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KM (4)

KM
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I wrote a book, maybe you will buy it. Writing CGI Applications with Perl [perlcgi-book.com]

Journal of KM (4)

Wednesday September 14, 2005
08:50 AM

YAPC::NAs Where's the mojo?

[ #26718 ]

I'm really shocked at the lack of proposals for YAPC::NA::2006. I am also really shocked at the lack of them for '05. Years previous there were plenty to choose from!

So, what's up people? Why are you not putting in proposals, as opposed to years past? Is it the time you may have to put into it? Unsure you'd be able to pull it off? Not enough of a support system to help?

YAPC::NA::2003 proposals - 6+
YAPC::NA::2004 proposals - 6+
YAPC::NA::2005 proposals - 1 (Toronto... which was a good place anyways)
YAPC::NA::2006 proposals - 0 (as of now, which is past the original deadline)

YAPC isn't like OSCON where you can expect it to occur every year. If people don't get involved, it won't live on. It's not something you can sit on your duff and expect someone else will do it. You HAVE to participate and host the conference for it to happen. After all, that's what grass roots is all about. It's really a great experience to organize it, and a fabulous way to give back to the Perl community.

So what's up people? Why are you not proposing? What's changed in the past few years? What can we as a community do to change this? What can TPF do?

Let's make sure YAPC::NA doesn't die out. That would be a real shame. Plus, all of you wouldn't fit in my house as the "last resort venue" ;-)


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  • Years previous there were plenty to choose from!

    Have you thought of letting the previous candidates know of the lack of proposals? Maybe you've done this already, but I couldn't go without mentioning the possibility of emailing all of them...

    • I believe most have either been emailed, or spoken to in person at some point in the process. Of course, they shouldn't *need* to be asked. They know when the CFV is happening. We're all adults :-)

      But that raises another question. If you someone proposes one year, and doesn't get it.. why are they not in there the next being the first to propose with an even better bid?
      • Well, perhaps because they think they might lose again? :-) That's what you should explain them, that at least one of them will win the bid :-)
        • Heh. But, they should realize that if nobody bids, everybody loses.

          I guess we could add that to the YAPC Bid docs "At least one of you will win."

      • I can imagine for some it may be a lot of hard work to prepare the bid, and to go through the process again, only to be knocked back, may be too much effort. Remember this is a volunteer effort, not everyone has the free time to prepare bids again and again.

        Have the groups that have previously bid changed leadership or membership, that means the same enthusiasm isn't there any more?

        This is the first time I've ever really seen any metrics for the number of groups applying for chance to host a YAPC::NA, and

        • To be honest, I didn't think preparing a bid was "difficult", although others may not have the same experience. Here's what I did (and won the bid)

          * Made a list of possible venues
          * Got the venue req's list
          * Called each venue and went through the list
          * Wrote down prices they gave
          * Wrote down available dates
          * Chose the best priced and suitable venue
          * Wrote the figures down, a little about the venue, about the area, etc... from the venue req's list.
          * Emailed it

          It took me (alone) no more than a week

          • I think the key thing is passion. Some of us have the drive to do this, and make it all worthwhile. Others who might be interested, need encouragement that they can do it. I think the bidding process needs to be made clearer in what people need to think about, as if you can't see what you need to think about it can be a daunting task. People helped Birmingham.pm, because we made a big song and dance about the fact we were going for it. Anyone who wasn't so vocal wouldn't necessarily get the same help.

            When

            • Thinking about it, would there be any worth in requesting that potential bidders contact YAPC first

              I think we always have, non officially, encouraged people to contact us. I think a good thing for every next YAPC is to make sure a YAPC BOF is held, so everyone possibly interested in doing one is in a single room. I know at every YAPC before I proposed is when I was most motivated to propose. It could also be a good way to get contact info so we can follow up.

              Of course, to do this, we'll need another Y

              • Actually there was one at YAPC::Europe::2004 in Belfast that was well attended. My PerlMongersBOF was well attended this year, so I shall look to having both in the schedule for next year at YAPC::Europe::2006. I'm very interested in encouraging new blood to get involved.
        • In the cases I know of where I personally approached previous bidders, life happened. It wasn't an issue of being rejected. But that happens often in the open source community.

          As Kevin is handing things off to me as TPF Conference Chair, one thing I can commit to is trying to capture more info. We've actually already done this here:

          http://www.jbisbee.com/yapc/index.cgi [jbisbee.com]

          and I'm going to try to keep updating that.

          We've talked about moving up the date so we can announce the next year location at the current yea

          • http://www.jbisbee.com/yapc/index.cgi [jbisbee.com]

            This is excellent. This is exactly the kind of thing that needs to be more visiable and updated after each conference. The missing pieces for me would be the draft letters. Some of us are really bad at writing, and using the experience of previous organisers makes sure we all know what works and what doesn't. The sponsor list is also very useful. For YAPC::Europe::2006 we are hoping to be able to extend that list.

            The other group we didn't hit was yapc attendees via

  • we decided to let the news out. boston.pm is actively putting together a proposal to host YAPC:NA in 2006. we are currently in the middle of researching sites (we have 6 to choose from) and we expect to make a decision in early october and then submit our proposal. this will leave us plenty of time to sign up guest speakers, etc. if you want to help subscribe to the boston.pm yapc volunteer list [pairlist.net] --uri
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