I got the following tip from a conference organiser who was renown for his success at orgsanising conferences and his uncanny ability to get 'bums on seats' year after: I happened to get talking to him during one of his conferences where I'd just given a presentation, and took the opportunity to ask him about this; "So what's your secret?", I enquired "...marketing effort? ...quality of your speakers presentations? ...or what?!" "Well, all the things you have mentioned so far do help, of course" he replied with a grin, "but none of these things are exactly a trade secret, are they. No in my humble opinion there's only one thing that guarantees a conference will be successfully repeated year after year" "...and what's that?" I persisted. "Give 'em a good lunch!", he replied with an even bigger grin. "Is that all there is to it?", I enquired. "Look it this way.", he replied "Most conference organisers make the big mistake of cutting corners when it comes to food and drink. So delegates get the standard 'rubber chicken' to eat and 'paint-stripper' wine to drink. "Now when they get back to their place of work what do they talk about. The quality of the speakers? No way. They moan about the poor quality of their lunch. So what happens next year? No one bothers to come. "But what if you gave them something really special to eat and a choice of good quality wines? Well they rave about to this to their colleagues, who fall over themselves in the rush to sign up for next year's repeat event!" Well, maybe a school-based venue might not be such a bad idea. Some do actually have pretty smart looking conference facilities. Then what you save on the venue hire you can afford to spend on outside speciality gourmet caterers instead. OK, so maybe the first year of a conference might run at as marginal loss. But thereafter success is guaranteed! I hope this gives 'food for thought' (with no excuses for the intended pun)! David Bowles TeacherLab / Education-Support
Not quite the ethos if you want to be taken seriously.... ...your original format is fine...tho think it needs more targeting and follow up if you want to get the numbers.....seen the list of people, but what would be the programme for the day and what do u expect audience to get from it.
Unfortunately trying to get a teacher audience to any event is notoriously difficult.....
-----Original Message----- From: Josef Davies-Coates [mailto:josef@uniteddiversity.com] Sent: 11 December 2003 01:41 To: ian Cc: yplows@aol.com; suse-linux-uk-schools@suse.com Subject: Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Flossie again
Ian,
I'm not sure how set in stone the plans for FLOSSIE are but...
1) Mid-week is not good. Better to hold it on a Saturday than a Wednesday. That way far more people would be able to attend.
2) School halls are normally empty on Saturdays and could probably be used for free (or cheap) instead of hiring out an expensive London hall. Surely that ties in nicely too - maybe we can convince the host school to change over to OS, or perhaps one that already has done could host the confernece? (don't know if there are any in London? with enough space?)
3) I don't drink coffee, and doubt the food will be organic, so would bring a packed lunch.
4) Why offer freebies (lunch, coffee) at all? (The no-frills EasyJet model works).
5) I would get someone like http://www.organic-express.com/home.htm to do the food, and if your going to supply tea and coffee, make sure that it is fair trade and organic (I can get it cheap if interested - got an account with a wholesaler)
I think £10 would then easily cover entrance (and maybe tea/coffee, but not lunch). Give people choice and think beyond Open Source. Linking up the event with other ethical consumption choices (i.e. having organic food and drink) would also add a air of respectability and show that your not just a bunch of geeks, but people with high morals, both willing and able to act on them.
Thoughts, comments?
Peace,
Josef.
ian wrote:
On Wed, 2003-12-10 at 23:17, Josef Davies-Coates wrote:
Hello Ian et al,
I would come if it was a lot cheaper (personally I can't strech much further thatn £10). I would also be able to convince lots of other people to come along too if it was a lot cheaper. My mum is a teacher
and I have quite a lot of education links.
I'll look into ways of reducing the cost. The difficulty is that the lunch and coffees come to £10 a head and there is the cost of hiring the hall. We could look at sponsorship though.
Best,
Josef.
ian wrote:
Sorry to bring this up again, but recruitment is not going particularly well. I don't want to have to cancel and it might just be that people intending to come are just waiting to book nearer the time. If you are in this category, please E-mail me and let me know so I have some idea of the possible attendance. If you are not going to attend for a specific reason eg delegate fee, date or whatever, that would be useful information too. Also if you can spread the word
around through as many of your contacts, mailing lists etc as possible. If we can't get enough interest to run an annual conference
its not going to make much impression on the powers that be that there is a growing interest in FLOSS in schools!
Regards,
-- Josef Davies-Coates Founder, uniteddiversity LLP
Tel: 0845 456 9774 Mob: 07764 75 99 70
mailto:josef@uniteddiversity.com http://josef.uniteddiversity.com