[maemo-community] Organizing Maemo Summit 2009

[From: Andrea Grandi]

Hi all,

talking with Tim Samoff in these days, we did think it could be the
time to start organizing next Maemo Summit.
The first one was a very amazing experience (at least for me, but I
think for a lot of people too!) and we should try to repeat this great
thing.

I wrote down some points we could follow as guidelines to organize the summit:

1. Country and city

Where is the Maemo community located? I mean: where do the most of
people come from? Are there more american or european? I think this is
an important factor to evaluate when they have to choose where to
organize the summit.

If there are 80% european and 20% american, it's normal to organize it
here in Europe, so the most of people can come buy them self and the
other can be sponsored by Nokia. Of course we should choose a city
easily reachable with flights (like a capital or a big city:
barcelona, madrid, berlin, london, ecc....).

We could prepare a simple poll or a form to get some tips and
suggestion from the people that wish to attend.

2. The place

I think it's important to find a place like C-base for the next Maemo
summit. We are an open community and a place like that is very
comfortable and interesting for us geeks, developers and Maemo fans.

We could take contacts with local Linux user groups or other similar
groups, so we could know how much they're interested in offering their
place for the summit.

I'll try as much as possible to avoid places like hotels, luxurious
conference rooms ecc... first because they're very expensive, second
because they're not the kind of place that remind to community and
openness. What do you think about?

3. Contents

What should a summit offer to community? We should encourage knowledge
exchange in every kind of way: organizing small conferences and a lot
of light talks (they were one of the most interesting things in the
summit), create little groups of discussion (for example, 10-15 people
choose a subject and meet in a room to discuss it directly) ecc... and
the most important thing: we should ask the community what they expect
to find in a summit.

4. Sponsor

The fact that Nokia sponsor some of us is a very great thing. I'd
never had the possibility to join the Berlin summit, since I'm a
student and I cannot spend so much.

The important is to avoid wasting money. Nokia should
encourage sharing a room with another person of the community, so more
people can be sponsored. What do you think about?

5. When?

When should we organize the summit? Before a big release (like
Freemantle), just after the final release or after some months of
development with it? I don't remember exactly when the final release of
Freemantle is scheduled for, but I think that next September would be
a nice period... what do you think about?

6. Live blogging

I think it would be great if someone (at least 2-3 people) would blog,
post picture ecc... in real time while the summit is going on.

7. Live streaming

We could use something like ustream.tv or justin.tv to offer a live
audio/video streaming
of the summit (conferences, light talks ecc...). So people that cannot
join directly can
follow the summit from their home.

When we have some confirmed points we should start creating a page on
the wiki: http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo_Summit_2009
so all people can read and give suggestions.

I hope that each of you can give his little contribute in the
organization. Personally I can
take care of organizing sessions.

Come one people! Let's start working on the next summit! :)

p.s: sorry for my poor english :\

-- 
Andrea Grandi
email: a.grandi [AT] gmail [DOT] com
website: http://www.andreagrandi.it
PGP Key: http://www.andreagrandi.it/pgp_key.asc