I think this is about right and no one apart from Mike has given me any feedback suggesting changes. The Supporter level is for the one man business that wants to support the event and have their logo on view but doesn't want to be pinned to a stand.
Give me some feedback on this before the call on Monday afternoon and I will incorporate your thoughts into a final proposal for approval in the call.
In the sponsor brochure or web page there should be an invitation to discuss custom packages if what we have on offer is not quite what a sponsor needs e.g. trade exhibition space for extra delegates or more branding around the venue.
Barry Rowlingson on October 10, 2012:
The other foss4g brochures gave limits on how many sponsors would be taken at each level - this gives the sponsor an idea of how exclusive they'll be. Want to add that? This probably only applies at the top two or three levels.
Peter Batty on October 10, 2012:
We didn't have limits on number of sponsors at each level in Denver.
Also as I mentioned, I am quite strongly opposed to offering plenary speaking slots to sponsors. I'm concerned that several potential large sponsors might want to convey messages that aren't in line with what FOSS4G is about. It was not quite clear from Steven's doc what "prominent" speaking opportunity means? I think it's good to be clear on what this means.
Steven Feldman on October 10, 2012:
Excellent idea on sponsor numbers How about?
Diamond - 1/2 (OS already in for 1) = 25/50k
Platinum - 3/4 = £60/80k
Gold - 6/8 = £60/80k
If we want to keep exclusive we would go at the lower end which would still bring in £145k if we sold all the top levels. I guess we could be even more exclusive but that might be underselling ourselves and could upset people.
More to discuss on Monday
Steven Feldman on October 10, 2012:
Peter, A prominent speaking slot would definitely not be a plenary/keynote slot on main platform. I was thinking about a slightly longer slot than the standard presentation to open a stream on day 2 or 3 - an opportunity to set the theme for the day which could go with the opportunity for diamond and platinums to sponsor (have branding in the room) a stream for a day as part of their package.
Barry Rowlingson on October 10, 2012:
Historical maxima: 2011: no limits (apologies to PB for wrongness) 2010: Premier: max 1 (E40,000), Platinum: max 4 (E20,000) all other levels unlimited 2009: Premier: max 1 (AU$50,000), Platinum: max 3 (AU$30,000) + gold/silver/bronze unlimited plus limited individual 'spot' sponsoring (dinner, bag, etc) 2008: Premier: max 1 (R500,000), Platinum: max 3 (R250,000) + gold,silver,brone unlimited plus spot sponsoring sim. to 2009.
I did read a blog post recently saying sponsorship bands were a bad idea, and gave some justification, but I can't find it now so that particular spanner is staying out of the works :)
Steven Feldman on October 10, 2012:
@Barry If you find your spanner, could you please lose it again until after Monday. Negotiating with sponsors without a framework would be a nightmare
Steven Feldman on October 15, 2012:
After talking with Peter Batty on Friday and relooking at Denver sponsorship options I think we might want to reduce the supporter level from £1,250 to £1,000
Jo Cook on October 15, 2012:
I'd support reducing the "supporter" level to £1000. I was wondering about offering the lower-level bands the choice of where they wanted to be, within reason, eg stream room OR geocamp OR reception but otherwise I'm happy with what we're offering.
I'm with Peter on the "prominent speaking slot" in any form, as it doesn't really fit with the ethos of FOSS4G, but I'm open to negotiation!
I could do with some help on the text, it's Friday pm and I am out of inspiration :(
I am assuming that the design group will be able to make it all look beautiful. We could also do with having it visible on the web site as soon as we can manage that. I really want to mail sponsors before the end of next week if I can.
There are a few discussion points which i have highlighted with comments, chip in. I have also slightly softened the wording on the presentation slots for the platinum and diamond sponsors
Steven Feldman on October 22, 2012:
I am going to be talking at the W3G unconference thing on Wednesday http://www.w3gconf.com/. Will be chatting to a few potential sponsors, when do the comms group think they will be able to give me something to send out?
Jo Cook on October 22, 2012:
Hi Steven,
It depends- if you want a swish full-colour brochure, then that needs to tie in with the website design. We've made contact with Naomi, so conversations can start happening, but I'm not sure we can have a full design by Wednesday.
Jo
Barry Rowlingson on October 22, 2012:
I could knock out a two-pager based on your google docs doc with some added fancyness by Weds, but:
Is this needed for print (real paper) for Wednesday? In that case we'd have to get a high-res or vector logo from Naomi quickly. Also, some high-res shots of the EMCC and possibly your good self (Steven) would be useful. Sponsors like to see the faces of those they are working with - and without icky pixellation.
If we can source those I could do a nice handout ready for print by Tuesday evening. You just need to find a print shop in that London that can run off N copies for us.
Any way, the google docs needs to be final - specifically the numbers and the text and your sidebar comments need resolving before I put mouse to inkscape (or maybe OODraw...)
Steven Feldman on October 22, 2012:
@Jo @Barry
I don't think I want to be handing out bits of paper on Wednesday but I would like to be able to say "I can send you a sponsorship brochure by xxx" whenever xxx is.
My thoughts were that this should be a pdf that I can attach to a mail shot and that the same content should be available on the web site in html format (that way I assume it will be searchable). If we can agree the content (which needs some feedback from others to the google doc) then we can produce an interim pdf until Barry K et al get the final design of the web site up.
I would prefer not to delay getting the sponsorship mailing out while waiting for web site design.
Jo Cook on October 22, 2012:
Hi Steven,
Sorry for not providing any feedback- I thought everything had been agreed at the last team-call.
I'm still not entirely clear what is needed by when though, sorry!
Do you want to be able to create an interim PDF by Wednesday? In which case, I would stay pretty minimal with the design and perhaps just include the blue and green osgeo/foss4g banner, which "proves it's official" if you know what I mean, and I agree that some photos would be nice. However, as always, I would not wish anyone to take much time over this as IMHO we don't want to introduce "brand and logo confusion" by coming up with a design for the brochure that then might not match what we end up with on the site. We don't have a finalised version of the logo yet- so I'd be wary about even using that.
A timeline for the finalised web design AND literature? We could aim for the end of November- would that be OK? Anything sooner would be more liable to slip, I think, though I'm happy to negotiate if people think we could realistically do it sooner.
Jo
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Content is just about finished. I have had some input from Ian and am open to last thoughts from others.
I don't want to hand out on Wednesday but I would like to be saying to people that i will be sending out details in the next few days. If I go firm on text by the end of today, could someone do something simple to turn text into a 2 pager with perhaps an image or 2 (one of the EMCC and one of a FOSS4G crowd at Denver for example) by end of week or early next. Could we also get the text up on a sponsorship page on the web site. We can revisit when the design for the web site is done.
steven
Peter Batty on October 23, 2012:
Hi Steven, I think the sponsorship brochure looks good.
A couple of questions on the sponsor benefits. I had quite a lot of concerns expressed to me in 2011 about not making FOSS4G "too commercial" and was quite sensitive to that. I've mentioned this a few times already, with things like not having sponsored lanyards, and not having sponsor names on T-shirts, for example.
Personally I think the sponsored lunches might fall into the same category, I would be inclined to drop those unless you really feel they are essential. Also I'm not sure about the email blast - we didn't do this, and I'm sure you will get complaints from some folks about being "spammed" if you do this, especially if they get marketing messages from sponsors who are not heavily focused on open source. So my inclination would be to skip those benefits too.
But at the same time I know you need to make a commercial success of things, so your call on what you think you need to do to attract sponsors.
Cheers, Peter.
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Peter (and others)
Thanks for feedback. Several have suggested dropping the sponsored lunches so that row will disappear shortly.
What do you (and others) think about opportunity to host a private lunch (really that is just making a room available)? I am having second thoughts and would drop that row as well.
Re mail blasts, they have been popular with sponsors at past events but I take the point re not being too spammy or pushy. I was going to put a footnote in that gave some guidance and gave ultimate approval of content to FOSS4G LOC. Thoughts?
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
I have made changes as suggested.
Speak now or forever hold your peace
Barry Rowlingson on October 23, 2012:
Any chance of a quick chat on the google document chat for a bit of copy-editing?
Barry Rowlingson on October 23, 2012:
Okay, I've done a bit of editing to make some sentences a bit less like several sentences run on and on with ands and ors. No meanings have been changed.
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Thanks Barry Jeremy has left one suggestion for a change on the email bit Any other thoughts?
Jeremy Morley on October 23, 2012:
I thought "email blast" was particularly spam-like in its implication. Maybe some more sensitive phrasing like "targeted messages in pre-conference information"?
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
@jeremy Changed to "communication"
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
That's it we are FINAL
Comms team can you create something for me to mail out and get the text on the web site
Thx
Jeremy Morley on October 23, 2012:
;-) Just slipped a couple of tweaks in a moment ago.
Jo Cook on October 29, 2012:
Hi Steven,
I've just tried to access the google doc version of the sponsorship leaflet, to post to the website, but I get an error when it tries to go onto the second page. I'll have another look tomorrow but you might need to send it to me by some other method if it is still playing up.
Jo
Steven Feldman on October 30, 2012:
Seems fine this morning but can send as file if you prefer, what format?
Jo Cook on October 30, 2012:
If you could, that would be great- just a word doc or open office, and a pdf so I can be sure the formatting is correct. For me, I can see the first page OK but if I try to go on to subsequent pages then I get an error.
Please don't tweet about them until I have got the mails out which is tomorrow morning's task, I'll post on this discussion when i have completed
Big thanks to Jo for her patience in getting everything looking right
Steven Feldman on November 1, 2012:
After a lot of mail merge nightmares I managed to get all of the mails out to the target list of sponsors this morning (unfortunately some will have received 2 mails as yesterday's glitches meant I knew some had been sent and some not sent but not to whom)
I am about to tweet the link to the sponsorship pages. Feel free to retweet.
Barry can you post details on the various mailing lists
If anyone thinks of extra targets add them to the sponsorship target list on google docs and also let me know
Now for some excellent news, Google have already got back to me and want a Gold package. No announcements please until they give the go ahead.
Smiling of North London
Steven Feldman on November 1, 2012:
Can the comms group get a press release out regarding the sponsorship packages?
Barry Rowlingson on November 1, 2012:
I've just written a first draft in a press release style in a new text document. Can others review, check, and then we greenlight. Where are our press release channels?
I'll also put an update to osgeo-discuss later today (once the hailstorm has stopped and I can get on my bike without getting hurt)
Barry Rowlingson on November 5, 2012:
I've just noticed that neither the google docs sponsorship brochure nor the two web pages on the 2013.foss4g.org site actually have a contact address for people who want to sponsor us!
On the web site someone would have to go to About FOSS4G, hit Contacts, and then at the bottom is a link to Steven's knowwhere consulting web form...
I might be able to set incoming mail to sponsor@2013.foss4g.org to redirect somewhere, which would seem to be optimal.
Steven Feldman on November 5, 2012:
Ouch that's a bad miss by me :(
Can you or Jo set up a mail address or just a link to the contact form on my web site (or you could use the wordpress plugin that I'm using, it's called Fast Secure Contact Form http://www.fastsecurecontactform.com/ )
If you are going to direct mail to me can you use my shfeldman@gmail.com account
Thanks for spotting Barry
Barry Rowlingson on November 5, 2012:
Bad miss by all of us!
Jo, can you check to see if incoming port 25 is allowed to 2013.foss4g.org? I think its in the amazon security groups settings somewhere...
I'm not sure that sendmail is even trying to accept on port 25 at the moment, so if it fails even after you've added the rule then I'll look into that.
Jo Cook on November 6, 2012:
Hi Barry
Added port 25 to the security group- let me know if you need anything else
Procedure is to add the alias to /etc/mail/aliases, then run 'newaliases', then "/etc/init.d/sendmail restart" (or possibly reload) or just run 'make',
Steven Feldman on November 6, 2012:
Doesn't having the email address on the sponsorship page open us up to loads of spam (all of which will end in my gmail account)?
Barry Rowlingson on November 6, 2012:
gmail does a fine job of filtering the hundreds of spams I get every day. I normally only see one per day, if that.
i'm a great believer in sticking email addresses on web pages, making it easy for the users to contact, and not using contact forms (people have to retype their email addresses), and not obfuscating with myname AT myaddress DOT com.
if you really dont want plain emails on the site then maybe there's a wordpress plugin that can obfuscate...
Steven Feldman on November 6, 2012:
OK let's try for a bit and see how it goes and if we start to get spammed we can switch to a contact form
Comments
Steven Feldman on October 10, 2012:
I think this is about right and no one apart from Mike has given me any feedback suggesting changes. The Supporter level is for the one man business that wants to support the event and have their logo on view but doesn't want to be pinned to a stand.
Give me some feedback on this before the call on Monday afternoon and I will incorporate your thoughts into a final proposal for approval in the call.
In the sponsor brochure or web page there should be an invitation to discuss custom packages if what we have on offer is not quite what a sponsor needs e.g. trade exhibition space for extra delegates or more branding around the venue.
Barry Rowlingson on October 10, 2012:
Peter Batty on October 10, 2012:
Also as I mentioned, I am quite strongly opposed to offering plenary speaking slots to sponsors. I'm concerned that several potential large sponsors might want to convey messages that aren't in line with what FOSS4G is about. It was not quite clear from Steven's doc what "prominent" speaking opportunity means? I think it's good to be clear on what this means.
Steven Feldman on October 10, 2012:
How about?
- Diamond - 1/2 (OS already in for 1) = 25/50k
- Platinum - 3/4 = £60/80k
- Gold - 6/8 = £60/80k
If we want to keep exclusive we would go at the lower end which would still bring in £145k if we sold all the top levels. I guess we could be even more exclusive but that might be underselling ourselves and could upset people.More to discuss on Monday
Steven Feldman on October 10, 2012:
A prominent speaking slot would definitely not be a plenary/keynote slot on main platform.
I was thinking about a slightly longer slot than the standard presentation to open a stream on day 2 or 3 - an opportunity to set the theme for the day which could go with the opportunity for diamond and platinums to sponsor (have branding in the room) a stream for a day as part of their package.
Barry Rowlingson on October 10, 2012:
2011: no limits (apologies to PB for wrongness)
2010: Premier: max 1 (E40,000), Platinum: max 4 (E20,000) all other levels unlimited
2009: Premier: max 1 (AU$50,000), Platinum: max 3 (AU$30,000) + gold/silver/bronze unlimited plus limited individual 'spot' sponsoring (dinner, bag, etc)
2008: Premier: max 1 (R500,000), Platinum: max 3 (R250,000) + gold,silver,brone unlimited plus spot sponsoring sim. to 2009.
I did read a blog post recently saying sponsorship bands were a bad idea, and gave some justification, but I can't find it now so that particular spanner is staying out of the works :)
Steven Feldman on October 10, 2012:
If you find your spanner, could you please lose it again until after Monday. Negotiating with sponsors without a framework would be a nightmare
Steven Feldman on October 15, 2012:
Jo Cook on October 15, 2012:
I'm with Peter on the "prominent speaking slot" in any form, as it doesn't really fit with the ethos of FOSS4G, but I'm open to negotiation!
Jo
Steven Feldman on October 19, 2012:
I have had a crack at a first draft sponsorship brochure (text and table only), you can have a look and comment at https://docs.google.com/document/d/10xCDvCyVkFsLuEwktptaTrP9eLFjdJ9KWos0EnIHpjk/edit
I could do with some help on the text, it's Friday pm and I am out of inspiration :(
I am assuming that the design group will be able to make it all look beautiful. We could also do with having it visible on the web site as soon as we can manage that.
I really want to mail sponsors before the end of next week if I can.
There are a few discussion points which i have highlighted with comments, chip in. I have also slightly softened the wording on the presentation slots for the platinum and diamond sponsors
Steven Feldman on October 22, 2012:
Jo Cook on October 22, 2012:
It depends- if you want a swish full-colour brochure, then that needs to tie in with the website design. We've made contact with Naomi, so conversations can start happening, but I'm not sure we can have a full design by Wednesday.
Jo
Barry Rowlingson on October 22, 2012:
fancyness by Weds, but:
Is this needed for print (real paper) for Wednesday? In that case we'd
have to get a high-res or vector logo from Naomi quickly. Also, some
high-res shots of the EMCC and possibly your good self (Steven) would be
useful. Sponsors like to see the faces of those they are working with - and
without icky pixellation.
If we can source those I could do a nice handout ready for print by
Tuesday evening. You just need to find a print shop in that London that can
run off N copies for us.
Any way, the google docs needs to be final - specifically the numbers and
the text and your sidebar comments need resolving before I put mouse to
inkscape (or maybe OODraw...)
Steven Feldman on October 22, 2012:
I don't think I want to be handing out bits of paper on Wednesday but I would like to be able to say "I can send you a sponsorship brochure by xxx" whenever xxx is.
My thoughts were that this should be a pdf that I can attach to a mail shot and that the same content should be available on the web site in html format (that way I assume it will be searchable). If we can agree the content (which needs some feedback from others to the google doc) then we can produce an interim pdf until Barry K et al get the final design of the web site up.
I would prefer not to delay getting the sponsorship mailing out while waiting for web site design.
Jo Cook on October 22, 2012:
Sorry for not providing any feedback- I thought everything had been agreed at the last team-call.
I'm still not entirely clear what is needed by when though, sorry!
Do you want to be able to create an interim PDF by Wednesday? In which case, I would stay pretty minimal with the design and perhaps just include the blue and green osgeo/foss4g banner, which "proves it's official" if you know what I mean, and I agree that some photos would be nice. However, as always, I would not wish anyone to take much time over this as IMHO we don't want to introduce "brand and logo confusion" by coming up with a design for the brochure that then might not match what we end up with on the site. We don't have a finalised version of the logo yet- so I'd be wary about even using that.
A timeline for the finalised web design AND literature? We could aim for the end of November- would that be OK? Anything sooner would be more liable to slip, I think, though I'm happy to negotiate if people think we could realistically do it sooner.
Jo
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
I don't want to hand out on Wednesday but I would like to be saying to people that i will be sending out details in the next few days. If I go firm on text by the end of today, could someone do something simple to turn text into a 2 pager with perhaps an image or 2 (one of the EMCC and one of a FOSS4G crowd at Denver for example) by end of week or early next. Could we also get the text up on a sponsorship page on the web site. We can revisit when the design for the web site is done.
steven
Peter Batty on October 23, 2012:
A couple of questions on the sponsor benefits. I had quite a lot of concerns expressed to me in 2011 about not making FOSS4G "too commercial" and was quite sensitive to that. I've mentioned this a few times already, with things like not having sponsored lanyards, and not having sponsor names on T-shirts, for example.
Personally I think the sponsored lunches might fall into the same category, I would be inclined to drop those unless you really feel they are essential. Also I'm not sure about the email blast - we didn't do this, and I'm sure you will get complaints from some folks about being "spammed" if you do this, especially if they get marketing messages from sponsors who are not heavily focused on open source. So my inclination would be to skip those benefits too.
But at the same time I know you need to make a commercial success of things, so your call on what you think you need to do to attract sponsors.
Cheers,
Peter.
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Thanks for feedback. Several have suggested dropping the sponsored lunches so that row will disappear shortly.
What do you (and others) think about opportunity to host a private lunch (really that is just making a room available)? I am having second thoughts and would drop that row as well.
Re mail blasts, they have been popular with sponsors at past events but I take the point re not being too spammy or pushy. I was going to put a footnote in that gave some guidance and gave ultimate approval of content to FOSS4G LOC. Thoughts?
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Speak now or forever hold your peace
Barry Rowlingson on October 23, 2012:
Barry Rowlingson on October 23, 2012:
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Jeremy has left one suggestion for a change on the email bit
Any other thoughts?
Jeremy Morley on October 23, 2012:
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Steven Feldman on October 23, 2012:
Comms team can you create something for me to mail out and get the text on the web site
Thx
Jeremy Morley on October 23, 2012:
Jo Cook on October 29, 2012:
I've just tried to access the google doc version of the sponsorship leaflet, to post to the website, but I get an error when it tries to go onto the second page. I'll have another look tomorrow but you might need to send it to me by some other method if it is still playing up.
Jo
Steven Feldman on October 30, 2012:
Jo Cook on October 30, 2012:
Thanks
Jo
Steven Feldman on October 30, 2012:
Please don't tweet about them until I have got the mails out which is tomorrow morning's task, I'll post on this discussion when i have completed
Big thanks to Jo for her patience in getting everything looking right
Steven Feldman on November 1, 2012:
I am about to tweet the link to the sponsorship pages. Feel free to retweet.
Barry can you post details on the various mailing lists
If anyone thinks of extra targets add them to the sponsorship target list on google docs and also let me know
Now for some excellent news, Google have already got back to me and want a Gold package. No announcements please until they give the go ahead.
Smiling of North London
Steven Feldman on November 1, 2012:
Barry Rowlingson on November 1, 2012:
Barry Rowlingson on November 2, 2012:
I'll also put an update to osgeo-discuss later today (once the hailstorm has stopped and I can get on my bike without getting hurt)
Barry Rowlingson on November 5, 2012:
On the web site someone would have to go to About FOSS4G, hit Contacts, and then at the bottom is a link to Steven's knowwhere consulting web form...
I might be able to set incoming mail to sponsor@2013.foss4g.org to redirect somewhere, which would seem to be optimal.
Steven Feldman on November 5, 2012:
Can you or Jo set up a mail address or just a link to the contact form on my web site (or you could use the wordpress plugin that I'm using, it's called Fast Secure Contact Form http://www.fastsecurecontactform.com/ )
If you are going to direct mail to me can you use my shfeldman@gmail.com account
Thanks for spotting Barry
Barry Rowlingson on November 5, 2012:
Jo, can you check to see if incoming port 25 is allowed to 2013.foss4g.org?
I think its in the amazon security groups settings somewhere...
I'm not sure that sendmail is even trying to accept on port 25 at the
moment, so if it fails even after you've added the rule then I'll look into
that.
Jo Cook on November 6, 2012:
Added port 25 to the security group- let me know if you need anything else
Jo
Barry Rowlingson on November 6, 2012:
Any other email aliases we might want right now?
Procedure is to add the alias to /etc/mail/aliases, then run 'newaliases', then "/etc/init.d/sendmail restart" (or possibly reload) or just run 'make',
Steven Feldman on November 6, 2012:
Barry Rowlingson on November 6, 2012:
i'm a great believer in sticking email addresses on web pages, making it easy for the users to contact, and not using contact forms (people have to retype their email addresses), and not obfuscating with myname AT myaddress DOT com.
if you really dont want plain emails on the site then maybe there's a wordpress plugin that can obfuscate...
Steven Feldman on November 6, 2012: