On Thu, 6 Jan 2011 03:06:53 -0500, Richard Darst <rkd@zgib.net> wrote: > On Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 12:10:42PM +0000, Philip Hands wrote: > > > One idea that an academic friend mentions to me on a regular basis is a > > "Poster Session" -- for small sponsors that want to push their company, > > but are never going to afford 5k, perhaps we could offer them a slot at a > > poster session. For those that don't know, a poster session is where > > people put a summary of their academic work into a poster, and then the > > posters are all put up in a room, and the audience get to wander about > > and ask the authors about their work -- the reason for these in academic > > circles is that they allow people to claim that they're presenting work > > at the conference, and so get their institution to pay for attendance. > > I think this is a great idea. I'm not sure if will be practical, but > interesting nevertheless. Some thoughts: > > I'm not sure this should be a "pay-more-for-the-right" thing, my first > inclination is that everyone should be able to (to get more out of it). I wasn't really suggesting that we require a payment for the right. I was mostly wanting to make sure that at least one of the ways that we present the attendance fees allows academics to present the costs to the bean-counters at their institutions as though they were not optional. One could for instance present it as though the default costs are the professional level, and suggesting that bursary awards are available for those in particular need (without mentioning that almost all the people turning up will be getting some form of bursary). > However, making a poster is a lot of work, and I bet most developers > wouldn't be inclined to make one just for DebConf. You, being an academic, would know more about how much work it is, but would it not be a good idea to require that people presenting a poster at DebConf have done a similar amount of work as someone presenting at other conferences? Presumably they'll be able to use the content on their project's wiki etc. so we'll probably be doing them a favour by encouraging them to generate good publicity/documentation material. Of course, there's no point setting the bar so high that we get no submissions. ... > Both of these ideas are interesting enough to me to think about some > more / draft a plan. Thanks for the idea, Phil. Glad you like it -- I can put you in touch with the chap who came up with it if that helps. It seems like something that should be driven by some academics, so that it can be tuned for maximum appeal to people that might then be able to contribute funds from their institutions, and also be allowed to attend in work time. Cheers, Phil. -- |)| Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560] http://www.hands.com/ |-| HANDS.COM Ltd. http://www.uk.debian.org/ |(| 10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London E18 1NE ENGLAND
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