StateoftheMap Organizing Committee/Minutes/2015/2015-11-30 Meeting

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

2015-11-30 SotM-WG Meeting

20:00 UTC.

SotM Now: [1]https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u1ElSEvfQgHiiHvxIfz_qXFZP1vTykxT7HENA259j3k/edit

Previous minutes: [2]https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/StateoftheMap_Organizing_Committee/Minutes/2015/2015-11-16_Meeting

Present

  • Gregory
  • Joost
  • Rob
  • Henk
  • Christine
  • Tatiana
  • Ben (joined late)

Absent

  • Serge
  • Alyssa (may join late)
  • Mikel (may be late)
  • Marc Ducobu

Website

Ideally short as it would be good if this was online before our meeting :-)

  • Tatiana: website is ready to go. DNS just needs to point address to the host. Mikel is following up on that.
  • Tatiana: we should update wiki with the logo.
  • Rob: yes (new one that we’re working with) and I’ll update Twitter account

Blog post

    • **including logo competition winner.
  • Rob: has anything been written for it? To say we’ve confirmed the date, sign-up for notice on website, and congrats to logo winner. Who could make a go at drafting that?
  • Christine: yes, I could & send to our WG list. (before we send it to CWG for OSMF blog publishing)
  • Joost: could put it on hackpad so we can edit/comment on it. We can post it to Belgium OSM website to.

Sponsorship pack - intro

  • Alyssa concerned it was too long.
  • Christina: agreed. It’s difficult to shorten it.
  • Rob: Shorter than previous packs, and looks long as it’s displayed as 1/2 column.
  • Henk: It’s hard to know as it could look different in the design. Don’t want to have that text over multiple pages. I’d focus on trying to steer this in the design of the page itself. You might get a line out of it or two, but that might not be worth it - all depends on the design.
  • Rob: 2 column design taken from SotM 2013, cold be done differently. Will be multipage.
  • Henk: keep it short. Most companies know about OSM already.
  • Greg: it’s enough to give it to design team & see if they need help cutting it when they try. Might work better split photo on top half of page, text below (still half and half).
  • Rob: who could work on this, Tatiana maybe? as a pdf rather than a webpage (assumed from previous actions).
  • Tatiana: I don’t know. Do you want to do pdf as easier to send out? We could do both, and have the PDF look like the website.
  • Henk: I don’t think we’ve put it on the website on the past. We want the names of companies interested so we can follow up, not a download link that we don’t know who clicked. You can have a request pack address/form.
  • Rob: Could be a secret page or a pdf. Go with the same format again, start with a pdf and then we could look at doing a webpage perhaps later. Could you look at that in the next couple of weeks, Tatiana/Alex?
  • Tatiana: yep.

Sponsorship pack - tiers

the tiers and in particular the question of whether we should have booths/exhibitions, extent to which we allow branding to be used (e.g. Event sponsor logo on tickets and swag), and freebie give-away.

  • Rob: Supporter, bronze, silver, gold, platinum. Reduced number of tiers from previous years (not so ambitious).
  • Henk: Tungsten-carbide was because we had a sponsor wanting to go that far with money so we added a new one.
  • Rob: conference guide usually includes copy of programme, bit about sponsors, useful info for delegates, and a map of the area/venues/socials. This would commit us to making a guide book.
  • Henk: verbal thank you might be best to strike-out who it’s from so we have flexibility, but keep it in the opening address.
  • Rob: I e-mailed the board and had a similar response
  • Rob: exhibition stands? schwag? done in the past?
  • Henk: We’ve put sponsor logos on bags once before. Schwag bag hasn’t made it a really commercial conf with loads of papers/brochures, just free pens.
  • Rob: key question is can what can we increase for platinum level to be worth it?
  • Henk: we need to be careful in not making it commercial. Things everywhere people can understand, only the platinum sponsor makes it like “their conf” attention on one company. Naming rights on a social event could be good.
  • Greg: companies want to sponsor OSM and just want that to be seen, ¬25k isn’t much.
  • Rob: is that level enough?
  • Henk: I’ve not done calculations on how much we would raise if we got certain levels.
  • Christine: I’m not sure we can get a platinum because of the high amount. We shouldn’t count on it. We should focus on getting 2 or 3 gold sponsors, and if we get 1 platinum it’s luck/good.
  • Henk: we’ve got sponsors like that before, so I think it’s perfectly possible. If we look at these numbers, when are we comfortable with the money (and anything after is bonus).
  • Rob: If we have 1 gold and a couple of silver we are good for venue.
  • Christine: we should get lots of supporters and reduce it to ¬500. Easier to get that without staff asking their boss.
  • Greg: I don’t want to see loads of supporters because the sponsors list/logos get crowded.
  • Rob: SotM-EU lowest was ¬500. SotM 13(Birmingham) was £500. There’s been a bit of a mix across the conferences.
  • Henk: We are the international SotM. We can try and grab lots of smaller companies, but it’s so much worth to get big companies otherwise we’re bogged down in work. I’m not bad for ¬750 which is roughly the same as £500 that we did in Birmingham.
  • Joost: I feel comfortable with the lower packages. Just get your name on the list, similar to the donation drive. For the honour.
  • Henk: I don’t think we’ve missed out on things in the past because the rates were too high.
  • Joost: the moment people give money to us it builds relations for us “these guys are important”
  • Rob: not sure to change that (supporter tier), we could think about it.
  • Henk: Gold level now draws my attention. I would have expected 15k, to have more even gaps. [currently silver 7.5k, gold 12.5k, platinum 25k]
  • Henk: these are just guidelines. If we have a company saying we want to do something special, whether that be a higher than platinum or between tiers. We can make custom packages, we’re open to that.
  • Rob: yep, that’s in the intro text.
  • Rob: do you need to be a sponsor to have an exhibition table, or can anyone?
  • Christine: we should sell the spaces on top of sponsorship.
  • Rob: we’ve not done exhibition before because the conf doesn’t have dedicated expo time. Companies have staffed them in the past but not had anyone to talk to. So bad to charge them.
  • Christine: is it not part of between talks during coffee breaks?
  • Greg: I feel posters would work better. People will talk based on loking at it, rather than approach a stand.
  • Henk: space is a challenge if we have 10 tables/stands.
  • Rob: we have the foyer area but I don’t think we have much chance of 10 stands? didn’t seem there were many at SotM-US.
  • Henk/Ben: they had 8-10 at SotM-US.
  • Christine: SotM EU had 3 stands.
  • Rob: Silver-Platinum it’s included? Below that you pay £1000?
  • Henk: not inc in Bronze, because physical space will become an issue. I’d say yo have to be Gold/Platinum.
  • Rob: My view is the conf is to serve OSM. If you want to tell OSM about stuff with a stand then you should, same with schwag.
  • Henk: for freebies I don’t care.
  • Rob: So the line is if you want leaflets in the bag or a table with stuff on then you need to sponsor.
  • Henk: posters could also be on lower levels, because it doesn’t take much space.
  • Rob: we’ve not charged for stands before but we’ve not encouraged it. They might be more willing to do it if mentioned in pack.
  • Henk: If platinum I should not have to pay more for a stall.
  • Rob: I might include it from silver upwards.
  • Henk: a table is not a selling point though.
  • Rob: names on schwag is okay. If you want your name on the bag then no.
  • Rob: banners on conf floor, can main sponsor put his banner up to? That’s probably no becase it feels like their conf.
  • Rob: SotM-US did logo on video credit. I’m reserved as don’t know if we can do that.
  • Rob: Posting job offers?
  • Christine: reason to have a conf is to talk about things with each other. SotM EU the job point was a big thing, finding experts in the field (once we mentioned it).
  • Henk: practicality, how is it done?
  • Greg: have an open job/notice board with post-its. Supporters/sponsors can have a colour printed display on the board rather than a handwritten note.
  • Rob: tricky because these things are good to support the community/conf-reasons, but we also want to charge for things and bring in money. Difficult to strike the balance. Given that we’ve got low cost this year, we’re probably okay without having to charge for every little thing. Going to put stand in Silver/Gold/Platinum. Not sure about job board.
  • Henk: personally I say gold up for the stands, but okay if everyone else wants silver inc. People have asked in the past about stands and so they’ve gone up a level.
  • Henk: I would add the job board for everyone (inc supporters).
  • Henk: how many places for each package?
  • Rob: platinum has to be exclusive due to naming rights?
  • Greg: don’t have to be exclusive. If desired/requested, an extra ¬ could be offered to all platinums.

Social events

progress so far: very little. Marc and Joost both quite busy, also Brussels lockdown and such. See osmbe/sotm2016#5 for a draft mail to visitbrussels (feedbakc wanted)

question: registration by date as a way to get an early idea of attendance?

Rob: we’ll skip on this due to time.

AOB

Henk: I’ve installed the CRM plugin for mailchimp, do we have a mailchip account? Will connect with Tatiana to work that out.

Actions

  • Mikel - get website online (confirm DNS change).
  • Tatiana/?anyone? - update logo on OSM Wiki page & link to website
  • Rob - update logo on Twitter account
  • Rob - send sponsorship pack to Tatiana for designing.
  • Christine - write blog post & send to SotM-WG list.
  • Henk - work out with Tatiana if Mailchimp account exists or needed, and link to CiviCRM.

Meeting ended

+68 minutes.

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