FOSS4G'13

If someone else is neede: I had the opportunity to hear Sergio Rey, GeoDa Center for Geospatial Analysis and Computation, Arizona State University, talking about PySAL (Open Source Spatial Analysis) AND about OS in general (compared to academia).

Pleased to confirm that Paul Ramsey has accepted our invitation, we have our first keynote speaker.
Will someone from the program team take on liaison withkeynote speakers?

All,
we're looking at around 5 keynote speaker sessions in total in the programme (see here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AmwShPAd7pU4dHFhWHdpYkgzOVBybnhSdmpqSWduZ0E#gid=0). Note: there's no space at present for "Track Keynotes".
So far we have 4 confirmed (Paul Ramsey, Kate Chapman, Ian James, Edward Anderson).

Other leads that we have:
Nick Crane: Map Man
Mike Parker: Map Addict

Getting concerned that we might be over booking ourselves - is anyone else chasing speakers? If so, please add the name to the list above, and the status of your inquiry with them. I'd like to avoid the embarrassing situation of needing to choose between speakers.

Many thanks

We need an after dinner speaker perhaps for the Icebreaker and could definitely use one for the closing plenary

Ice breaker would - at the current format (but we have flexibility to change that) - take the number of invited guest speakers up to six.

Last week I met up with Chris Tucker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_K._Tucker)
for dinner – an engaging person….and I thought an ideal candidate for a key
note at FOSS. He’d be up for it too (he’d like to speak about MapStory: http://mapstory.org/). We have  space in the programme....any objections to an invite going out to him?

I don't know any of these and it might be a bit of a stab in the dark, but worth a look for some different faces outside of the community?

 Dr Hannah Fry (CASA)
http://hannahfry.co.uk/
Looks like an excellent speaker - mathematician but with a spatial slant

Francine Bennett, Datakind
"CEO of a big data technology startup, Mastodon C
5 years with search engines, including at Google, and as European Operations Director of Ask.com
One of the UK leaders of Datakind, an organisation that pairs data experts with charity and voluntary sector organisations to help use data to improve their services"
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/francine-bennett/0/852/a4a
No idea about if decent speaker - can't see any video

What about someone briefed to speak about generally communication of what we do - how to we communicate open / geo to the mass market/ other experts - part of the legacy/education message?

eg - Jane O'Loughlin
"I am currently Digital Communications Lead in the Government Digital Service [ digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk ] which is part of the Cabinet Office. I have worked in government digital communications for 11 years, previous roles were at the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions.
or the past 5 years, I have been running a digital networking group teacamp.co.uk / @teacamplondon - a monthly meet up of digital people who work in government, with government or are just interested in coming along. Topics have included open data, digitising press offices in and out of government, social media guidance for staff and speakers can come from government, the open data community, the SME community, the banking community and media.

- Organiser of teacamp.co.uk 2008 - present
- Digital Communications Lead at Government Digital Service, Cabinet Office 2011 to present
- Engagement Manager on Direct.gov.uk 2009-2011
- Digital Project Manager at Department for Business Innovation and Skills 2007-2009
- Internet Content Manager at Ministry of Justice 2004-2008
- Communications Manager Office of Public Guardian 2002-2003
- Chartered Institute of Marketing Certificate (inc digital marketing)

or another comms type person / journalist?

I think that Jane would be an excellent idea - especially if she could speak on the perception of OSGeo outside looking in (something we don't do very often!). There's also Emer Coleman - she owes us a speaking slot after leaving W3G in the lurch.

In regard to Hannah, I'm currently working with Andy (Dir of CASA) and we've got him to speak at GeoCom (not a plenary, but a hosted debate session). It might help our case...?

Jane and Emer are both great speakers though the question would be could they talk to our agenda/audience. Certainly worth a try?

Which one first? Who reaches out? I know Emer quite well but not Jane. I imagine both would be a long shot

Like I say, Emer 'owes' us - she did seem genuinely upset at having to let us down and did promise that she would support us again....so maybe worth just making a link between AGI/W3G and FOSS...?

Chris Tucker has confirmed acceptance

As we thought might be the case, Danny Dorling is unavailable because of the timing and his move to Oxford. Danny suggested Ben Hennig see http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/ what do you think?

Thoughts on Jane or Emer before we invite either?

Rollo and I have been exchanging thoughts on the extra keynoters.

We would like to ask Emer Coleman first, she is a fantastic speaker, was a leading light in the Government Digital Service and a massive proponent of Open Data (and Open Source). She will bring some sizzle and something different to the conference if she agrees to speak.

Rollo points out that Ben Hennig is actually more technical than Danny and might prove to be a better choice.

If no one objects today, Rollo and I will go ahead with invites and discussions about content with Emer and Ben.

A taste of Ben Hennig at http://youtu.be/fX6vil6gqAo

Happy with invites to Emer and to Ben

Jo

yup, Ben's work is good. More techie than Danny

2011's plenary speakers look much more techie than any of ours (Paul Ramsey excepted).

Are we losing focus on developers? I'm taking bets on how many lines of programming code we see in our keynote presentations. (HTML is not programming)

Not sure 2011 is totally representative (no anti-Denver bias here)- my foggy recollection from earlier keynotes was "interesting but not totally techy"

Barry makes a good point that I had not considered.

Personally I would walk out of a plenary that spouted C or Assembler or was full of UML diagrams (I hope you are all impressed that I have heard of those things even if I don't know what they are) but no doubt there are some who love this stuff.

Do we need to have ubergeeky keynoters (at least one)? Peter? Does geek trump gender/minority in the search for diversity or can we find someone who ticks both boxes?

I'm holding off on Ben and Emer until a few more have chipped in

Would be good if something was simple wouldn't it :)

I didn't think that the keynotes at Denver were techie - I would say that overall they were the least techie talks of the event (apart from some in the intro day). There was no code in any of them that I recall (perhaps a few examples of REST APIs from Mike Byrne, the GIO of the Federal Communications Commission, but his was not a techie talk overall). I don't think they should be too techie, but think you also need to keep in mind the core audience. For example you don't want all the keynotes to be on the theme of why open source is a good thing (without some more specific substance) - the core audience is already sold on that. Most of the Denver keynotes are online, I can dig out links if you haven't seen them. I assume you have a slot for the OSGeo President to talk in the opening session, pretty sure we talked about that, but that is customary. Was Arnulf in Denver, now Jeff.

We also did a couple of shorter more light hearted keynotes that went over well (at the end of the day for us, though wouldn't need to be). Just another option to consider. They are both worth watching for entertainment value anyway, one from Schuyler Erle and one from Brian Timoney.

If Mike Bostock would be willing and able to come (did not get an answer yet), I'm sure he could include lines of D3 Javascript (you consider that programming, Barry?  ;-)

+1 for Javascript! +2 for ECMAScript.

have we considered alternate-format plenary sessions, such as panel discussions, interviews (who would you like to grill/see grilled? Assuming they want to be grilled), or maybe something like the US presidential debate with two sides - (OpenLayers vs Leaflet? Postgres vs NOSQL?). Obviously I don't think that will get as heated as Cameron vs Clegg vs LabourLoser or Obama vs RepublicanLoser but it might be an interesting format... worth asking the community?

in the current format we have a fair amount of room for a panel or a grill on one of the afternoons in addition to the 5 keynoters we now have and 2 or even 3 more if we invite them.

I'm going to invite Emer and Ben tomorrow unless I hear votes against, we can still have a panel or two if we want in the afternoon sessions

Go for it, Steven.