Speaking slots...
Pete Prodoehl
I noticed that BarCampPhilly has (optional) reserved speaking slots
available to sponsors:
http://www.barcampphilly.org/sponsor/
I was wondering what people thought of that?
For BarCampMilwaukee we've sort of gone by the 'rules' that sponsors who
donate more do not get any more special treatment. We do have a minimum
of $200 to get the sponsor name on the shirt, logo on the web site, and
name on the wall at the event, but we've always made it clear that there
is no keynote, no speaking slot, no sales pitches, no special treatment.
We aim to level the playing ground so the local tech startup is equal to
Google or Adobe as far as exposure and thanks for making the event happen.
So what do people think about 'levels' and reserved speaking slots?
thanks...
Pete
--
RasterWeb!
http://rasterweb.net/raster/
Gregg Pollack
I can't speak for the whole barcamp community, but I did something
similar at BarCampOrlando. I think as long as you sell reserved talk
time like you did, you're okay. What do I mean by this?
All talks at BarCamp should non-commercial in nature, right? I
made sure all the sponsors who pre-reserved a talk time understood
this. If their company produced a commercial product which they did
want to talk about, I made sure they weren't going to be selling the
product, but rather talking about how it was developed and the
technology involved.
The other reason I enjoyed doing a few pre-reserved spots was that
I was able to start out the whiteboard with a few talks filled in.
There's nothing worse then having a crowd of people standing around an
empty whiteboard, nobody wanting to make the first move. So if the
board magically appears with a few spots filled in, well.. there's no
ice to break.
Lastly, I doubt many people at our barcamp knew we had sponsored
talks (which is fine with me). It was not something I wrote on the
whiteboard on the day of, since the sponsored talks had to follow the
same rules as the non-sponsored talks (being non-commercial).
So when it really comes down to it, having a "reserved" talk time
really doesn't mean much, anyone can show up early and sign up for a
talk. In my mind the only purpose of having these is to give the
sponsors a perception that they're getting additional value for their
money and breaking the ice with the whiteboard.
Just my two bits, I'd be interested to know what others think,
-Gregg
Julius
Reserving speaking slots is just wrong and makes a BarCamp a
traditional conference.
BarCampLondon 5 did that and sparked a revolution in the forum of the
event upsetting both participants and the sponsor itself who was not
informed and did not agree.
As per the rules:
6th Rule: No pre-scheduled presentations, no tourists.
Who is perpetrating such approach is just spoiling the concept and
trying to push a conventional, controlled method.
I am going to attend a *camp this weekend whose 60% of the schedule is
already there. The organizer says it is to help newbies but I think
newbies should get the thrill of deciding sessions.
I think what is happening is that the human being wants to control and
"feed the baby" or possibly make the sponsor happy.
The whole community should complain and report such behaviour.
Julius
JP Toto
I mostly said what Gregg just said. I was at the last Barcamp Orlando and I can vouch that the points Gregg is making about the reserved spots are totally valid. I had one company ask me about this specifically and I suggested to them that they shouldn't sell their product or service but rather talk about a challenge when developing it. It worked out great.
Having said that I realize that this approach is a little bit left of center so we'll be monitoring how it works out for Barcamp Philly. So far the response has been very positive and the people who have asked about it have been very receptive to taking some direction.
Thanks!
JP Toto james....@gmail.com http://www.30points.com
JP Toto
about it. I went to Barcamp Orlando and they had a similar perc
structure for their sponsors. I was worried about it originally but in
practice it takes care of itself. Every "reserved" speaking slot I
went to talked about programming or creative challenges they faced at
their company. They intro'd with a little about what they do to set
context but it was far from a sales pitch.
In this kind of situation you can rely on a "market forces" trend. For
example, if on the signup board, Acme Website Inc puts a topic up
saying "All about Acme Inc", nobody will go to that session. If,
however, their topic is "Social Media Learnings we've had and
challenges, etc" then people are likely to go and see what challenges
that company has faced and how they overcame it.
I'm also making sure to convey this sentiment to our sponsors. One
even asked this question specifically and I directed them accordingly.
They were very receptive.
This is a very good point Pete brought up. It' something we're trying
and we'll be monitoring it to see how it turns out.
Thanks!
JP Toto
http://www.barcampphilly.org
Christopher St John
>
> Sponsoring is fine and I agree with your approach.
>
> Reserving speaking slots is just wrong and makes a BarCamp a
> traditional conference.
>
Well, yeah.
Pre-scheduled slots are a bit fishy (and would probably disqualify
you from being a pure BarCamp). Actually selling the slots pretty
clearly is outside the BarCamp umbrella. Pretty far outside,
actually.
If the term is to have any meaning at all, there have to be some
sort of limits, however fuzzy and broad.
> I am going to attend a *camp this weekend whose 60% of the schedule is
> already there. The organizer says it is to help newbies but I think
> newbies should get the thrill of deciding sessions.
>
We ran into this with the first BarCamp Dallas. I was pretty
nervous at first, but as it turns out people had no trouble at
all with the concept. Trusting attendees to do (and be) the
right thing is hard, but it's very core. I'd encourage the organizer
to email this list (or me privately) and I'm sure we can present
a lot of very solid empirical evidence that it really does in
fact work :-)
That necessary trust is violated by selling slots to the
sponsors. There are a bunch of corollary problems with
the approach: pre-schedule slots encourage people to
show up, lecture, then leave. Selling slots re-creates
the experts-vs-amateurs atmosphere BarCamps reject.
Etc, etc.
-cks
--
Christopher St. John
http://artofsystems.blogspot.com
Christopher St John
>
> This is a fair point and one that's not lost on me. I've thought a lot
> about it. I went to Barcamp Orlando and they had a similar perc
> structure for their sponsors. I was worried about it originally but in
> practice it takes care of itself. Every "reserved" speaking slot I
> went to talked about programming or creative challenges they faced at
> their company. They intro'd with a little about what they do to set
> context but it was far from a sales pitch.
>
It's not about the topics. It's about community and participation.
The conference you describe sounds great, I'd probably go, but
it's just not a BarCamp.
The whole point is that the Camp may turn out to be "about"
something totally different than what you expect, based on
who shows up. Think it's going to be about programming? Well,
you may just be wrong. It may turn out to be about graphic
design, or microfinance, or whatever else the passion and
imagination of the participants generates.
Pre-scheduling and selling slots pretty much stops all that
sort of thing.
Again, it's all great, nothing wrong with experimenting with
new kinds of conferences, but it's by definition no longer a
BarCamp.
Julius
I tried to talk to the organizer but the kind of attitude is "This is
my BarCamp and I know what it's best for the people coming"
As for the other responses I agree with Christopher saying that it
will probably be a great conference but not a BarCamp.
Looks to me like the trend of uncreative event designers is to exploit
the BarCamp formula to "engage" with campers while selling big chunks
of sponsorship.
I suggest there should be a Camp Buster team to make sure the rules
are respected and nobody is taking advantage of the model, such as
they did in Italy with Blogfest which angered the blogging community.
Julius
On Oct 1, 5:02 pm, "Christopher St John" <ckstj...@gmail.com> wrote:
Gregg Pollack
the difficulty of finding sponsors in smaller cities who haven't ever
heard of a BarCamp before.
For example, in any big city in California you're going to be able to
find more companies willing to give out money to BarCamp. These
companies understand the money they give is more for "supporting the
community" rather then "advertising their products".
When starting up a BarCamp in a new city... Sometimes you may need to
employ more commercial tactics to get enough money to produce a good
event.
IMHO, if that's what it takes at first to get the sponsors you need to
run a good event, it might be considered a necessary evil. I dunno.
Hopefully when people start to "get it", you'll be able to attract
sponsors who realize the benefits of "supporting the community"
-Gregg
JP Toto
I don't necessarily disagree with what's been said so far and it's been a difficult needle to thread to try and find a happy medium to get sponsors and participants. The reserved speaking spots were just that. Reserved. No topic had been discussed and I gave specific direction about what would be expected and tolerated.
Having said all that, I've decided to remove the reserved speaking spot from the list of percs sponsors receive. If it means we'll have to work harder to get sponsors then so be it. We've got a chip-in donation system for individuals to kick in any amount as well. Perhaps some folks on the board would like to help us get barcamp off the ground in Philadelphia?
Thanks for the feedback everyone.
JP Toto james....@gmail.com http://www.barcampphilly.org
Julius
I organized ecoCamp in Conversano (Bari) Italy 20,000 inhabitants. We
got everything covered from location to buffet. We got national media
coverage and 80 people attending and satisfaction was up to the roof.
You do not have to change the format if you can't make it. If you
can't make it, then simply don't do it, there is no need to make it
look like a traditional conference.
A lot of people do not use linux because they (stupidly) think is more
difficult, that does not make Linus Torvalds make it look like Windows
though.
I am all for the sponsors and I appreciate commercial support but it
is not vital, I am more than happy to wait to have sponsors at
BarCamp's conditions rather than having to spoil a community concept
for the sake having the event at all costs,
Plus rules are there for a reason. Surely not to be broken.
Julius
On Oct 1, 5:50 pm, "Gregg Pollack" <greggpoll...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem with this sort of attitude, is that people seem to forget
> the difficulty of finding sponsors in smaller cities who haven't ever
> heard of a BarCamp before.
>
> For example, in any big city in California you're going to be able to
> find more companies willing to give out money to BarCamp. These
> companies understand the money they give is more for "supporting the
> community" rather then "advertising their products".
>
> When starting up a BarCamp in a new city... Sometimes you may need to
> employ more commercial tactics to get enough money to produce a good
> event.
>
> IMHO, if that's what it takes at first to get the sponsors you need to
> run a good event, it might be considered a necessary evil. I dunno.
>
> Hopefully when people start to "get it", you'll be able to attract
> sponsors who realize the benefits of "supporting the community"
>
> -Gregg
>
Christopher St John
>
> When starting up a BarCamp in a new city... Sometimes you may need to
> employ more commercial tactics to get enough money to produce a good
> event.
>
It depends on how you define "good", though.
There's a temptation to define it as "good t-shirts" "a good number of
people" and "good food".
I'd suggest a different definition: "good conversations between whoever
shows up"
Note that the first set of definitions requires $$$, but second doesn't
require any money at all. It does require an awful lot of trust in
the community, and nerves of steel for the morning of the event, but
those things have no price :-)
-cks
carmen
if you've got a location, that's all you need to run a BarCamp. You're
completely missing the point
if you think you need lots of sponsors and big brands. People go to
BarCamps because
they're sick and tired of conventional conferences and in a real
BarCamp spirit
they should even be prepared to bring their own food if none is
provided (read 'sponsored by').
Carmen
On 1 Oct, 17:50, "Gregg Pollack" <greggpoll...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The problem with this sort of attitude, is that people seem to forget
> the difficulty of finding sponsors in smaller cities who haven't ever
> heard of a BarCamp before.
>
> For example, in any big city in California you're going to be able to
> find more companies willing to give out money to BarCamp. These
> companies understand the money they give is more for "supporting the
> community" rather then "advertising their products".
>
> When starting up a BarCamp in a new city... Sometimes you may need to
> employ more commercial tactics to get enough money to produce a good
> event.
>
> IMHO, if that's what it takes at first to get the sponsors you need to
> run a good event, it might be considered a necessary evil. I dunno.
>
> Hopefully when people start to "get it", you'll be able to attract
> sponsors who realize the benefits of "supporting the community"
>
> -Gregg
>
Julius
I can definitely help you out pushing the event in Philadelphia.
Shout if you need help.
Julius
twitter: tojulius
Raines Cohen
participants to attract the resources necessary. No projector? No
prob, someone might bring one, or there's always whiteboards and
talking. No food? Make it potluck or BYO. No venue funding? Find
somewhere free.
Instead of starting with the assumption that it includes x, y and z,
all of which are expensive and require sponsorship, why not start with
the assumption that what matters is getting the invitation out to get
the right people to the room... and whoever shows up are the right
people. And if people have fun at the first event, they'll remember
it, and want to chip in to get associated with that event the next
time 'round.
Raines, *Camp Counselor
Pete Prodoehl
> This is a fair point and one that's not lost on me. I've thought a lot
> about it. I went to Barcamp Orlando and they had a similar perc
> structure for their sponsors. I was worried about it originally but in
> practice it takes care of itself. Every "reserved" speaking slot I
> went to talked about programming or creative challenges they faced at
> their company. They intro'd with a little about what they do to set
> context but it was far from a sales pitch.
At BarCampMilwaukee2 we definitely had a session by someone (who was not
even a sponsor!) which was clearly a sales pitch. Some people walked
out, but some stayed for the whole session (maybe afraid to exercise
their "two feet")
I ended up talking to the person at the end of the session (I was told
about it near the end, and sat in on the last 10 minutes or so) and
after they put out brochures and business cards, I had a brief talk with
them, explaining that a few people walked out and were saying it was
just a sales pitch. The woman denied that it was, defending the material
she covered, but consensus was, it was pitchy.
She did not show up at BarCampMilwaukee3... and really, that's the only
incident I've ever had to deal with.
Pete
Pete Prodoehl
> To Gregg's point, this is the first Barcamp we're having in Philadelphia
> and I'm trying to be sensitive to the great tech culture and
> expectations that is already established here. We've got a lot of
> meetups and conferences, especially this fall, and I'm doing everything
> I can to position Barcamp Philly for success.
>
> I don't necessarily disagree with what's been said so far and it's been
> a difficult needle to thread to try and find a happy medium to get
> sponsors and participants. The reserved speaking spots were just that.
> Reserved. No topic had been discussed and I gave specific direction
> about what would be expected and tolerated.
>
> Having said all that, I've decided to remove the reserved speaking spot
> from the list of percs sponsors receive. If it means we'll have to work
> harder to get sponsors then so be it. We've got a chip-in donation
> system for individuals to kick in any amount as well. Perhaps some folks
> on the board would like to help us get barcamp off the ground in
> Philadelphia?
>
> Thanks for the feedback everyone.
It's good to set goals... First thing you need is a venue. If you can't
afford one, find a free one. Second, you need participants.... from
there, the "nice to have" items like food, projectors, bandwidth,
sponsors, etc. are all great, but if you can't get them, I think you can
still do a BarCamp.
We've had 3 BarCamps in Milwaukee (as well as a DrupalCamp) and it
sounds like people are interested in more smaller, focused *Camp events.
If these can't get much sponsorship, we'll scale the events
appropriately to meet the funds we do have.
Pete