StateoftheMap Organizing Committee/Minutes/2016/2016-01-11 Meeting

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

2016-01-11 SotM-WG Meeting

20:00 UTC.


Present

  • Gregory
  • RobJN
  • Christine
  • Joost
  • Alyssa
  • Henk
  • Mikel
  • Luke

Apologies

  • Alex

Sponsorship

(Design, logos of previous sponsors, wordsmithing, scholarship program, banners)

Current draft: [send as attachment before Christmas]

Rob: Comments on design?

Mikel: It’s looking great. Tatiana can give it a final polish in illustrator if we are 99% done. Small content changes can be done. Just question on framing of scholarships being worked out?

Rob: We will also need a page of logos of previous sponsors. Tatiana could start on that. I’ve listed quite a few on github.

Rob: Do we want to pull in logos from non OSMF-run SotMs?

Mikel: Does it add much to the weight showing previous sponsors? I don’t think it’s necessary.

Rob: SotM US the big ones are Mapzen, Digital Globe, Mapillary. SotM EU: had Telenav/Scout. Would it be okay from the SotM US board?

Henk: Digital Globe, Mapzen, they’ve been sponsors of the international SotM. It then gets tricky what ones we don’t include, and you get a big list of companies.

Mikel: Adding the confusion of what they sponsored doesn’t add anything. Got enough to say “look we’re a serious conference” with even 5 or 10.

Rob: Conclusion on that. Only international SotM sponsors used, and Tatiana can pick out big names from that.

Henk: Delotte had specific requests on where to include their logo(e.g. alongside who), so safest to not include that.

Scholarship programmes

Question raised on merging scholarship programme into a key package?

Alyssa: funding for scholarships came from general sponsorship, then it was topped up by some. Was confusing for some sponsors, only the entities that gave specific scholarship funds were credited.

Greg: thanks. That clarifies to me the idea scholarship-fund shouldn’t be limited to the add-ons sold.

Rob: Multiple options on how do this.

Alyssa: I see everyone who is contributing to SotM wants to be contributing to SotM scholarships.

Mikel: stepping back, we want to have people adding to all our funds. Are there any that would not want to contribute to scholarships? Only issue is the orgs that can administratevly only fund in that way and don’t care about being seen as a sponsor. We could deal with such issues when they come up.

Greg: We could then take off the price and say all sponsorship levels help OSMF provide: scholarships + bringing community etc +, like “your money goes to”.

Rob: Was US Scholarship packages taken out in multiples? E.g Bronze + 2x scholarships.

Alyssa: I don’t think so (could check).

Mikel: Also would be good to talk about who the scholars are publicly. [remove the sponsor-privileged of access to scholar bios] Part of being scholarship has been a level of participation, e.g give a state of [their country] talk or some other lightning talk & blog post.

Rob: conclusion to remove scholarship from packages?

Rob: No need for an add-on because you’d go for a higher level. This leaves some big gaps.

Mikel: Do we feel the need for another level in there? An add-on is basically just creating another level.

Greg: We’ve said we can accommodate company needs. We should just emphasis that in conversations if price specifics are their worry.

Banners

Greg: I think people are used to it. Won’t be a single company.

Henk: there is a balance we need to find. We need to give them exposure, but not enough that it seems like a commercial conference. Is it in the sponsorship package?

Rob: It is in the sponsorship brochure, because it always has been.

Henk: Need to be careful we don’t make promises we can’t uphold. A banner we can do easily enough.

Rob: I would expect it as a company. Not sure the rolling break slides is enough.

Henk: If we say sponsors can put their own banners there I would be uncomfortable, but not otherwise. How the banners look (size of sponsor logos against SotM logo) we can work.

Rob: I don’t like going over people, however. Seems we have enough people happy to keep the banners (go with previous years).

Greg: Yep, but include my suggest to not be specific where the banner that is.

Rob: When presenting views(which are encouraged), it’s good if you can give clear reasons to help with decisions.

List of prospective sponsors

Keen to get going soon with contacting sponsors (although we are on good time). Previous SotMs got told “you’ve missed our budgeting for the year” or “we’ve used our budgeting up”. Might depend where their budgeting date is in the year.

Local planning

Accommodation

Joost: No obligation for us to fill reserved rooms. Price from Booking Desk isn’t special, same as you’d get for booking.com for example.

Rob: Do they seem good value for money?

Joost: Not compared. They seem decent, Brussels is pricey. There is one centrally located(Penta Hotel).

Joost: I suggest we pick as just one we that we link to, and leave individuals to look for other options if needed/desired.

Joost: no budget option from them. Would be good to have something.

Greg: Suggest we do that, and link people to an open wiki page if they wish to share their own recommendations/choices.

Rob: how to progress, need to make a decision on this?

Greg: Have this ready as a blog post and link to. Don’t need to yet.

Joost: They do want to know soon what we will be going with.

Joost: My favourite was “Aris Grand Place” (close to main station and central in town), out of the options. Haven’t fully looked at reviews etc.


Review of plan

Have pushed a few things back - not a problem. Will do the others later today.

Need to think about potential keynote speakers.

Actions

  • All - to help fill in details on the prospective sponsors list.
  • Add Luke to github issue tracker
  • Rob - update sponsorship pack (make it clear that scholarship is included, gregory’s wordsmithing suggestions x2) & pass on to Tatiana

Meeting ended

+70 minutes.