Objective of Geek Week?
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Jeff Moriarty
Feb 28, 2009, 6:07:37 PM2/28/09
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Howdy,
I think I know most of the people on the list, but just in case: my name is Jeff Moriarty, and I'm one of the organizers behind Ignite Phoenix. I like the idea of Geek Week in the general discussions I've had with Brian and others, but I'm fuzzy on some of the details of what we're actually discussing. It strikes me that we really need to have a clear objective for Geek Week, and understand what it looks like, before we start discussing sponsorship and locations. Here are some of my thoughts/concerns, and I'd appreciate input:
Thoughts?
Jeff.
I think I know most of the people on the list, but just in case: my name is Jeff Moriarty, and I'm one of the organizers behind Ignite Phoenix. I like the idea of Geek Week in the general discussions I've had with Brian and others, but I'm fuzzy on some of the details of what we're actually discussing. It strikes me that we really need to have a clear objective for Geek Week, and understand what it looks like, before we start discussing sponsorship and locations. Here are some of my thoughts/concerns, and I'd appreciate input:
- Each of the main events listed are pretty big all by themselves. When I left Podcamp last year, I was beat. There is no way I could do something like Startup Weekend right afterwards. Put 2, 3, or more of these back-to-back, and are people really going to have the energy for it?
- If the events aren't back to back, but are held on the same days, are we going to cannibalize part of the attendees list? Many people attend one or more of these events, and forcing them to pick between things on the same day could hurt some of the events.
- Several of these are held on weekends just so people can easily get away from their workload. If we end up spreading this over a full week, Monday to Friday, I think we could lose a lot of people who can't make the mid-week events.
- Who are we targetting? Some of these events have different target audiences. There could be some leveraging of bringing more people together via the differences, but we could also really confuse people. Can we define a signle audience for so many different events?
- Some of the events are free, some are paid. Are we talking about making one fee for the whole week? Some of the free events may not care for that. On the flip slide, if only half the week is free, it could create gaps for people who aren't attending the paid portions.
- Do we really know who would travel to Phoenix for this, or is it mainly for local folks? Many cities have their own variants of some (or all) of these events.
Thoughts?
Jeff.
Evo Terra
Mar 1, 2009, 3:55:44 PM3/1/09
to geek-w...@googlegroups.com
Jeff,
So this event would be sort of a "tasting" of the other events?
These are interesting thoughts that need further discussion. I've not
attended SXSW, but I do attend a large (60,000 people) 4-day event
each year in Atlanta. It's rather exhausting as an attendee.
E.
So this event would be sort of a "tasting" of the other events?
These are interesting thoughts that need further discussion. I've not
attended SXSW, but I do attend a large (60,000 people) 4-day event
each year in Atlanta. It's rather exhausting as an attendee.
E.
Brian Shaler
Mar 1, 2009, 4:43:40 PM3/1/09
to geek-w...@googlegroups.com
This conversation actually started in March of 2008, mostly between
Francine and myself. It has evolved quite a bit since then. My
original plan was to create someone along the lines of the Interactive
portion of SXSW. Instead of trying to invent a large conference out of
thin air, it would make more sense to build up something that already
exists. That became Geek Week - a festival of tech events that are all
separately and independently organized, but strategically planned
around a specific time or place.
This distributes the planning of content among all of the existing
groups/teams/committees. It opens the door to better sponsorship
opportunities - sponsors can contribute to one event or all of them.
As they are all existing events, they have running numbers of
attendees and some have media kits, which makes sponsorship easier
than a brand new conference where all you have is an idea to sell.
One of the goals of Geek Week is to cross-pollinate the groups we
already have. By having an event that is made up of those groups, such
crossover is inevitable.
I think it would be a good idea to draft up a document explaining the
mission and goals of Geek Week, so people can jump in a year into this
conversation and get caught up quickly.
> Each of the main events listed are pretty big all by themselves. When I left
> Podcamp last year, I was beat. There is no way I could do something like
> Startup Weekend right afterwards. Put 2, 3, or more of these back-to-back,
> and are people really going to have the energy for it?
SXSW Interactive is proof that this won't be a concern. There are
5,000 - 10,000 attendees and it runs for almost a week. Each day is
significantly longer and MUCH more exhausting than a day of PodCamp.
The daytime programming is similar -- countless hallway conversations
and scrambling around to find the right sessions to attend. However,
the exhausting part is the 6+ hours of parties -- loud music, packed
bars, and walking from party to party. Even pooling together these
events, I don't think we will be able to put on as exhausting of an
event. We won't have a half dozen companies every night throwing
parties at rented bars for people to hop between.
With big events, the energy of the event carries you through it. The
more exhausted you are afterward, the more likely you are to tell
people it was a mind-blowing experience.
As a comparison, this event will be in between PodCamp and SXSW, and
probably closer to the PodCamp side.
> If the events aren't back to back, but are held on the same days, are we
> going to cannibalize part of the attendees list? Many people attend one or
> more of these events, and forcing them to pick between things on the same
> day could hurt some of the events.
The goal with scheduling will be to put events with the most overlap
on different days. There WILL be some people will have interests in
multiple fields (like development and design) but I think the
cannibalization will be minimal if planned right. Any cannibalization
that occurs should be made up for in volumes by the increased
cross-promotion and extra exposure the event will get.
> Several of these are held on weekends just so people can easily get away
> from their workload. If we end up spreading this over a full week, Monday to
> Friday, I think we could lose a lot of people who can't make the mid-week
> events.
Not everyone can get time off work, but as this is an industry
conference, holding it during the week is less of an issue. Jeff, as
an Intel employee, have you ever attended a tech event on a weekday?
Chances are the answer is yes. It is likely Intel has actually paid
for you to attend an industry-related event. It is also pretty likely
you have taken a day off work to pay your own way to an
industry-related event. I don't know either for sure, but it's an
observation of many people in a technology-related position. Because
technology is always changing, it is important for companies to invest
in keeping their employees educated with what is new and upcoming in
their field.
Self-employment is very common for people in the technology industry
-- either founding startups or doing freelance/contract work.
Because of the compartmentalization of the event, people who WON'T
attend on a weekday morning/afternoon, they don't have to pay for a
full event and only attend on weeknights and weekend days. Something
like Desert Code Camp (which is usually held on a weekend) would
actually do very well as a weekday event, because it's educational and
there is content specific to people's jobs. Something like Ignite,
which is more entertainment, would fit well as a weekday evening
event.
> Who are we targetting? Some of these events have different target
> audiences. There could be some leveraging of bringing more people together
> via the differences, but we could also really confuse people. Can we define
> a signle audience for so many different events?
The audience is any field based on or has a tangent to technology.
"based on" - example: a programmer or web designer
"tangent to" - example: small business owners, such as a coffee shop
owner interesting in utilizing a web site or social media to get more
business
> Some of the events are free, some are paid. Are we talking about making one
> fee for the whole week? Some of the free events may not care for that. On
> the flip slide, if only half the week is free, it could create gaps for
> people who aren't attending the paid portions.
This is a much more complicated manner and is still open for
discussion. Personally, I think we need to do everything we can to
keep the free events free. There are different types of paid events.
Here are two very different examples: Startup Weekend Phoenix ($40)
and AZ Entrepreneurship Conference ($150)
Startup Weekend:
There are two reasons why this is a paid event. 1.) it helps cover
costs, such as food. 2.) it makes sure people are serious about
attending. The goal is to result in a product/service/business, and if
people pay for it, they are less likely to be flaky. This event can do
just as well with 20 attendees as it would with 100. We had 80, and
broke off into about 7 groups. With Geek Week, there would be more
time for promotion (it was put together in about 8 weeks) and it would
get more exposure. There is a good chance there would be more
attendees. However, if it's "competing" with a free event, there IS a
chance it would lose some of those potential attendees. I'm one of the
organizers of this event, and I don't see that as being an issue that
would prevent me from being able to hold a successful Startup Weekend.
AZ Entrepreneurship Conference:
This is a paid event that is intended to raise funds for a charity. If
you lower the price without changing anything else, you're taking
money away from the charity. With Geek Week, the goal would be to
lower the costs of throwing the event so a higher percentage of the
ticket price goes to the beneficiary. This way, the ticket price could
be lowered, but the same amount per person would reach the charity.
> Do we really know who would travel to Phoenix for this, or is it mainly for
> local folks? Many cities have their own variants of some (or all) of these
> events.
We don't know exactly how many people would come in from out of town.
If this year goes well, I would expect to see people from out of town
wish they hadn't missed it this year, and come to the next one. One of
the goals of Geek Week is to grow the Phoenix tech community by giving
local events more exposure. Each event reaches new people, and by
putting them together, we can amplify that.
On a side note, what many cities DON'T have during November is t-shirt weather!
Francine and myself. It has evolved quite a bit since then. My
original plan was to create someone along the lines of the Interactive
portion of SXSW. Instead of trying to invent a large conference out of
thin air, it would make more sense to build up something that already
exists. That became Geek Week - a festival of tech events that are all
separately and independently organized, but strategically planned
around a specific time or place.
This distributes the planning of content among all of the existing
groups/teams/committees. It opens the door to better sponsorship
opportunities - sponsors can contribute to one event or all of them.
As they are all existing events, they have running numbers of
attendees and some have media kits, which makes sponsorship easier
than a brand new conference where all you have is an idea to sell.
One of the goals of Geek Week is to cross-pollinate the groups we
already have. By having an event that is made up of those groups, such
crossover is inevitable.
I think it would be a good idea to draft up a document explaining the
mission and goals of Geek Week, so people can jump in a year into this
conversation and get caught up quickly.
> Each of the main events listed are pretty big all by themselves. When I left
> Podcamp last year, I was beat. There is no way I could do something like
> Startup Weekend right afterwards. Put 2, 3, or more of these back-to-back,
> and are people really going to have the energy for it?
5,000 - 10,000 attendees and it runs for almost a week. Each day is
significantly longer and MUCH more exhausting than a day of PodCamp.
The daytime programming is similar -- countless hallway conversations
and scrambling around to find the right sessions to attend. However,
the exhausting part is the 6+ hours of parties -- loud music, packed
bars, and walking from party to party. Even pooling together these
events, I don't think we will be able to put on as exhausting of an
event. We won't have a half dozen companies every night throwing
parties at rented bars for people to hop between.
With big events, the energy of the event carries you through it. The
more exhausted you are afterward, the more likely you are to tell
people it was a mind-blowing experience.
As a comparison, this event will be in between PodCamp and SXSW, and
probably closer to the PodCamp side.
> If the events aren't back to back, but are held on the same days, are we
> going to cannibalize part of the attendees list? Many people attend one or
> more of these events, and forcing them to pick between things on the same
> day could hurt some of the events.
on different days. There WILL be some people will have interests in
multiple fields (like development and design) but I think the
cannibalization will be minimal if planned right. Any cannibalization
that occurs should be made up for in volumes by the increased
cross-promotion and extra exposure the event will get.
> Several of these are held on weekends just so people can easily get away
> from their workload. If we end up spreading this over a full week, Monday to
> Friday, I think we could lose a lot of people who can't make the mid-week
> events.
conference, holding it during the week is less of an issue. Jeff, as
an Intel employee, have you ever attended a tech event on a weekday?
Chances are the answer is yes. It is likely Intel has actually paid
for you to attend an industry-related event. It is also pretty likely
you have taken a day off work to pay your own way to an
industry-related event. I don't know either for sure, but it's an
observation of many people in a technology-related position. Because
technology is always changing, it is important for companies to invest
in keeping their employees educated with what is new and upcoming in
their field.
Self-employment is very common for people in the technology industry
-- either founding startups or doing freelance/contract work.
Because of the compartmentalization of the event, people who WON'T
attend on a weekday morning/afternoon, they don't have to pay for a
full event and only attend on weeknights and weekend days. Something
like Desert Code Camp (which is usually held on a weekend) would
actually do very well as a weekday event, because it's educational and
there is content specific to people's jobs. Something like Ignite,
which is more entertainment, would fit well as a weekday evening
event.
> Who are we targetting? Some of these events have different target
> audiences. There could be some leveraging of bringing more people together
> via the differences, but we could also really confuse people. Can we define
> a signle audience for so many different events?
"based on" - example: a programmer or web designer
"tangent to" - example: small business owners, such as a coffee shop
owner interesting in utilizing a web site or social media to get more
business
> Some of the events are free, some are paid. Are we talking about making one
> fee for the whole week? Some of the free events may not care for that. On
> the flip slide, if only half the week is free, it could create gaps for
> people who aren't attending the paid portions.
discussion. Personally, I think we need to do everything we can to
keep the free events free. There are different types of paid events.
Here are two very different examples: Startup Weekend Phoenix ($40)
and AZ Entrepreneurship Conference ($150)
Startup Weekend:
There are two reasons why this is a paid event. 1.) it helps cover
costs, such as food. 2.) it makes sure people are serious about
attending. The goal is to result in a product/service/business, and if
people pay for it, they are less likely to be flaky. This event can do
just as well with 20 attendees as it would with 100. We had 80, and
broke off into about 7 groups. With Geek Week, there would be more
time for promotion (it was put together in about 8 weeks) and it would
get more exposure. There is a good chance there would be more
attendees. However, if it's "competing" with a free event, there IS a
chance it would lose some of those potential attendees. I'm one of the
organizers of this event, and I don't see that as being an issue that
would prevent me from being able to hold a successful Startup Weekend.
AZ Entrepreneurship Conference:
This is a paid event that is intended to raise funds for a charity. If
you lower the price without changing anything else, you're taking
money away from the charity. With Geek Week, the goal would be to
lower the costs of throwing the event so a higher percentage of the
ticket price goes to the beneficiary. This way, the ticket price could
be lowered, but the same amount per person would reach the charity.
> Do we really know who would travel to Phoenix for this, or is it mainly for
> local folks? Many cities have their own variants of some (or all) of these
> events.
If this year goes well, I would expect to see people from out of town
wish they hadn't missed it this year, and come to the next one. One of
the goals of Geek Week is to grow the Phoenix tech community by giving
local events more exposure. Each event reaches new people, and by
putting them together, we can amplify that.
On a side note, what many cities DON'T have during November is t-shirt weather!
Jeff Moriarty
Mar 1, 2009, 5:57:55 PM3/1/09
to geek-w...@googlegroups.com
Brian,
Thanks for the detailed response. I know you've thought about this extensively, and I think the explanatory document would help. Even know I think it would help get us all in synch.
I have to admit to not being entirely convinced on the exhaustion issue. Something like SXSW is much more of a buffet, where Podcamp is a focused meal. Yes, there are open tracks, but it is a single topic that I think concentrates audience, participation, and energy. Putting these items back to back just feels fundamentally different to me than a SXSW approach.
For Intel to send me anywhere for a week, I need a business reason. I have several that are covering me for SXSW. I can name people from nearly every Fortune 100 company going to SXSW for some reason or another, but not sure how their reasons (as I'm aware of them) would translate here. Not that they wouldn't - but I think they would need a very crisp picture of what this week offers. Maybe that document, again.
I have no problem with free and paid events - don't get me wrong. The paid ones have good reasons to charge a fee, and the free ones have good reasons to be free. I just want to make sure we don't make it messy.
Have you considered doing a mini-SXSW-style conf as a start? Do 4 days of blended tracks of all these different events, charge a small fee, and then use that as a way to draw people to the main events? Creating something from the components of these conferences, rather than the conferences themselves, might be an easier launching point. Then if takes off we work on moving the conferences themselves.
Jeff.
Thanks for the detailed response. I know you've thought about this extensively, and I think the explanatory document would help. Even know I think it would help get us all in synch.
I have to admit to not being entirely convinced on the exhaustion issue. Something like SXSW is much more of a buffet, where Podcamp is a focused meal. Yes, there are open tracks, but it is a single topic that I think concentrates audience, participation, and energy. Putting these items back to back just feels fundamentally different to me than a SXSW approach.
For Intel to send me anywhere for a week, I need a business reason. I have several that are covering me for SXSW. I can name people from nearly every Fortune 100 company going to SXSW for some reason or another, but not sure how their reasons (as I'm aware of them) would translate here. Not that they wouldn't - but I think they would need a very crisp picture of what this week offers. Maybe that document, again.
I have no problem with free and paid events - don't get me wrong. The paid ones have good reasons to charge a fee, and the free ones have good reasons to be free. I just want to make sure we don't make it messy.
Have you considered doing a mini-SXSW-style conf as a start? Do 4 days of blended tracks of all these different events, charge a small fee, and then use that as a way to draw people to the main events? Creating something from the components of these conferences, rather than the conferences themselves, might be an easier launching point. Then if takes off we work on moving the conferences themselves.
Jeff.
Brian Shaler
Mar 5, 2009, 8:39:34 PM3/5/09
to geek-w...@googlegroups.com
> Have you considered doing a mini-SXSW-style conf as a start? Do 4 days of
> blended tracks of all these different events, charge a small fee, and then
> use that as a way to draw people to the main events? Creating something from
> the components of these conferences, rather than the conferences themselves,
> might be an easier launching point. Then if takes off we work on moving the
> conferences themselves.
That was the original idea, but it's not as practical as using existing events and working together. Inventing a conference out of thin air will make every aspect of planning the event more difficult (obtaining sponsorship, estimating & accommodating attendance, venue legwork, etc). It also requires people. I can't organize an event like that by myself. The each person in the dream team of Phoenix tech event organizers is already planning at least one event, and everyone is doing it on the side of his or her day job. For the easiest possible launching point (and this is the result of 6 months of discussion) is to let people do the same thing they were going to do in the same committees, but find a way to get it planned around a time and a place. After coming up with a schedule and location, everyone can go about their normal event planning and manage their own content.> blended tracks of all these different events, charge a small fee, and then
> use that as a way to draw people to the main events? Creating something from
> the components of these conferences, rather than the conferences themselves,
> might be an easier launching point. Then if takes off we work on moving the
> conferences themselves.
In addition to saving people's time and not requiring new resources (new volunteer organizers), the event entities have their own clout and name recognition. People now know that "Ignite Phoenix" stands for an awesome night of varied presentations.
The entire plan revolves around everyone doing the same work they were already planning on doing. Simply by being scheduled strategically around a time and place, there are several reasons why it should be easier to get more attendees, more sponsorship opportunities, and better deals on better venues.
As for "moving the conferences themselves," I don't think any of them have even been scheduled yet. Some of them are weekend events, some of them are weekday events. Some are evening events, some are daytime events. There should need to be too many changes. However, I could see Desert Code Camp being on one or more weekdays instead of on the weekend -- and the organizers of that event may agree. Scheduling is a discussion awaiting to be had.
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