[Marketing] OSgeo at Finnish GIS expo, 23-24 Sep 2008

Committees Marketing
1

Hi all,

I was contacted by people organizing the yearly Finnish GIS expo. He wrote that they had thought about FOSS4G as a theme (there are probably other themes too) for the Expo and had already asked a distinguished non-finnish member of the community (he's in the OSGeo board but as I understood that he's not yet fully promised so I won't put his name here) as a keynote speaker. I also agreed to talk at the Expo.

I started to think that if FOSS4G is a theme, then maybe we should have a OSGeo booth too. We don't yet have a Finnish OSGeo chapter so this is a call for anybody living in Finland to participate. The booths start at 105 €/m2 but cheapest may be a 3m2 booth which costs 720 €. Not cheap. We'd also need volunteers who know about OSGeo software. That might be the first thing to secure before going forward.

Help and advise appreciated,

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Geoinformatiikka / Geoinformatics
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma

2

On Tue, May 6, 2008 08:36, Ari Jolma wrote:

Hi all,

I was contacted by people organizing the yearly Finnish GIS expo. He
wrote that they had thought about FOSS4G as a theme (there are probably
other themes too) for the Expo and had already asked a distinguished
non-finnish member of the community (he's in the OSGeo board but as I
understood that he's not yet fully promised so I won't put his name here)
as a keynote speaker. I also agreed to talk at the Expo.

I started to think that if FOSS4G is a theme, then maybe we should have
a OSGeo booth too. We don't yet have a Finnish OSGeo chapter so this is a
call for anybody living in Finland to participate. The booths start at 105
€/m2 but cheapest may be a 3m2 booth which costs 720 €. Not cheap.
We'd also need volunteers who know about OSGeo software. That might be
the first thing to secure before going forward.

Help and advise appreciated,

Ari

This is good news. There are several options how to organize and manage a
booth for OSGeo. You can try to find a sponsor (this is the preferred
because easiest way to do it). We do this in Germany on a regular basis.
Ideally it will obviously be a business involved with some FOSSGIS
background. If you have an Autodesk office in Finland you could try to ask
them, I have experienced them to be very open to this kind of event.

Alternatively you could ask the organizer whether they would be interested
to host an OSGeo booth for free or reduced cost. The reasoning is that it
is a hype topic and attracts people who otherwise would not be interested.
Doing this is a bit more tedious and involves some bargaining skills but
we have also gone down that path before.

Third option is to request some funding from OSGeo. It is the hardest path
as funding is limited and the globe is large. But if there are compelling
reasons and you manage to convince this list, then this is also an option.

Hope this helps to get you started. Please feel free to keep us informed
on this list or get me off list if matters have a more delicate touch.

We have a ~regular IRC meeting, the next one is planned for Wednesday next
week (will announce here). We can add your event to the agenda if you feel
like discussing it.

Best regards,

--
Arnulf Benno Christl
http://www.osgeo.org
(OSGeo Board Member)
+50.7342N +7.0707E

3

Option 4:
* Offer to do an OSGeo related presentation. Presentations are usually free to presenters and attract a lot of mind share. If you are looking for slides, search for presentations at:
http://www.walis.wa.gov.au/forum/proceedings

Mark Leslie did a great overview of the OS Stack.
Tim Bowden did an Open Source overview
Cameron Shorter and Simon Cox talked about open standards and the OGC

Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote:

On Tue, May 6, 2008 08:36, Ari Jolma wrote:
  

Hi all,

I was contacted by people organizing the yearly Finnish GIS expo. He
wrote that they had thought about FOSS4G as a theme (there are probably
other themes too) for the Expo and had already asked a distinguished
non-finnish member of the community (he's in the OSGeo board but as I
understood that he's not yet fully promised so I won't put his name here)
as a keynote speaker. I also agreed to talk at the Expo.

I started to think that if FOSS4G is a theme, then maybe we should have
a OSGeo booth too. We don't yet have a Finnish OSGeo chapter so this is a
call for anybody living in Finland to participate. The booths start at 105
€/m2 but cheapest may be a 3m2 booth which costs 720 €. Not cheap.
We'd also need volunteers who know about OSGeo software. That might be
the first thing to secure before going forward.

Help and advise appreciated,

Ari
    
This is good news. There are several options how to organize and manage a
booth for OSGeo. You can try to find a sponsor (this is the preferred
because easiest way to do it). We do this in Germany on a regular basis.
Ideally it will obviously be a business involved with some FOSSGIS
background. If you have an Autodesk office in Finland you could try to ask
them, I have experienced them to be very open to this kind of event.

Alternatively you could ask the organizer whether they would be interested
to host an OSGeo booth for free or reduced cost. The reasoning is that it
is a hype topic and attracts people who otherwise would not be interested.
Doing this is a bit more tedious and involves some bargaining skills but
we have also gone down that path before.

Third option is to request some funding from OSGeo. It is the hardest path
as funding is limited and the globe is large. But if there are compelling
reasons and you manage to convince this list, then this is also an option.

Hope this helps to get you started. Please feel free to keep us informed
on this list or get me off list if matters have a more delicate touch.

We have a ~regular IRC meeting, the next one is planned for Wednesday next
week (will announce here). We can add your event to the agenda if you feel
like discussing it.

Best regards,

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Commercial Support for Geospatial Open Source Solutions
http://www.lisasoft.com/LISAsoft/SupportedProducts.html

4

Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) kirjoitti:

This is good news. There are several options how to organize and manage a
booth for OSGeo

Thanks.

It seems that the funds are not a problem. There will probably be a space to share with people interested in presenting all things open source. Hopefully its not a competition of publicity etc.

The next thing then (assuming I get some people to stand there as "OSGeo representatives" besides me) is flyers, banners, T-shirts to give as lottery prices and what else. I do have my stack of those that I have not used (too small GDAL shirt and too large OSGeo shirt :slight_smile: but how can this be organized? BTW, I don't like getting them free, I'd feel better if I paid a yearly membership fee, which would be used for these kind of things, or there was a price tag.

I think we can organize computers with all tools and various configurations. I believe network is provided by the organizers by default. I remember there were servers and data set up for demo purposes, is this still operational?

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Geoinformatiikka / Geoinformatics
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma

5

Ari,
I am trying to extract those items that Marketing could take over or
provide for you. Please speak up whenever anything is unclear and don't
expect this list to follow up automagically - unfortunately we are no more
than an underrepresented, lax bunch of volunteers.

On Fri, May 23, 2008 09:05, Ari Jolma wrote:

Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) kirjoitti:

This is good news. There are several options how to organize and manage
a booth for OSGeo

Thanks.

It seems that the funds are not a problem. There will probably be a
space to share with people interested in presenting all things open source.
Hopefully its not a competition of publicity etc.

In its charter OSGeo states that it tries to be a comfortable home for all
things open source. On th other hand competition drives excellence,
balancing it makes the perfect mix.

The next thing then (assuming I get some people to stand there as "OSGeo
representatives" besides me)

This can be helped by spreading word. Currently a Google search for
"Finnish GIS Expo" on my box turns up this thread and nothing but. This is
only because Google tries to be nice to us...

First off you should add a page in the Wiki for this event (lacking any
more informationi could not do that). Once you know that you will
definitely be attending add it to the OSGeo calendar (I forgot how to do
that but someone will know) and maybe give it to the news editor.

is flyers, banners, T-shirts to give as
lottery prices and what else. I do have my stack of those that I have not
used (too small GDAL shirt and too large OSGeo shirt :slight_smile: but how can this
be organized?

There is a Marketing budget that we can tap if things are needed. Before
we do that we try to find a generous sponsor and often enough that works.
Just let this list know it if did not work for you. (Hmmm - this sounds
like a punishment - hey I failed in collecting funds, can you help me. Got
to work out how to do this in another way.)

BTW, I don't like getting them free, I'd feel better if I
paid a yearly membership fee, which would be used for these kind of
things, or there was a price tag.

This is a good comment but it should be discussed outside of this event
planning. We have been wrapping our brains around this idea before and
never came to a good solution. The nearest thing to spending some money
for OSGeo is to click on the "Make a Donation (Any amount)" link on
http://www.osgeo.org - but it is far off a regular membership fee.

I think we can organize computers with all tools and various
configurations. I believe network is provided by the organizers by default.
I remember there were servers and data set up for demo
purposes, is this still operational?

There are all kinds of services up but not really registered centrally
within OSGeo. Check telascience.org and maybe ping the Public Geodata
Committee list. One effort trying to centralize information for software
might be this list:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Project_Documentation
but it still lacks a column "demo applications". But most projects feature
some kind of gallery when you go on their pages.

OSGeo print stuff: There is one introductory brochure for OSGeo and one
sheet for each project in English language (we need to check back on this
list where to organize them, they always seem to be somewhere else).
Especially the OSGeo paper is ideal to get translated to Finnish language
as its contents are by now fairly stable.

Best regards,
Aarnii.

Ari

--
Prof. Ari Jolma
Geoinformatiikka / Geoinformatics
Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
tel: +358 9 451 3886 address: POBox 1200, 02015 TKK, Finland
Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://www.tkk.fi/~jolma

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--
Arnulf Christl
http://www.wheregroup.com