[kde-usa] Fwd: [kde-promo] KDE Cascadia

[Jeff Mitchell]

On 10/19/2011 3:25 PM, Celeste Lyn Paul wrote:
> Meant to reply all...
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Celeste Lyn Paul <celeste at kde.org>
> Date: Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 11:13 AM
> Subject: Re: [kde-usa] [kde-promo] KDE Cascadia
> To: Jeff Mitchell <mitchell at kde.org>
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 8:56 PM, Jeff Mitchell <mitchell at kde.org> wrote:
> 
>> I think there are two issues here. One has to be solved before the other.
>>
>> 1) Are we going to take this direction with Camp KDE. If so, what are
>> the parameters...do we go on a promo blitz to make people aware of the
>> change in Camp KDE's focus, or do we deprecate the Camp KDE name in
>> favor of something new?
> 
> Do you mean a switch of focus from the contributor community to the
> user community? Or something else?

Maybe the Board saw it differently, but from my perspective the past few
Camp KDEs haven't been targeted towards contributor communities
explicitly. We've had a lot of contributors show up, due to (mostly)
Europeans flying across the pond, but certainly we've wanted to get user
interest up. The talks have been a mix of technical detail and
general-interest, so I think they've reflected a desired broad focus.

I guess, with this suggestion, I am indeed recommending an explicit
shift of focus -- to reflect the reality that our N.A. contributor
community is absolutely tiny, and the potential attendance gains by
really marketing to users -- which is a much larger community -- are
large. If we end up with a compelling event, the North-American-based
contributors that were going to show up to a standalone event will show
up anyways.

I think the losses in contributors are likely to mostly be from outside
North America, especially if money is spent towards holding more of
these and flying local contributors to more of them, rather than flying
non-North-American contributors in.

>> If we want to have LFNW be the first in this new line of USA event
>> thinking, we need to decide to do that, and decide how to present it.
>> One of the important issues is lowering expectations -- if we're taking
>> this new focus and new way of doing events here, we need to take the
>> pressure off, if we keep the Camp KDE name...take the pressure of our
>> past sponsors and the e.V., for instance, so that people don't feel like
>> this is the USA event they really need to be at (instead of a mindset of
>> figuring out which of the hopefully many events they can be at).
> 
> I think we could still keep the Camp KDE branding -- that would allow
> us to move the event to different events if necessary.

Maybe you've misunderstood the suggestion? The whole point is that the
KDE aspect will indeed move around to different events, not stay
statically tied to LFNW...

> However, if LFNW doesn't work out (not saying anything bad will
> happen, but maybe we'll want to do a "tour" and colocate with
> different Linux Fests over the years), then the event still has its
> Camp KDE branding to fall back on so people know that it is the KDE US
> event.

One possibility then would be that Camp KDE is a traveling show with
whatever fests we can partner with..."Camp KDE will be at LFNW in
April!" "Camp KDE is coming to Ohio Linux Fest!" and so on.

The other is that LFNW has KDE Cascadia, Ohio Linux Fest has KDE
Buckeye, and so on. The danger here is just the risk of confusion from a
multiplicity of names.

>> For instance, we need to try to cultivate sponsors at the particular
>> venues, and/or we need to cultivate sponsors to give generally for Camp
>> KDE/the new KDE USA events instead of one single specific event. I don't
>> think it's impossible, but we'll need to come up with an idea of what we
>> have to offer in return.
> 
> I think for this year, we should focus on the event. Giving directly
> to KDE USA has some administrative implications we were hoping to
> solve by 501c3ing which hasn't worked out yet.

It was meant in a general future sense...indeed we don't have a U.S.
organization for them to give to yet.

>> 2) Do we want to take the LFNW opportunity? I'm broadly/generally in
>> favor, but #1 *does* need to be sorted out.
> 
> I think it is our best option for this year. We're running out of time
> to do a solo event

This is only a problem if you think that our best move is to keep doing
solo events.

The suggestion I've been making and trying to get feedback on is that we
ditch the idea of a solo event entirely in favor of a traveling event,
or a series of separate colocated events.

--Jeff

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