Re: [opensuse-conference] press conference

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 7:20 PM, Stella Rouzi (differentreality) wrote:

On Fri, Jul 5, 2013 at 1:34 PM, Jos Poortvliet wrote:

...

It's usually good to have the press meet the board and some important speakers (keynote speakers).

I think the best time is Lunch on Saturday. We would put the board and keynote speakers in front of the press for 20-30 minutes. It'd be nice to provide lunch in the room...

I'm not sure if Georg has to leave early on Saturday, if so, he can't make it.

What do we think?

Jos

Hey,

there will be plenty of occasions for them (and all people for that matter) to meet, no?

The reason why events do press conferences is twofold: - as press, how do you know who is important/worth meeting? The press conference puts them in front of you. - press often all have to ask, at least in part, the same thing - that is a waste of time. Efficient to have the most important answers and questions and move on. Depending on how much press we have we can of course skip this step. It's just a service for the press that is valuable to them - how much effort we want to put in is the question. I think it's worth it.

We have a Saturday party and it's safe to assume that everybody is attending - discussion will be possible there.

You are also arranging the dinner where all of those people will be anyway.

That said, in terms of space, we do have space available. Room Artemis can be used when not in session. It holds ~10 people and has a big oval table. Press is welcome to use it for any reason they see fit.

You mean we have no dedicated press room? That is really not nice... Journalists need a spot to quietly work or conduct interviews, like we've had at, well, every openSUSE conference in the past ;-)

I don't see how we could provide lunch though. Unless you want to order some fast food and everybody pays for their own. Such availability we will have for pizza, sandwitches and such stuff.

As far as I am concerned, interested partys should meet in advance with us and with each other. For example, speakers could gather a bit earlier on Thrusday so that we can meet them all in person, meet the volunteers that will be inside the rooms and announce them and that would be an excellent chance to say 2 words about giving a nice talk and pointing people to our wiki page, which I don't currently have handy but I know exists, with guidelines about giving a good talk.

Why not set up something like that? It's less exclusive - besides this is an event for us to be together, right?

Yes, but we want it to be well presented in the press. This isn't about kumbajaja but about giving the press as easy a time to write about oSC as possible. That's why you send press kits before releases, too...

It serves more than one purposes (press meets everybody, volunteers meet speakers, we have the chance to address the speakers to inform them about stuff and also hear their demands - there is always a speaker that comes up to a volunteer 10 minutes before his talk asking for something. It could be prevented if they are called to express any need or question in advance and when we are all together so that all speakers and volunteers are on the same page about everything).

Yes, but it's an entirely different thing. Plus, the press doesn't want to meet 'everybody', only the people worth writing about. They're here for work, not for fun. The easier we make their work, the more and better they can write about the event and the more likely they are to come back next year. Cheers, J

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