I agree with your reasons, and the
> problems, but I worry that this is not the way to solve it.
>
> Summit is one time when we have an opportunity to hold community up to
> the folks that think only product - to show them how critical it is that
> the people that are on this mailing list are doing the awesome things
> that they're doing, in the upstream, in cooperation and collaboration
> with their competitors.
> 
> I worry that splitting the two events would remove the community aspect
> from the conference. The conference would become more corporate, more
> product, and less project.
> 
> My initial response was "crap, now I have to go to four events instead
> of two", but as I thought about it, it became clear that that wouldn't
> happen. I, and everyone else, would end up picking one event or the
> other, and the division between product and project would deepen.
> 
> Summit, for me specifically, has frequently been at least as much about
> showing the community to the sales/marketing folks in my own company, as
> showing our wares to the customer.

I think what you describe is a prime reason for why separating the
events would be *beneficial* for the community contributors. The
conference has long ago become so corporate focused that its session
offers little to no value to me as a project contributor. What you
describe as a benefit of being able to put community people infront
of business people is in fact a significant negative for the design
summit productivity. It causes key community contributors to be pulled
out of important design sessions to go talk to business people, making
the design sessions significantly less productive.

> Now, I know you guys put on awesome events, and you have probably
> thought about this already. The proposal to have the events be
> back-to-back across a weekend may indeed address some of these concerns,
> at the cost of the "less expensive city and venue" part of the proposal,
> and at the cost of being away from my family over yet another weekend.

Back to back crossing over a weekend is just a complete non-starter
of an idea due to the increased time away & giving up personal time
at the weekends for work.

Regards,
Daniel
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