Open Stack

Team,

It's great to see so much passion! :)

Here's an attempt at a summary email. I'll wait until a later email to
wade into the discussion myself ;) Feel free to jump in on any point.

=Things we tend to agree on=
"Spirit of the event"
* The response most people had in common was that they didn't want to
see vendor booths :) Several others noted the importance that the event
should remain accessible and ensure there were no barriers to
attendance, space for networking with others and sharing information
about deployments without fear of vendor harassment.

Multiple Sponsors
* are OK, but they are more like underwriters who should be OK with only
modest acknowledgement (see previous: no booths). Preference for
operator sponsors. Several ways to recognise them possible.

Current Schedule Format
* It appeared like the current format is working well in general, but
could do with minor tweaks.


=Things still under discussion=
Sell Tickets
* Many people agreed that some moderate form of ticketing could be OK,
but the question remains to what extent this should be priced ("low
fee"? $100-200? "cover costs"?). A strong counterpoint was that paid
ticketing makes it less accessible (see "spirit"), prevents some local
attendance, and is unfair to smaller operators, though others noted that
it may be the only practical way to raise funds in the future.

Break into Regional Events
* A number of viewpoints, ranging from "multiple regional events" to
"one event only [maybe with a travel fund]" to "one event that moves
around [maybe even outside USA]" to "make it in the centre of USA for
easier travel on average".


Capping Numbers (inc. Limit Attendees per Company)
* A lot of disagreement here. Many argued that any kind of cap or
barrier to entry detracts from the accessibility of the event. Others
put forth that too few restrictions could dilute the ops-heavy attendee
base, and implied that large companies might send too many people.


Multiple Tracks
* To help deal with room size, we could split into multiple tracks. The
ideal number of tracks is not clear at this stage.

Evening Event
* Several people said they found the PHL evening event uncomfortably
packed, and suggested cancelling it on this basis, or on the basis of
cost. Suggested alternate was posting a list of nearby venues.

Lightening Talks
* Have lightening talks, perhaps by renaming "show and tell". More of
them? Arranged differently? Unclear.

=Ideas=
* Video Recording - Might be worth a shot, starting small.
* Travel Fund, Scholarship Fund, Slush Fund
* Use Universities during the summer break for venues

=Open Questions=
* How will the number of attendees grow?
* What are the costs involved in hosting one of these events?
* Stuff about the summit - probably need a different thread for this


Regards,


Tom




On 30/06/15 12:33, Tom Fifield wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Right now, behind-the-scenes, we're working on getting a venue for next
> ops mid-cycle. It's taking a little longer than normal, but rest assured
> it is happening.
> 
> Why is it so difficult? As you may have noticed, we're reaching the size
> of event where both physically and financially, only the largest
> organisations can host us.
> 
> We thought we might get away with organising this one old-school with a
> single host and sponsor. Then, for the next, start a brainstorming
> discussion with you about how we scale these events into the future -
> since once we get up and beyond a few hundred people, we're looking at
> having to hire a venue as well as make some changes to the format of the
> event.
> 
> However, it seems that even this might be too late. We already had a
> company that proposed to host the meetup at a west coast US hotel
> instead of their place, and wanted to scope out other companies to
> sponsor food.
> 
> This would be a change in the model, so let's commence the discussion of
> how we want to scale this event :)
> 
> So far I've heard things like:
> * "my $CORPORATE_BENEFACTOR would be fine to share sponsorship with others"
> * "I really don't want to get to the point where we want booths at the
> ops meetup"
> 
> Which are promising! It seems like we have a shared understanding of
> what to take this forward with.
> 
> So, as the ops meetup grows - what would it look like for you?
> 
> How do you think we can manage the venue selection and financial side of
> things? What about the session layout and the scheduling with the
> growing numbers of attendees?
> 
> Current data can be found at
> https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Operations/Meetups#Venue_Selection .
> 
> I would also be interested in your thoughts about how these events have
> only been in a limited geographical area so far, and how we can address
> that issue.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Tom
> 
> 
> 
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