[Pdx-pm] Fwd: Open Source Bridge Conference town hall meeting - Thursday, October 30th, 7:30pm, CubeSpace

[Keith Lofstrom]

(reply just to Igor and perlmongers ...)

On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 06:02:49PM -0700, Igal Koshevoy wrote:
> Tomorrow's the first public meeting of the group organizing a regional,
> community-run open source conference to replace OSCON. I realize this
> isn't much notice, but they'll have many more meetings in the future.
> Please subscribe to their blog's feed for future meeting announcements
> and information. Thanks!

I won't be there, but here's a suggestion:

Get some advice from the local science fiction convention folk, at
www.osfci.org .  They have been running Orycon for 30 (!) years,
averaging 1500 attendees.  They have also hosted four Westercons
(Western US/Canada), with 2500 attendees, and many other conventions. 
Although the cast changes, there is a lot of accumulated experience. 
Some of the OSFCI people are also open source people, and many are
programmers.  And some may be looking for jobs;  a convention with
corporate booths is a good opportunity.

OFSCI probably won't run a convention for you, but they could advise. 
On the other hand, the Detroit Michigan area science fiction fans have
combined with the Linux/Open Source people to put on six Penguicons
( http://www.penguicon.org/ ) so far, and they are still going strong. 
If approached correctly and enthusiastically, this might be a winning
combination.

The next Orycon is November 21 to 23 at the waterfront Marriott.
Hence, the principals will be very busy until then, and burned out
for a few weeks after.  If you sign up to attend the convention,
uou can meet some of them (often known as "SMOF", Secret Masters Of
Fandom).  Yes, there may be a few Wookies, and 300 pound women in
Princess Leia costumes - but treat them with respect, some might be
open source project managers at Intel.  On the other hand, anyone 
dressed as Jar-Jar Binks can be ridiculed.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs