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

[Carl Symons]

On Wed, Oct 19, 2011 at 3:56 PM, Jeff Mitchell <mitchell at kde.org> wrote:
> 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.

Definitely 2 issues. The dependency is not so clear to me. It seems
doable to have an event with LFNW, and start that process. Part of the
message would be that this event has regional appeal and that other
CampKDE's may take place at other times and places.

>>>
>>> 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.

There needs to be some hard thinking about the focus. It's surprising
and disconcerting (to me) that there is not more development
involvement in North America. Where are the Google SoC participants?
Why is it that Europe, South America and India contribute so heavily
and the U.S. and Canada barely register a blip? This is not a
complaint. It seems more likely to me that it's missed opportunities.
What needs to happen so that more people from North America
participate in development? These issues are not going to be resolved
in timely enough fashion to make a difference for LFNW.

With such a small developer/contributor community, there seems little
value in getting IRC colleagues together in person. Except for Plasma
Active, I don't think many users are on IRC.

A KDE user conference would have a primary focus on apps. However, in
addition, it could also be a tribal gathering of people who are
committed to the success of KDE...ultimately those are users and
organizations that users are part of. It could also include service
providers that depend on KDE and other FOSS.

CampKDE--whether national or regional--don't seem to be events that
would attract the large, national FOSS corporations. It's missing for
me what this type of organization wants from KDE...so it's also
missing what the message if for them and how it should be delivered.

Based on my experience with observing Plasma Active development (IRC
is the best!) and demonstrating the ExoPC, it might be interesting to
have a focus--at LFNW or elsewhere--on that. Surely there are
companies that would like to escape the Android & iOS concentration of
market power. And developers who would like to participate either in
PA development or in creating QML apps that run on the
platform...create a QML and HTML5 horde. Intel is a natural big-time
sponsor.

For that matter, what about an ownCloud track? Extend the Kloud.
Sprints and hackathons to support tech freedom.

>
>>> 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.
>>
>> I saw co-locating with the LFNW conference (either as a separate but
>> simultaneous event, or as a dedicated track within the conference)
>> similar to how we colocated with the Linux Foundation last year.
>> Colocating puts some of the organizational pressures off because we
>> will be able to share the responsibility and costs.
>
> 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.

++good

>
> 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.

Colocation with other events for a Camp KDE event would require "Camp KDE".
Camp KDE Cascadia
Camp KDE Cape Cod
Cactus Camp KDE (with ableconf.com in Phoenix)
Camp KDE Cajun
Camp KDE Carolina
Camp KDE Calgary

If you can't alliterate with CampKDE, you can't have an event B^)

Toscalix has been talking about broadening the definition of
organizations to include .edus. We could recruit students at colleges
and universities across the country.
Campus KDE

>
>>> 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
>

I like this, Jeff.

However it doesn't preclude a solo, stand-alone event for KDE in North
America when we get enough interest and support for this. The stars
don't seem to be aligned for this at present.

Carl