Connect the Joomla! event teams and spread the inspiration. NOW!
A central part of the organisational work for Joomla! Days is a constant strive for improvement. Learning from former events, adjusting agendas, trying out new ideas and concepts and lots of discussion with others.
I have been part of the Joomla! Day Sweden team the last two years and basically had to realise that we are inventing the wheel over and over again.
We did mistakes that other Joomla! event teams for sure have done before and could have been avoided if we had discussed those failed ideas with other teams beforehand.
I'm talking for example about deciding to have a business day and then completely missing the target audience because of some errors in the combination of price/agenda/marketing or simple things like not having enough DVI/VGA adapaters for all event lanes.
The event teams have soooo much to learn from each other.
In an ideal world we could have:
- Knowledge exchange
- Check lists
- Experienced people to talk to in order to try out the "insanity factor" of a new idea
- Agenda suggestions
- Coordination of event dates (make sure that no Joomla! events conflict with each other)
- Recommended speakers from the Joomla! community
- Templates for handouts (Joomla! broshure, agenda, ...)
- ...
Now the thing is that if you search for existing ways to achieve the above mentioned ideal world you wont find anything.
Just a vast empty space full of possibilities!
Ok, that was a bit exaggerated. I admit there is a few dead husks of failed attempts for communication between event teams out there.
What i found is this:
- There's one page in the Joomla Doc Wiki which is pretty empty (http://docs.joomla.org/Events_Working_Group)
- Events area in the Joomla! community portal shows a list of Joomla! Days and some rules for organising Joomla! Days (http://community.joomla.org/events)
- Joomla! Event Forum is kind of inactive and i think that most event teams never even got the idea to look there. (http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=306)
- Found this forum post from Alex Kempkens about a possible "Event management platform for Joomla! Days" in the event forum from March 2010. Doesn't look like this idea took off. (http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=306&t=501173&sid=98...)
That's it pretty much. It is possible to find the individual Joomla! Day web sites and in theory one could contact each of them via email and ask them about a specific idea. But who would really do that?
During J and Beyond (the most awesome conference on the planet) i had the chance to get in touch with several Joomla! Day teams and we all had basically the same need.
We need to be able to learn from another in an easy way!
So in order to fix this i propose that we get together here and open up a discussion that leads to the creation of the needed infrastructure for all the event teams out there.
Could a solution be for example?
- Reviving the above mentioned existing dead husks and improve them to build a serious communication platform for event teams? (Looking at events area on joomla.org)
- Do something completely new?
- Self organised and outside the Joomla! project? (Like alltogetherasawhole, joomlaforward and so on?)
- Together with OSM? (Looking at Ryan Ozimek and Robert Deutz)
Or a happy mixture of all those possibilities?
Please discuss. And btw... Joomla! ROCKS!
I have been part of the Joomla! Day Sweden team the last two years and basically had to realise that we are inventing the wheel over and over again.
We did mistakes that other Joomla! event teams for sure have done before and could have been avoided if we had discussed those failed ideas with other teams beforehand.
I'm talking for example about deciding to have a business day and then completely missing the target audience because of some errors in the combination of price/agenda/marketing or simple things like not having enough DVI/VGA adapaters for all event lanes.
The event teams have soooo much to learn from each other.
In an ideal world we could have:
- Knowledge exchange
- Check lists
- Experienced people to talk to in order to try out the "insanity factor" of a new idea
- Agenda suggestions
- Coordination of event dates (make sure that no Joomla! events conflict with each other)
- Recommended speakers from the Joomla! community
- Templates for handouts (Joomla! broshure, agenda, ...)
- ...
Now the thing is that if you search for existing ways to achieve the above mentioned ideal world you wont find anything.
Just a vast empty space full of possibilities!
Ok, that was a bit exaggerated. I admit there is a few dead husks of failed attempts for communication between event teams out there.
What i found is this:
- There's one page in the Joomla Doc Wiki which is pretty empty (http://docs.joomla.org/Events_Working_Group)
- Events area in the Joomla! community portal shows a list of Joomla! Days and some rules for organising Joomla! Days (http://community.joomla.org/events)
- Joomla! Event Forum is kind of inactive and i think that most event teams never even got the idea to look there. (http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=306)
- Found this forum post from Alex Kempkens about a possible "Event management platform for Joomla! Days" in the event forum from March 2010. Doesn't look like this idea took off. (http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=306&t=501173&sid=98...)
That's it pretty much. It is possible to find the individual Joomla! Day web sites and in theory one could contact each of them via email and ask them about a specific idea. But who would really do that?
During J and Beyond (the most awesome conference on the planet) i had the chance to get in touch with several Joomla! Day teams and we all had basically the same need.
We need to be able to learn from another in an easy way!
So in order to fix this i propose that we get together here and open up a discussion that leads to the creation of the needed infrastructure for all the event teams out there.
Could a solution be for example?
- Reviving the above mentioned existing dead husks and improve them to build a serious communication platform for event teams? (Looking at events area on joomla.org)
- Do something completely new?
- Self organised and outside the Joomla! project? (Like alltogetherasawhole, joomlaforward and so on?)
- Together with OSM? (Looking at Ryan Ozimek and Robert Deutz)
Or a happy mixture of all those possibilities?
Please discuss. And btw... Joomla! ROCKS!
Views: 65
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Comment by alledia on September 6, 2010 at 7:12am -
Hi Martin
I'm sure Robert would be willing to help get this done in his role as Events team lead. If you don't have his contact details, feel free to send me a message here and I'll put the two of you in touch.
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Comment by Jen Kramer on September 6, 2010 at 8:02am -
Although you may not see much in public, I think there's some discussions happening behind the scenes. I've had a few Joomla Day organizers talk with me about my experiences, and I am happy to speak with anyone who needs some help.
It would be nice to have a central location where information could be shared. It seems that more people are organizing Joomla Days.
For those in the US, the biggest barrier to organizing a Joomla Day is the money. I am not a lawyer or accountant, but my understanding is that a taxable entity must take the money for reporting to the IRS. Most Joomla user groups do not file tax returns, so you must either have a company who collects the money and then pays the Joomla Day expenses, or some other organization that does this for you.
If OSM or Joomla could help user groups with this, it would probably lead to more Joomla Days in the US.
Jen
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Comment by Martin Blodau on September 6, 2010 at 8:30am -
@alledia Thanks for the advice! I have been in e-mail contact with Ryan and Robert before. Just sent them an email about this blog in order to make sure they read this. :-)
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Comment by Hilary Cheyne on September 7, 2010 at 5:46am -
+1 Brian.
Would like to add that Svein Wisnaes - one of our two ATAAW Movie Directors, has offered to guide and/or produce a guide for recording jDay events using his professional experience. Will connect Robert with Svein but I am sure Svein would welcome direct contact here if he could help.
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Comment by Martin Blodau on September 7, 2010 at 6:47am
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Just a quick status update on whats happening.
- Ryan Ozimek wrote back that he likes this idea and suggested that i start a "Joomla! Event Organizers" group on people.joomla.org in order to get in touch with local event team members that don't read ATAAW.
- I did that and created the group "Joomla! Event Organizers" at people.joomla.org. Still waiting for group approval.
- Bo Astrup contacted me and said that he had the same idea and we are going to get in touch over this via Skype.
As a next step i'm gonna search trough the web, compile a list of all Joomla! Day teams (and according email adresses) that i can find and then send them an email notifying them about this with a request for joining the discussion in the "Joomla! Event Organizers" group.
I saw that there has been some great activity concerning the JUG's. I can imagine that this would be a good fundament to build on. http://community.joomla.org/user-groups.html
Will see what Bo says and then get in touch with the JUG team.
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@Brain Teeman Looking forward to learn from your experiences!
@Hilary Cheyne Thanks for the tip. I will contact him and ask him if he wants to join the upcoming discussion.
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Comment by Martin Blodau on September 7, 2010 at 6:48am
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Woops...sorry Brian for spelling your name wrong.
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Comment by Jen Kramer on September 7, 2010 at 2:15pm
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Other things I'd like to see inc0rporated into this:
1. Speakers: Not Joomla Leadership
If you are trying to organize a Joomla Day, one of the big challenge is tracking down speakers.
For Joomla Day New England, we make an effort to be 1/2 JUG speakers and 1/2 "rock stars" from the Joomla community. I feel this is very important, because it promotes and features our local members -- who are quite talented! It also gives us a bit of fresh blood rather than the usual suspects who speak at a number of Joomla Days.
A database of speakers would be a great help to those organizing a Joomla Day. Information like the speaker's location, whether travel expense reimbursement is required or negotiable, what the speaker can discuss, examples of previous talks, examples of the kind of work they do -- all of this would be great to draw from. You could search this database and find people near the meeting, or you could track down someone with a specific area of expertise you'd like covered in your program.
Anyone could add their name to this database, whether they are "rock stars" or not, in the Joomla leadership or not. The only requirement is that you'd be willing to be contacted about speaking at a Joomla Day event.
2. Speakers: Joomla Leadership
I would also like to see a LOT more outreach and help from Joomla Leadership (which I am defining as PLT, CLT, and OSM) when speaking at Joomla Days.
In the past, I've emailed people in the leadership, offering reimbursement for all airfare and hotel, plus transportation to/from the airport, and they haven't even bothered to respond to me. This is unacceptable.
Ideally, the leadership could coordinate to determine who is nearest to the Joomla Day and offer to speak PROACTIVELY, rather than the Joomla Day coordinator trying to find someone from the leadership to speak. There aren't so many Joomla Days that this is particularly burdensome.
Robert, as head of Events for OSM, could help to coordinate this, notifying the appropriate people to approach specific Joomla Day organizers and offer to speak.
3. Joomla Day Financing via OSM
There is a theory that OSM can provide some money to Joomla Days. It would be very good if this is clarified. Is there money available or not? How does one qualify for this money? How can the money be used, if there's something beyond the normal Joomla Day guidelines?
I'm in the process of organizing the 3rd Annual Joomla Day New England, and I am happy to help this process in any way. Please let me know what you need me to do.
Jen
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Comment by Jen Kramer on September 7, 2010 at 2:53pm
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Brian, I agree completely, that would be a great addition.
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Comment by Martin Blodau on September 8, 2010 at 2:00am
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@Brian Great feedback! During my talks with other event teams at J and Beyond one of the central things everyone tried to solve in their own way was assuring the quality of the speakers.
We all agreed that so far no team i spoke to has really found a good solution for that topic. So this should definately a central part of the discussion for a platform that brings us together. Love the database and private rating idea!
@Jen
Speakers: Yeah that would be great. Experienced the same problem. It feels like you have to try to pull all your personal strings for the hunt after potential J!Day speakers.
So we are always limited to just the area of people that we personally can get in touch with. Would be a whole new world with an international database of people that would love to speak on a J!Day.
Joomla! Leadership speakers: You nailed it to the point. So far it's also a matter of hunting and pulling personal strings in order to find core team or leadership people for Joomla! Days.
To top it off i had the worst possible thing happen last J!Day Sweden concerning that topic. We contacted every single founding, core team, release team member in Europe (that we knew off) and couldn't get any of them. A few had no time and the ones that had time already signed up for speaking on the dutch J!Day which was due to a planning error (from our side) on the same weekend!
Financing via OSM: We have Lorenzo Garcia in our J!Day team and therefore could get some direct info about that since he is a former OSM member. We got some around 500$ budget help from OSM and how i understood it that was an amount of money that every J!Day team could get.
But you are absolutely right, we only got that because we had some personal strings there. No info about this anywhere.
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For now i think the best is if we try to get the word out to the other event teams so that we all can express our feedback and visions for a potential event organizers platform.
Once we have reached a certain traction i expect that we form a project group with everyone who is interested and get started with making this platform a reality.
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Comment by Michel van Agtmaal on September 8, 2010 at 2:35am -
Hi Martin,
I have been visiting Joomla Days (both official and unofficial), User Group Meetings, Training Events, Bootcamps and what have you accross Europe and the United States since Mambo.
I participated in these events as a sponsor, a speaker or just as a regular visitor.
I am happy to join the discussion and share some thoughts on how to promote events online (so many differences in local Joomla Day web sites...).
I am happy to just share my experience as a sponsor and speaker to help craft sponsorship deals and speaker lists.
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